Unofficial patch

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An unofficial patch is a bug or fix for commercially distributed software by one or more non-commercially motivated developers from the user community instead of the original software manufacturer .

concept

Unofficial patches are used to try to maintain the original concept and spirit of the original software product or to work it out even more. This focus clearly distinguishes unofficial patches from other third party adaptations of software, such as mods , hacks and cracks . Since these patches typically come from user communities organized as an online community , they are created there by consensus, achieve broad acceptance and are mostly viewed as legitimate "official" product continuations. Disputes about the authenticity of adaptations through unofficial patches occur in the user community and are typically resolved "conservatively"; Controversial adjustments become optional components or are left out. However, the development can also go so far that, as in the OpenTTD example , an independent game comes about that is independent of the original. Most of the time, the original is abandonware .

motivation

The motivation for creating these patches is a lack of support from the developer, which can have many reasons:

  • the software is outside the support timeframe or has been replaced by a successor product ( planned obsolescence )
  • the developer company no longer exists or has lost the rights to the software ( abandonware )
  • economically unprofitable for the developer (e.g. localization of games for small markets)
  • the developer takes too much time to provide a solution to a critical problem (e.g. security vulnerabilities )
  • the developer is overwhelmed with the problems

species

In the computer games sector , unofficial patches by individual authors are also called fan patches . Combined patches consisting of the work of many authors from the user community are also known as community patches .

Typical corrections are aimed at critical bugs in the program that prevent proper use; for example, procedural penalty, to program instabilities result, compatibility issues with newer operating systems or a lack of adaptation to new technical conditions such as higher image resolution and widescreen formats .

Although unofficial patches are mainly created for the PC platform, they also exist for console games, e.g. B. in the context of the emulation community.

Another common goal is to translate software into other national languages ​​if it was not originally published locally . This subset of fan patches is known as a language patch, fan translation, or fan port , and others. a. for Japanese RPG games that are often only released for the Japanese market.

Another specific subgroup can be considered blood patches , which are used to reconstruct game content of a computer game that has been removed for a target market due to legal requirements or cultural concerns of the publisher (offense).

Another variant are update packs in which many small incremental patches or official patches that are only available online are bundled together to form a larger overall patch.

Methods

Since the software's source code and development tools are typically not available to community patchers, the behavior of the software must be analyzed using reverse engineering and debugging . For some purposes it is sufficient to make minor changes, for example in configuration files or the registry database, for example in the case of blood patches ; The effort and size of these patches are therefore often low. Other goals can be achieved primarily by adapting the program data, for example high-resolution patches that exchange graphic textures, or fan translations of a game; here there is a proximity in concepts and development tools ( SDKs and specially developed tools) to the modding scene.

For other more complex goals, such as bug fixes in the game engine , a direct adaptation of the binary code , for example with a hex editor in assembler , is necessary. This procedure is significantly more complex than an adaptation directly to the source code with a recompilation , as the software manufacturer can do with access to the source code. This scenario is cited by representatives of the open source software movement as an argument for the principle that software should always be published with its source code so that users have the option even if the original developer is not interested ( planned obsolescence ) or the original developer is not available to adapt a software.

In rare cases the community gets access to the source code of the software and can thus take over the support most effectively; Either this happens through an official release or through an unwanted access ( leak ) such as B. happens with the Thief game engine .

reception

The behavior of the creators and rights holders towards the unofficial patches is very heterogeneous, since the unauthorized adaptations usually do not cause any financial damage, but represent a purely legal violation of copyright or trademark law. The responses range from ignorance, tolerance, legal combat and official (tacit) use to active support of the efforts.

There was also the scenario that the official (commercial) development was transferred to the community developers by the rights holder.

There are also some examples of supporting the community by disclosing the source code for free further development of the software: Myth , Homeworld , Allegiance and many games from id Software and 3D Realms . For an overview of the games that have been released to allow the community to self-support, see the list of commercial computer games with published source code .

Examples of games with significant community patches

Examples of software with unofficial patches

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hans-Christian Dirscherl: Not to be killed: Win 98 Service Pack 2.1 . PCWelt.de . November 29, 2005. Retrieved on April 6, 2011: “ Some information about this strange update pack: Since Microsoft has never released a service pack for Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), a programmer from Turkey simply has his own service pack for Windows 98 SE users created. It includes all Windows 98 SE updates from the Windows Update page and other updates and improvements. "
  2. ↑ a b Fernando Cassia: Open Source, the only weapon against "planned obsolescence" ( English ) theinquirer.net. March 28, 2007. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  3. ↑ g4tv staff: The Lost History of System Shock ( English ) g4tv.com. May 30, 2011. Retrieved May 30, 2012: “ Looking Glass Studios closed in 2000, a year after System Shock 2's release, and the copyright to the series went into the hands of an insurance company. That left EA with only the System Shock name, but no actual development rights. "
  4. ↑ a b Ryan Naraine: IT Security & Network Security News - Another Unofficial WMF Patch Released ( English ) eweek.com. January 4, 2006. Retrieved January 7, 2012: “ Security vendor ESET, makers of the NOD32 anti-virus program, shipped on Wednesday an interim patch for the bug, almost a week before Microsoft Corp. is scheduled to release a properly tested security update. "
  5. ↑ a b Tom Espiner: Firms urged to use unauthorized Windows patch ( English ) ZDNet .co.uk. January 6, 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
  6. ↑ a b CNN Staff: Huge virus threat rocks Microsoft ( English ) CNNmoney . January 3, 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2012: " Because of the severity of the threat, the SANS Institute, a computer security group, has released a patch for the vulnerability until Microsoft's fix is ​​available next week. "
  7. ↑ a b c Andreas Sebayang: Gothic 3 Community Patch should fix almost all bugs - more than 700 changes in the last community patch . Golem.de . March 23, 2009. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  8. ↑ a b Voyager: Ultima The Reconstruction - Fanpatches ( English ) reconstruction.voyd.net. April 8, 2007. Retrieved May 28, 2011: " Fan patches are those packages released by an Ultima fan to either repair bugs in a game that were never fixed by Origin, solve platform compatibility issues, or enhance the gaming experience. "
  9. ↑ Rainer Schuldt: Gothic 3: Fan-Patch 1.6 released . Computerbild.de . February 8, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  10. ↑ Bo Moore: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You ( English ) Wired . November 19, 2013. Retrieved January 25, 2014: " Thoman had uploaded" DPfix 0.1 alpha, "a patch that allowed Deadly Premonition players to manually adjust the game's resolution. [...] The most recent DPfix release fixed pixel offset errors that occurred at higher resolutions, fixed anti-aliasing when it was not being correctly applied, added improved depth-of-field effects, and added an option for screen space ambient occlusion . "
  11. ↑ a b Andreas Sebayang: High-Res-Patch for Command & Conquer 95 - Classic can now be played in higher resolution . Golem.de . May 27, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  12. ↑ Hacks - Bugfix ( English ) romhacking.net. Retrieved August 13, 2014.
  13. ↑ a b c Torge Löding: Infogrames tolerates fan translation for Master of Orion 3 . heise.de . September 9, 2003. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  14. ↑ a b Simon Parkin: You Say Tomato: A Pro on Fan-Translating Nintendo's Mother 3 ( English ) gamasutra.com . December 26, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  15. ↑ John Szczepaniak: Japanese ROM Translation Archived from the original on July 18, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Retro Gamer . June 25, 2006, pp. 102-105. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hardcoregaming101.net
  16. ↑ a b Axel Vahldiek: Microsoft is taking action against unauthorized update packs . heise online . March 20, 2007. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  17. ^ John Bell: Opening the Source of Art . Technology Innovation Management Review. October 1, 2009. Retrieved December 30, 2012: “ [...] that no further patches to the title would be forthcoming. The community was predictably upset. Instead of giving up on the game, users decided that if Activision wasn't going to fix the bugs, they would. They wanted to save the game by getting Activision to open the source so it could be kept alive beyond the point where Activision lost interest. With some help from members of the development team that were active on fan forums, they were eventually able to convince Activision to release Call to Power II's source code in October of 2003. "
  18. ↑ a b melkor: Myth II 1.7.2 Public Beta Released ( English ) Project Magma. January 6, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  19. ↑ a b Andy Largent: Homeworld Source Code Released ( English ) www.insidemacgames.com. October 8, 2003. Retrieved November 24, 2012: " With the release of Homeworld 2 for the PC, Relic Entertainment has decided to give back to their impressive fan community by releasing the source code to the original Homeworld. "
  20. ↑ Giorgio Bertolone: Interview with Kevin Klemmick - Lead Software Engineer for Falcon 4.0 ( English ) Cleared-To-Engage. March 12, 2011. Archived from the original on March 18, 2011. Retrieved on August 31, 2014: “ [C2E] In 2000 the source code of Falcon 4.0 leaked out and after that groups of volunteers were able to make fixes and enhancements that assured the longevity of this sim. Do you see the source code leak as a good or bad event? [Klemmick] "Absolutely a good event. In fact I wish I'd known who did it so I could thank them. I honestly think this should be standard procedure for companies that decide not to continue to support a code base." "
  21. ↑ Quintin Smith: Dark Engine Source Code Found In A Bag ( English ) Rock, Paper, Shotgun. December 14, 2010. Retrieved April 15, 2011: “ As of this weekend, Christmas has come early for the Through the Looking Glass community. A CD's been discovered containing the source code for the Dark Engine, aka the engine used by Thief, Thief II and System Shock 2 (not to mention Irrational and Looking Glass' canceled cold war spy game Deep Cover). "
  22. ↑ a b Nathan Grayson: Hooray! - System Shock 2, Thief 2 Get Usability Patches ( English ) Rock, Paper, Shotgun. September 26, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012: “ Double Fine's Chris Remo (via Kotaku) tweeted out word of the abruptly unearthed hunks of unofficial patching gold, pointing the way to a French forum called Ariane4ever. "
  23. ↑ a b "Le Corbeau": Thief 2 V1.19 & System Shock 2 V2.4 ( English ) www.ttlg.com. September 25, 2012. Retrieved November 10, 2012: “ This is an unofficial patch for Thief II: The Metal Age (T2) which updates the game from v1.18 to v1.19, providing improved support for modern hardware and correcting many known bugs. "
  24. ↑ Bryan Boulette: E3 - Front Mission Interview ( English ) rpgamer.com. December 7, 2007. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 3, 2011: “ […] we told Mr. Sakamoto that a fan translation had been done some years ago for Front Mission 1, and asked how he felt about such efforts. The producer replied that he actually found them very encouraging - it's something the developers should be doing, but because they're not, the fans are doing it instead. He stated that he'd like to be able to give something back to the fans, and would like to thank personally each of the fans that worked on the translation. " @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rpgamer.com
  25. ↑ David Adamczewski: Infogrames has the translation of Civilization 3 prohibited . heise.de . November 21, 2001. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  26. ↑ Chrono Trigger Retranslation ( English ) chronocompendium.com. May 9, 2009. Retrieved April 3, 2011: “ As of May 9, 2009, the patch is no longer hosted due to a cease & desist letter from Square Enix. "
  27. ↑ Kieron Gillen: Officially Unofficial Patch ( English ) Rock, paper, shotgun. August 14, 2007. Retrieved December 22, 2012: “ See also the guy who made the improved Shaders for STALKER which just made the game much better… which was then worked into the next patch. "
  28. ↑ a b Thomas Held: Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung - Enhanced Edition released, special offer on Steam . gamona.de. March 23, 2011. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  29. ↑ a b About MVG . madvulture.de. 2010. Archived from the original on May 1, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 3, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.madvulture.de
  30. ^ Howard Wen: Keeping the Myths Alive ( English ) linuxdevcenter.com. June 10, 2004. Retrieved December 22, 2012: " [...] fans of the Myth trilogy have taken this idea a step further: they have official access to the source code for the Myth games. Organized under the name MythDevelopers, this all-volunteer group of programmers, artists, and other talented people devote their time to improving and supporting further development of the Myth game series. "
  31. ^ Bob Colayco: Microsoft pledges Allegiance to its fanbase . gamespot.com. February 6, 2004. Retrieved July 22, 2011: “ The release of the source code came in response to the enthusiasm of Allegiance's small-but-dedicated fanbase. Microsoft's Joel Dehlin commented that the development team has, "been amazed at the level to which some of the Allegiance fans have remained hard-core. We're astounded at the progress that has been made at creating new factions, hosting new servers, replacing authentication, etc. It seems that Allegiance hasn't really died. With that in mind, we're releasing the Allegiance source code to the community. " "
  32. ↑ Anachronox - unofficial patch . pcgames.de . May 27, 2003. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  33. ↑ Unofficial Arcanum Patch v091225 Released ( English ) gamebanshee.com. December 27, 2009. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  34. ↑ Manuel Charisius: Chrono Trigger German . manuloewe.de. July 20, 2010. Archived from the original on February 6, 2013. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 3, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.manuloewe.de
  35. ↑ Portable RA on cnc-comm.com (English)
  36. ↑ James E. Smith: Command & Conquer retrospective part I - We take a look at the series that put RTS on the gaming map ( English ) www.mygaming.co.za. February 22, 2010. Retrieved April 12, 2011: “ Special Operations was unique to the Nintendo 64 and Playstation versions of the game, but the maps have since been extracted and included in unofficial fan patches. "
  37. ↑ theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net: DaggerfallSetup. Retrieved February 25, 2011 .
  38. ↑ Patrick Klepek: Annoying Dark Souls 2 Glitch Has Gone Unfixed For Nearly A Year . Kotaku .: “ There's no excuse for the durability bug to be part of the Scholar of the First Sin. It's not limited to the PC version, either. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions run at 60 frames-per-second. From Software and Bandai Namco have not yet responded to my request for comment. You might not be surprised to learn that fans have decided to rescue the game again, however. DS2 fix removes the durability bug from the game, in addition to addressing a few other issues. "
  39. ^ Tilman Baumgärtel: Timothy Leary, the games developer - How do you get historical computer games? The Internet archive streams dozens of classics . The time . November 14, 2013. Accessed on November 14, 2013: “The Internet Archive now not only contains the original game [ET the Extra-Terrestrial] from 1982, but also a version that corrects its worst programming errors. "
  40. ^ Fixing ET The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 ( English ) Neocomputer. February 1, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2013.
  41. ↑ EE2.eu: EE2.eu - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2017). Retrieved on August 26, 2018 (English): "The official servers hosting the online lobby and matchmaking features of the game were taken offline on October 10th, 2012. This site serves to host an updated, non-commercial Unofficial Patch for the game and for the expansion pack, which fixes Windows 8 / 8.1 / 10 problems, adds new features to the game and re-enables online multiplayer. "
  42. ↑ Shawn Sines: Fallout 2 Restoration Project ( English ) gamefront.com. January 8, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  43. ↑ Walter Reindl: Freelancer - Large community patch published . gamestar.de . June 29, 2004. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  44. ↑ Community-based update to GalCiv 2 Ultimate Edition by MarvinKosh on September 25, 2014
  45. ↑ Zandr: Release Gothic 3 v1.75 Update Pack ( English ) worldofplayers.de. April 20, 2014. Accessed September 2, 2014: "" "a new Gothic 3 Enhanced Edition v1.75 Update Pack (International)" "
  46. ↑ Alratan: Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn Review ( English ) manapool.co.uk. November 8, 2010. Retrieved April 10, 2011: " Many of the mods and unofficial patches improve the game immensely, and are definitely recommended. "
  47. ↑ Dave Bradshaw: Baldur's Gate II Fixpack ( English ) gibberlings3.net. November 25, 2011. Retrieved on February 3, 2012: “ The BG2 Fixpack is a WeiDU compilation of fixes for Baldur's Gate II. […] This collaborative effort, including the work of modders from several different modding communities and assistance from BG2 lead writer David Gaider, has resulted in a fixpack that currently includes all of the fixes addressed by Baldurdash (including the Game Text Update) and several hundred new bugfixes. The project is ongoing, and we're working through a substantial list of bugs culled from various sites, the old Baldurdash forums, and our own research. "
  48. ↑ Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - XP Patch . pcgames.de. February 12, 2004. Retrieved July 17, 2011.
  49. ↑ Cuban Raul: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain 2000 / XP Update v2.0 ( English ) comcast.net. November 29, 2009. Retrieved July 17, 2011.
  50. ↑ wrace: Bink-support for BO1 (video patch) ( English ) nosgothica.org. December 3, 2010. Retrieved on July 17, 2011: “ […] now you can play in BO1 under Windows-7 without any problems with video. "
  51. ↑ Michael Gantner: LucasArts Patches . www.la-patches.de. December 23, 2010. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  52. ↑ Thorsten Wiesner: German fan translation for Master of Orion 3 is ready . golem.de. September 10, 2003. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  53. ↑ Mike Sharkey: Unofficial Skyrim Patch Fixes Myriad Skyrim Bugs - Fan created uber patch designed to fix Skyrim's many problems. ( English ) gamespy.com. March 14, 2012. Retrieved December 22, 2012.
  54. ↑ Quarn and Kivan: Unofficial Skyrim Patch Version: 1.3.3c ( English ) nexumods.com. August 20, 2013. Retrieved October 3, 2013: " [...] the goal of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch (aka USKP) is to eventually fix every bug with Skyrim not officially resolved by the developers [...] Hundreds of gameplay, quest, NPC, object, item, text and placement bugs fixed already "
  55. ↑ Skyrim - Director's Cut . scharesoft.de. Archived from the original on November 13, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved on December 22, 2012: “ The expansion Skyrim - Director's Cut has made it its goal to improve the German version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as much as possible. The main aim is to make up for missing translations and to adapt texts and terms so that they also match the previous parts of the series. The included unofficial Skyrim patch also fixes a number of errors in the actual game that the official patches have not yet corrected. With the extension you can also find all English textures in German. " @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.scharesoft.de
  56. ↑ Michael Thompson: Fan-restored KOTOR II content creates refined, expanded game KOTOR II wasn't the most complete Star Wars title ever released, due to an… . arstechnica.com . October 6, 2009. Retrieved September 5, 2013: " After years of development, the cut content has been finally restored and the most of the bugs have been fixed, thanks to a project known as known as the" Restored Content Mod ". "
  57. ↑ Nathan Grayson: Get These: KOTOR 2 And Its Restored Content Mod . Rock, paper, shotgun . August 24, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2013: " On top of that, the mod fixes" over 500 "bugs, because Obsidian, basically. "
  58. ^ Tyler Wilde: Community heroes: modders debug and restore cut content in Knights of the Old Republic II . PC gamer . July 26, 2012. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
  59. ↑ Andrew Tsai: The Fixer: How To Restore Knights of the Old Republic II . Rock, paper, shotgun . January 3, 2013. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
  60. ↑ GPGNet Services Update 2 (GPGnet has been shutdown) ( Memento from December 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on gaspowered.com
  61. ↑ PC gamer pod cast 87 . Retrieved August 25, 2013.
  62. ^ TJ Hafer: Community-made Forged Alliance Forever keeps Supreme Commander multiplayer alive . PC gamer . November 19, 2012. Retrieved on August 28, 2014: “ The official multiplayer servers for Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance have been decommissioned for a while now, but fortunately [...] the community-driven Forged Alliance Forever has emerged. The self-patching multiplayer client allows players of the epic real-time strategy title to continue blowing things up in massive quantities. It even adds new units, a new faction, and some game modes that weren't available on the official servers, such as 6v6. "
  63. ↑ yerkyerk: Titan Quest bugfix patch 1.17a ( English ) titanquest.net. June 3, 2009. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 27, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.titanquest.net
  64. ↑ specter: (REL) Patchfix for Fanpatch 1.17 (v1.17c) . titanquest.net. February 6, 2012. Archived from the original on July 1, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 21, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.titanquest.net
  65. ↑ Hanno Neuhaus: Vampire 2: Bloodlines - Community Patch 7.2 for download . gamestar.de . November 12, 2010. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  66. ↑ Alratan: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Review ( English ) manapool.co.uk. December 6, 2010. Retrieved April 10, 2011: “ There are two rival patches to choose from, the True Patch and the Unofficial Patch, each with different design philosophies. Normally this would not be worth mentioning, except that the basic game is so full of bugs, that you simply must use one of the two to play the game without killing yourself. "
  67. ↑ Alec Meer: Undying: Vampire Bloodlines Patched Anew ( English ) rockpapershotgun.com. July 15, 2011. Retrieved on August 2, 2011: “ Bloodlines […] was essentially abandoned by its publisher after its developer closed a few months after release, but the fans have just kept on going, fixing things, improving things, digging up locked away extra content [...] "
  68. ↑ Pete Haas: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Still Getting Patches ( English ) GAMING BLEND. July 3, 2009. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  69. ^ John Leyden: Unofficial patch plugs 0-day Adobe security vuln. - Mind the gap . The Register. February 24, 2009. Retrieved on July 9, 2013: “ Updated Security researchers have developed an unofficial patch for a zero-day Adobe Acrobat and Reader vulnerability that's become the subject of hacker attacks. Adobe acknowledged the vulnerability last week but said an official patch wouldn't be available until 11 March. "
  70. ^ Dan Kaplan: New Java exploit on the loose, unofficial patch may help ( English ) scmagazine.com. August 27, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  71. ↑ Sebastian Kuhbach: Unofficial Win98 SE Service Pack - new version . winfuture.de. August 4, 2005. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  72. ↑ 48-bit LBA Tools & Drivers . fryeware.com. 2005. Retrieved April 6, 2011: “ Win98: Enable 48-bit LBA patch for Windows 98 posted on MSFN.ORG - Implements 48-bit LBA support into Windows 98's default IDE driver to support hard drives larger than 137GB. "
  73. ^ Neil Turner: Resurrecting a dead OS with KernelEx . In: Neil Turner's blog . May 17, 2010. Archived from the original on January 30, 2013. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 6, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.neilturner.me.uk
  74. ↑ KernelEx by xeno86 SourceForge .de (English)
  75. ↑ Aaron Tiensivu: KernelEx - run XP / 2K apps on Win98 and WinME ( English ) In: Aaron Tiensivu's Blog . tiensivu.com. April 9, 2009. Retrieved April 6, 2011: “ This is a fascinating project from a technical standpoint. They are implementing missing API calls used by newer applications that are missing from Windows 98 and Windows ME. "
  76. ↑ Unofficial patch packages for Windows 2000 and XP (update) . Golem.de . November 10, 2005. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  77. ↑ Another unofficial IE patch offered to counter critical flaw ( English ) Computer Weekly. March 30, 2006. Retrieved July 9, 2013: “ Another unofficial patch has been released to counter a critical flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. "
  78. ↑ Fuad Abazovic: Nvidia cuts Vista support for Nforce 2 chipset - Fare thee well, old friend ( English ) www.theinquirer.net. November 17, 2006. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  79. ↑ Fernando: XP: Optimized nForce Driver Packs ( English ) February 7, 2011. Archived from the original on November 23, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved on May 28, 2011: " Many users with an nForce chipset mainboard, who are running or going to install Windows XP (32 / 64bit), are searching for actual nForce chipset drivers, which are suitable for their special chipset and will give them the best possible performance and stability of their system. NVIDIA itself doesn't offer them. " @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nforcershq.com
  80. ↑ AdvModDev: nForce 123 / WinXP Chipset Drivers and Remixes ( English ) January 13, 2008. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  81. ↑ Mike Barwise: Unofficial patch for Windows URI problem ( English ) The H Security. October 16, 2007. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
  82. ↑ Erik Kennedy: An unofficial Daylight Saving Time fix for Mac OS X 10.3 ( English ) Ars Technica. January 28, 2007. Retrieved January 29, 2012.