Windows inter-app messaging and 32 bit apps under win7-64

[Jeroen3]

I don't think it's specific to windows xp, but any budget ssd will be shred by a host that does not allow it to free blocks.
They are heavily optimized for speed, not for endurance. This is simply an scenario they're not developed for.

You can buy enterprise SLC SSDs that are intended for this, they will last a lot longer, but cost a lot more.

Even with windows 10 the only failures we see in embedded pc's is the little msata disks failing. They're just worn out.

[Postal2]

.... but why does XP trash SSDs after a year? ....

Buy a refurbished hdd cheap and don't bother.
https://aliexpress.com/item/1005002617399974.html

[edavid]

One can run XP for ever, but the hard disk will eventually fail and one cannot use an SSD with XP because XP always destroys an SSD after about a year of 24/7/365 operation. I don't know why but fairly obviously it keeps repeatedly writing to some block, usually where NTLDR is sitting, while defeating any wear levelling in the SSD - one can dig around this by searching on say the win7+ TRIM command which would obviously not be needed if wear levelling was totally autonomous inside the SSD.

1. This doesn't match my experience at all.  I checked my notes, and e.g. on one PC I ran Windows XP on an undistinguished Kingston SH103S3 120GB SSD from June 2013 to October 2017, about 12 hours per day.  I never saw an SSD error, and that SSD still works fine.

2. NTLDR is never written after install.

3. TRIM has nothing to do with wear leveling or drive endurance.  It's a performance optimization that lets the SSD pre-erase blocks.

4. On the systems that failed, did you use an SSD-aware utility to create SSD-aligned partitions?  Non-aligned partitions cause write amplification, and the Win XP installer didn't know about alignment.

5. On the systems that failed, did you run the defragmenter?  That would be bad.

[peter-h]

1. Interesting
2. I am sure that's true but the failure was "NTLDR not found" so the start of the SSD was somehow corrupted. Could be the FAT32 directory, which does get written on any update
3. I get that now - thanks
4. No
5. Not sure; have now found the registry changes for stopping that

[edavid]

Why were you using FAT32 instead of NTFS?

[peter-h]

Probably was.

[magic]

Actually, did you check SMART to verify it was a hardware issue and not plain old data corruption?

[peter-h]

No idea what that is

[magic]

It's the first thing you do when you suspect hardware problems with a disk.

Get some HDTune, CrystalDiskInfo or whatever people use on Windows, run it on a machine with the suspect SSD connected, find the option to get "health data", "diagnostic data" or whatever the software calls it, look at the results. If all "normalized" values are at or near 100 and raw values of counters involving uncorrectable errors are zero, the disk hasn't had bad sectors. SSDs should also report "Media Wearout", so take a look at that.

[peter-h]

I have such a utility (Samsung Magician) for my PC



But you can't run it if the machine does not boot

[edavid]

But you can't run it if the machine does not boot

Then you connect the drive to a different computer.

Or boot one of the many recovery CDs that include e.g. GSmartControl: https://gparted.org/livecd.php

[peter-h]

Interesting and useful digression.

I am waiting for a SLC SSD and 8GB RAM to arrive, and hopefully the 64 bit control app. If the new app does not solve it, I will just restore an XP image backup (of a working machine with a HD) to the SSD machine. Maybe I should create the partition first, on a 4k boundary... what is the easiest way to do that, short of using a win7 boot DVD?

[edavid]

I usually use the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant:  https://www.aomeitech.com/pa/standard.html

The GParted CD I just linked will also do it, but is less user friendly.

[Postal2]

...I am waiting for a SLC SSD ...

Isn't the initial area of the SSD, where your ntldr is, SLC? And what difference will it make? I haven't analyzed SSDs, but for EMMC used as a disk, the initial area is done SLC, and SSD utilities suggest doing the same by default.

... I usually use the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant: ...

What does this stupid utility have to do with partitioning SSDs into SLC/MLC/TLC zones?

[edavid]

The SLC thing is a red herring.  There is no evidence that the Win XP issue was SSD endurance.

[Postal2]

The SLC thing is a red herring. ...

I agree. And peter-h got caught on this hook. The thing is that if the chips are rejected and can't handle MLC - they are sold to various idiots. At the same time, if the chips that can handle MLC are switched to SLC - the reliability will really increase.

[peter-h]

HDtune (free version) and Crystaldisk info do nothing on winXP. CrystalDiskInfo won't install (not a valid win32 app, it says - but I am running XP 32).

Never mind.

[radiolistener]

There are several approaches to inter-process communication (IPC) in Windows:
1) Shared memory is the fastest method for IPC on Windows, providing high performance by allowing direct access to shared memory regions.
2) Named pipes offer a more versatile approach, generally faster than sockets, but are limited to communication between processes on the same machine.
3) Sockets are the most platform-independent option, enabling communication across different platforms, including Linux.
4) Window messages allow lightweight communication between GUI applications within the Windows environment.

[thm_w]

XP works fine with SSDs
https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/x16gjk/yes_you_can_use_an_ssd_drive_with_windows_xp_hear/

[Jeroen3]

You can get a license for HDSentinel and have it email reports about the disks. You can then track the state of any disk over time.
It also keeps a log, but if the disk it's installed to fails you can't read it. 

[Postal2]

.... (current one has 4GB, Atom 1.8GHz) ....

I am waiting for a SLC SSD and 8GB RAM to arrive, ...

Very strange. My Atom boards support 2 GB of RAM, I know that you can break your brain and expand it to 4. But where to stick 8 GB?

[peter-h]

It takes two modules, and you can get 4GB ones, £15 each. PC3-10600. Whether the MB will support them, I will find out. I cannot see its P/N without bending some stiff flat cable...

Window messages allow lightweight communication between GUI applications within the Windows environment.

That is the only one available if you cannot recompile one of the apps.

XP works fine with SSDs

It does... but see discussion above.

[Postal2]

... I will find out. ...

I will simplify your impossible task.

[nctnico]

...But somehow this falls apart for XP, and nobody knows why, other than it being to do with the absence of TRIM.

I've heard all this talk about TRIM. It doesn't affect reliability, only speed. The complaints about Windows XP were about NTFS, which writes a lot of unnecessary stuff.

AFAIK there is more to TRIM. It releases unused blocks on the SSD so these can be used for more even wear levelling. Otherwise the SSD is limited to using the few extra blocks it has for wear levelling which will wear very fast. With XP I'd disable the virtual memory as well to avoid unnecessary hard drive access.

[thm_w]

AFAIK there is more to TRIM. It releases unused blocks on the SSD so these can be used for more even wear levelling. Otherwise the SSD is limited to using the few extra blocks it has for wear levelling which will wear very fast. With XP I'd disable the virtual memory as well to avoid unnecessary hard drive access.

All of this was explained in the link above.

- Align partitions
- Disable swap file - optional
- Disable defrag - optional
- Disable last access timestamp - optional