Ok, as I said, I was able to run Kmeleon 74b2 and is what I'm using right now.
I tried this afternoon Firefox 27.0.1 because of a site issue and I though for nth time, let's try to see what happens and if it can be used someway.
Firefox, today, displayed some faulty dependencies beyond the VC++10 and I was able to track down that xul.dll and, therefore, the XPCOM error that happens in K-meleon too, was requesting iphlpapi.dll and other dlls.
So, I used the Windows 2000 wrappers (if you are interested in run it on Windows 2000 this is good start point:
win2kgaming.prophpbb.com) to make it work along with some dlls, but first is needed to change k-meleon.exe with the KDW wrapper tool fcwin2k to avoid the VC++10 error of not a win32 valid app, all what I did in the past but didn't work.
In the end, it needs the wrappers for:
kernel32.dll
shell32.dll
advapi32.dll
ws2_32.dll
And the dlls from XP:
uxtheme.dll (requested for K-meleon 74b2 but not for K-meleon 74d)
iphlpapi.dll
dbghelp.dll (not needed, but not harming)
What I don't like about the main dependency not found in Windows 2000 because of an old version, is the file iphlpapi.dll, the IP helper API. Why? Because it requires to have the DNS client service enabled. Usually, well, until XP predominance, an application doesn't need to call to this API to resolve IPs, instead it calls to the TCP/IP kernel or something similar and the calls are made directly to the DNS server. With this service, first is called to the OS and then is routed to the DNS server. Yes, it's the same, but not exactly the same. You will laugh to me, but this (having my own DNS server) has a quite important impact in name resolving performance and, therefore, in browsing performances. There is a tiny lag between request and browse. And, sadly, is an open vector tha wasn't needed before.
This dumb thing is similar to the Audio service. Never was needed a system audio service running to have audio in Windows. From XP... it was... O_o
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2014 11:46PM by JohnHell.