Windows AlphaBetas

Windows AlphaBetas

Crusty Windows bootleg
The desktop of Windows AlphaBetas
Original OS	Windows 2000 SP4
Release date	September 27, 2005
Author	ddrmaxromance of Troy's Work
Country of Origin	United States
Language(s)	English
Architecture(s)	x86 (32-bit)
File size	232 MB
Download link	Windows AlphaBetas Build 905.iso
Date added	December 5, 2022

Windows AlphaBetas Build 905 is a bootleg Windows 2000 SP4 edition, which was created by ddrmaxromance of Troy's Work. It released to OSBetaArchive on September 27, 2005, and was added to the archive on December 5, 2022.

Description

The bootleg is a modified Windows 2000 SP4 ISO. The bootleg is mostly intended to be an enhancement to Windows 2000 by adding unused/beta content from various Windows releases, as per the name. It has some software bundled with it, which you can install on the CD itself.

The ISO was made using nLite 1.0 beta 6 on Windows 2000, making it one of the earliest known bootlegs to use nLite.

Changes from Windows 2000 SP4

Minor changes

• New branding on the autorun, winver banner and in a few other places

Changes in pre-desktop procedures

• New setup background
• New boot graphics. The boot screen has been edited to have a green and black progress bar with the author's branding on it. The logo is changed to a Windows Neptune style logo, and a Watercolor-themed window is added, with nine of the major Windows betas and releases with their corresponding Windows default shell icons
• New login graphics. Login banner is changed

Look and feel

• New icon set. The "My Computer" and "Network Neighborhood" icons have been changed. The start menu icons have been changed to their original icons from different angles in various background colors.
• Nearly every sound has been removed from the system. There have been some new sounds added though, like the Windows 95 startup sound which is the default startup sound, and a low quality version of the Windows NT 5.0 beta startup sound which is the logon sound

Software

Software on the CD

• CursorXP
• Firefox 1.0.7
• Best of Microsoft Entertainment Pack
• Trillian 3.1
• Unknown Device Identifier 4.0
• Windows Messenger 5.1

Notes

Bootleg quirks

• When the Setup is copying files, two files (ir50_32.dll (Intel Indeo 5.0 32-bit codec) and winver.exe) will "fail" to install. You can skip them just fine, it won't actually affect the installation. Both files can be restored with the Intel Indeo 5.0 installer and by copying a clean copy from a regular Windows 2000 CD (is it on the mod's ISO?) respectively.
• The icon for "My Computer" in this build has been taken from Windows 95 build 189.
• The start button has no text and uses the 16 color Windows XP start button icon, making the taskbar resemble that of Windows CE 5.0.
• The taskbar is unlocked by default, and the Quick Launch toolbar is shown with nothing in it.
• The shortcut arrow is now a big gray arrow pointing to the top right.
• The Windows directory is titled "WINABCS" instead of the usual "WINNT".
• The Documents and Settings directory has been renamed to "Users".

CD contents and other info

• There are some additional images in the Extras folder.

Bugs

• The Add/Remove Programs Control Panel applet doesn't work.
• The Windows Components Wizard doesn't work due to the file comsetup.dll not being present in this bootleg. The workaround is to acquire the file from the original Windows 2000 Install CD and stick it into the system32 directory, then the wizard can be accessed thru the autorun setup.exe program, however it's not very useful as you can't install any of the missing components such as the Volume Control (even though this is also present on the AlphaBetas i386 directory).

Gallery

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  "ir50_32.dll" file copy error

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  "winver.exe" file copy error

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  Setup in the graphical phase

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  Setup while it's installing

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  Boot screen

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  Login screen

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  Desktop on first boot

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  Empty desktop

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  Start menu

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  System Properties and About Windows

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  Autorun