How to use anything to generate thumbnail image of anything in explorer

Yep, that's probably idea of https://github.com/kenjiuno/ThumbGensPack/ made by japanese developer. Thumbnail generation happened in background by command-line application that feed 24bit bmp image, this non-blocking way is safer than using dll but at the cost of spawning repetition (and windows watchdog, antivirus scan and so on) delay of the generator since it's not a "server" process (for example like what RWThumbnails did).

The possibility is endless though you could generate thumbnail for text (e.g imagemagick), svg, image, audio, video, or virtually anything then piping or chaining the processes as long as it produce bmp. More importantly the shellextension works with XP :)

Give it a try!

Python 3.5.2 on XP

Got another request for PyGI AIO on Python 3.5 (and 3.6), with my previous attempt using MinGW-W64 to target UCRT failed. I'm considering to switch entirely to VS2015 for PyGI 3.22 (thanks to Fan for keep  VS project files up-to-date). However the idea of using VS2015 while online put me off.. instead I want to use EnterpriseWDK which I can confirm by compiling libintl that it does linked to vcruntime140.dll (which only contain basic support functions) with the rest probably static linked instead using those API-MS-WIN-CRT*.dll forwarder like python 3.5 do. Even if thats okay, PyGI with VS2015 will be no more that half of current packages as many still gcc oriented.

While tinkering on that I got Python 3.5.2 running on XP :-) with the help from Wine I put the fake kernel32.dll between python35.dll and the real kernel. I put it on github here https://github.com/tumagonx/xompie/

Two problem though:

0. Unlike Python 3.5.0rc which "allow" installation, 3.5.2 wont do this XP. so I use preinstalled files from Win10.

1. Apparently Python using incomplete manifest for its executables:
    

trustinfo

    supposedly:
   

trustinfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3"

    while this is ignored safely in later Windows, XP do choked-up saying "application configuration is incorrect"

2. Then, there is path issue where tcl unable to find its libraries in the usual "tcl" subdirectory and I have to move them to "lib" subdirectory (mixed with python). Might had to do with transplanted Wine's GetFinalPathNameByHandleW? dunno

Where to find WSSAPI backport for XP

When I read some samples in WSDK I stumbled on bunch of web services examples, where its readme said XP is supported via update, with webservices.lib file as import library I suppose it will be webservices.dll but I can't find it anywhere on my up-to-date XP SP3.

Searching from google show that circa 2009 MS half-heartedly released it (in the effort to kill XP), others hinted whereabout is webservices.dll for XP (one of poster in MSDN said the dll is available on Windows 8 or later CD). Other hint tell someone have issue installing intune on XP on MSDN with detailed log containing webservices.dll existence.

The latter bring me to find where the missing update is, just googling "windows_intune_setup" with extension of exe or zip or iso, once you find it get windows_intune_setup.exe and extract it with:

Windows_Intune_Setup.exe /Extract [EXISTING PATH]

We will get two msi (x86 and x64), extract them with:
msiexec /a Windows_Intune_[X86/X64].msi /qb TARGETDIR="[X86/X64 PATH]"

We will get files for OnlineManagement installation, but we can't find webservices.dll or at least it almost tricked me... but the admin-installed msi file is too big which make me suspicious. Open it with 7zip, voila MS hide them in msi Binary table:

Binary.NwsPackageXp
Binary.NwsPackageWs03
Binary.NwsPackageVista

Just extract and rename XP and Server2003 files into *.exe and vista file into *.msu. Note that X64 msi contain 32bit XP update. Windows Live installer version 14 also have vista files. File version is 6.0.6001.18302 and same as the one bundled in newer Windows CD/ISO which signed while this one use security catalog file.

There we get nice update installer (not just dll) which you can integrate to your iso/wim.

Now, of course the legal matter exists! Intune client software is deployable for only authorized users! (just like WSSAPI backport is) I just tell you where MS hide it, you can freely choose gSOAP or...