Second System 2.0 for Windows Vista and 7
Added 2025-09-03 18:33:17 +0000 UTCThis is an updated, improved release of Second System for Windows Vista and 7.
Now, major streaming services such as Netflix work in the latest browsers running under Second System. This ensures that these services remain usable on Windows 7 as its last major browser, Firefox 115 ESR, is about to discontinue its support for the platform this month.
(A few hours after this post was written, I learned about Mozilla's decision to keep supporting Firefox 115 ESR. However, it is still two years behind the latest ESR which may prove suboptimal in terms of webpage rendering and browser features)
Memory usage in Chromium and Electron applications is reduced by about 10 to 20% compared to other solutions.
From this point on, Second System will feature regular updates to address any further concerns about application compatibility and assist in the integration of modern system components, such as DXGI, D3D11 and D3D12. Separate branches are also in development for Windows 8.x, 10, 11 and 32 bit systems.
Please read the included manual for further information.
Updated at 2025-09-03 2108 (UTC -4) to fix Windows Media Player and ImgBurn/UPX packed executable issues.
Updated at 2025-09-04 1150 (UTC -4) to update 32-bit advapi32.dll wrapper, including the addition of some Vista-exclusive internal functions.
Updated at 2025-09-04 2153 (UTC -4) to add 18 DLL redirects (19 for Vista), enabling the latest Firefox on Vista and latest BeamNG.drive (D3D11 recommended, Vulkan may be glitchy) on Windows 7.
Updated at 2025-09-05 2135 (UTC -4) to add 32 bit ws2_32.dll wrapper for Vista and small changes to Second System executable.
Updated at 2025-09-19 1502 (UTC -4) (and then again at 2135) to incorporate wrappers for D3D11 (needed for VCs and screen sharing in the latest Discord client, still Windows 7 only for now) and dnsapi, plus bugfixes for Firefox 143 and PowerShell 7.5.3 (covering both Windows Vista and 7).
This release also incorporates a feature to change the default profile for newly-launched applications, which is done by setting the registry value "DefaultValue" (REG_SZ format) in HKCU\Software\LSC\SecondSystem to the name of your preferred profile; if the value is not present, the default configuration (Windows 10 version spoof) will remain.
The standard testing environment is not available until Sunday 2025-09-21, which means that Windows 7 tests and some Windows Vista tests could not be conducted, so this release has been denoted with "_exp" suffixes on top of the previous release from 2025-09-05.
Comments
Is it with the installers for these runtimes, or applications that use them? And is it on Vista or 7?
win32
2025-10-02 01:06:49 +0000 UTCI am currently having a problem with .NET Framework 4.8+ and Visual C++ 2022.
jcilley97
2025-10-01 23:17:12 +0000 UTCThere is a problem with initializing renderer processes in Discord, which in turns causes the JS errors. I have not figured out an exact fix there. Third-party clients and the web client remain functional, however. Rockstar Games Launcher has also been tested against Windows 7 and 8.1. It does not work on those systems either, and the exact cause cannot be determined at this time due to severe obfuscation and anti-debugging code in the launcher. I hope to resolve this issue with some "comparative execution" using Second System on Windows 10, or importing Windows 10 binaries on older systems using Second System itself, if necessary. As for the March 2023 extended kernels, I recommend replacing userenv.dll with the original versions, as well as the 32 bit/WOW64 kernel32.dll. Those particular DLLs cause most conflicts between Second System and the extended kernel.
win32
2025-10-01 04:08:56 +0000 UTCDiscord (the latest version) seems to have problems on Vista x64 with Second System. It's stuck on "update failed", even though Vista is fully updated (up to April 2025) and TLS 1.2 is enabled. Unfortunately, a few days ago the last version compatible with Vista extended kernel (0.0.309) stopped working, newer ones display a fatal JavaScript error (which is kinda weird, most Windows 7 compatible Electron apps work fine with Vista extended kernel). I also want to report that Rockstar Games Launcher doesn't work on Vista x64. When Second System is enabled, it actually installs, but it doesn't work after that (also setup throws errors when installing C++ redistributables. Finally, I noticed that Second System is not compatible with the latest Vista extended kernel at all. A whole system is unusable: Windows Explorer cannot load plus most apps don't work due to the DEP.
Vistaaa
2025-10-01 01:38:12 +0000 UTCThe last release of Supermium 132 should have the timeout removed. Although I am very unsure about how I will be able to port 138 or later versions of Supermium to Windows 2000.
win32
2025-09-20 14:56:43 +0000 UTCGoogle Chrome: try 64bit releases. Steam: try disabling GPU acceleration by going into the client settings -> interface Visual Studio: haven't tried 2022, but the same error occurs with 2026. Will look into it further, along with all the other issues reported.
win32
2025-09-20 14:55:48 +0000 UTCI did some tests with non-experimental release on my Windows 7 x64 laptop and: - Firefox 140 ESR works correctly (143 does not, but seems like it's fixed in the latest release) - The latest Discord client works, but must be opened via discord.exe (Update.exe which is default one, doesn't launch anything) - The latest version of Visual Studio Code works, but older ones don't work unless Second System is disabled (tested on 1.81.1, in Windows 7 compatibility the window opens and closes immediately, nothing happrns when Windows 10/11 compatibility mode is used) - The latest Steam client works, but it has some weird graphics issues (menu items don't show or they are black) - Visual Studio 2022 v17.6, which normally works on Windows 7, crashes when Second System is enabled (error message on startup in all compatibility modes: at least one component cannot be found, disabling Second System helps) - Visual Studio Installer doesn't work if Second System is enabled, only transparent window appears - The latest version of Google Chrome (140.0.7339.186) doesn't work (using Portable Apps Installer, error: entry point DeriveAppContainerSidFromAppContainerName couldn't be located in USERENV.dll) - The latest version of Spotify (1.2.72.438) doesn't work (entry point DnsServiceBrowse couldn't be located in DNSAPI.dll), installer doesn't work at all, needed to use other Windows 10 spoofing method to install Spotify - XAMPP Control Panel v.3.3.0 [Compiled Apr 6th, 2021] has some issues when Second System is enabled, Apache crashes on startup, disabling Second System helps - Internet Explorer 8 (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) doesn’t launch if Second System is applied
Vistaaa
2025-09-19 22:01:39 +0000 UTCI saw that Windows 2000 has been removed from TODO list on the Supermium website recently. But I also saw a comment that the next version of Supermium was supposed to fix 60 second timeout before crashing silently. Has this version been made, or, is it possible to do those modifications on current version of Supermium manually in a fairly easy way? I don't expect the browser to be perfectly stable, sporadic crashes are fine for me, also extensions may not work at all. I'm asking because there is no browser for win2k that can play YouTube videos or display modern sites like GitHub. I'm saying about vanilla Windows 2000 SP4.
Vistaaa
2025-09-19 14:40:57 +0000 UTCThat would be the 32-to-64bit application hook, so I believe this is steam.exe (32bit) trying to load steamwebhelper.exe (64bit). Can you tell me what appears in the command line of 3264Hook.exe as it appears in taskmgr or Process Hacker? *To enable the command line view in taskmgr, click View -> Select Columns and select "Command Line" from the menubar.
win32
2025-09-19 02:27:27 +0000 UTCI have adapted the core DLLs towards 8.x, but there are still some issues running 32 bit applications. When I fix them, I will certainly send it out to you.
win32
2025-09-19 02:21:11 +0000 UTChave I done something wrong? Steam is not working on fully updated windows 7 install. This executable is only intended to hook a suspended process via its process ID
Jaguarek62
2025-09-18 10:28:14 +0000 UTCHi, I want to support you so much. I subscribed basically immediately after i saw this. If I may ask, could I be your beta tester on 8.1? I'm running it under high end hardware (considering it is 8.1)
Jaguarek62
2025-09-18 08:53:38 +0000 UTCThe HAL TSC code is closer to XP than 7, but the invariant TSC timer is only functional on single thread systems by default. I will try to build a patch for it.
win32
2025-09-08 23:01:18 +0000 UTC@Win32, I would like to request a feature (or standalone patch) that forces TSC as system timer on Windows Vista I've done some benchmarks: https://msfn.org/board/topic/186936-force-tsc-system-timer-on-vista/ as well as measured system latency with latencymon and the system scores quite a bit worse with HPET especially when Intel Alder Lake's HPET responds like 3 times slower than on Ivy-Bridge Is the TSC code from Windows XP still there on Vista and just has to be enabled or it was removed and you would have to make a lot from scratch to the point of this being not viable?
TSNH
2025-09-08 12:01:37 +0000 UTCThis has been discussed multiple times on Supermium's GitHub. There are no plans for anything older than 2000.
Vistaaa
2025-09-06 14:28:11 +0000 UTCDo you plan on at some point, making Supermium Run on ME/98 😆 I know there are plans, for Windows 2000, I think? 9x is pretty challenging though, due to it not being run by NT, but on top of DOS, especially Windows 95! 😆
jcilley97
2025-09-06 10:56:23 +0000 UTC"There is one more program that is able to change reported Windows version:" Microsoft Application Verifier Try that too "Another question: Is there any plan to add an option that disables Second System system wide and enables it only for selected applications?" There is already such an option, but not very user-friendly one In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\LSC\SecondSystem\DefaultConfig_Config set BuildNumber, MajorVersion and MinorVersion to the same as your system, on Vista with (respectivly) 6003, 6, 0 So for Windows 7 try 7601, 6, 1 Values are decimal Than set all values in \DefaultConfig_Modulex64 and DefaultConfig_Modulex86 to match \Shell_Modulex64 and \Shell_Modulex86 and if still doesn't work wipe \DefaultConfig_Modulex64 and DefaultConfig_Modulex86 keys
TSNH
2025-09-05 13:04:35 +0000 UTCIs it possible to workaround Roblox message "Windows 7 is not supported. Please install Windows 10 or newer"? Many Windows 7 fans ask about it. Setting compatibility to Windows 10/11 does not work. It seems that Roblox has implemented some unusual methods of system detection, other win7 kernel extenders couldn't bypass that message too. I tried also to modify some entries in CFF Explorer, but without success. It uses csrss.exe to display 'Version Error" message on startup, and this block may be implemented in RobloxBeta dll, that's all that I know. Edit: I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on i5 Sandy Bridge laptop Another question: Is there any plan to add an option that disables Second System system wide and enables it only for selected applications? I'm asking because it seems like this program is having some kind of conflict with the Wi-Fi driver. Fortunately, the connection works, but the application doesn't recognize the network card. I tried disabling Second System on it, but it didn't work (if this option already exists, sorry, I only briefly read the documentation). Finally, does it matter whether I launch context menu options using a shortcut or an .exe file? Sometimes, when launching Firefox, it tries to open two tabs, the first with some strange thing, and the second with firefox.exe. The same goes for Visual Studio Code. Thank you for your hard work.
Vistaaa
2025-09-05 08:32:54 +0000 UTCThank you. Modern PowerShell on Vista has some unusual problems, like attempting to call Zen instructions on my X79 system. I hope to resolve this in the near future.
win32
2025-09-05 02:16:38 +0000 UTCAs per tradition here's a MSFN thread with a list of Second Sytem - compatible programs: https://msfn.org/board/topic/186928-list-of-new-software-unlocked-by-second-system/
TSNH
2025-09-04 20:38:43 +0000 UTC
