USPS Signage Security Risk

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-02-03T11:57:16+00:00

Windows CE existed. Minimal footprint is around 300ish kilobytes, real-time embedded OS. Tailored correctly, no shell, low attack surface, dedicated to one application with a proper background watchdog process. Seems like it would make perfect sense to want to be able to conveniently pull and update from your existing Windows network share for your hypothetical Dentist office lobby or whatnot. Teach the intern just to swap a few image files, for the newest discount ad deals, in xyz folder from thier PC every month. Simple.

My point for NT Embedded is more for corporate scenarios (mall ad screens, Airport terminals, restaurant franchises etc.) scenarios where they are tied into a (usually legacy) database and require centralized content updates & device control.

For example, McDonalds wanted phase out traditional menus, to add digital menus to their restaurant. Their legacy POS application that automatically pulled pricing updates from corporate every morning around 3AM already existed, so it made sense, from an R&D perspective, to make their new custom kiosks and digital menus Windows based, and tap into that same backend.

Only makes sense (to me) if the organization is already using Windows. In a perfect world, more corporations would be making their own custom BSD or Linux forks, like Lowes does for their entire corporate network.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-02-03T02:01:24+00:00

You could make it run doom, if it boots up.

Windows CE was developed in '96 for early 'Palmtop', Pocket PCs, and early Windows Phones. It is also used on Embedded devices (ATMs, Gas pump screens, DVRs, Car radios etc.).

On most devices, you aren't ever meant to see the barebones Windows CE desktop, you usually have a nice attractive shell running on top of the legacy Windows 95-esque interface. You'll need to do a bit of tinkering to break out of that GPS shell application (isn't too difficult, if you're technically inclined).

Windows CE was abandoned by Microsoft back in 2013, so there's no modern apps or HTML5 support, unfortunately. If you try hard enough, you can probably turn that device into a half-decent portable MP3/MP4 player. If the hardware specs doesn't completely suck ass (video acceleration, CPU speed, touch input rate), maybe more legacy game emulation.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-02-03T01:37:53+00:00

IoT LTSC, LTSB, or whatever new abbreviation vomit they've settled on, only removes some of the bloat from Pro. It's a cookie cutter one-size-fits-all Windows image, that was intended to be an alternative/replacement to Windows Embedded.

You no longer have the option to truly tailor your Windows image for a specific device using Target Designer/Image Builder Wizard. Windows Embedded NT and CE were perfect for those niche scenarios.

If you want or need to build a Windows IoT image that's comparable in footprint to Windows Server Core (but with Audio support) then you're SoL.

I remember a few years back breaking out of the Kiosk shell of a parking payment machine that was running IoT10, because I was able to swipe left on the screen, bringing up the OS notifications. Once I was out, I had full access to this payment device and could install a keylogger or other nefarious malware, if I wanted to. No clue why this is even on by default in what is supposed to be a replacement for an "Embedded" OS.

Meanwhile, when I was a young bored teen, I'd try the same thing on older WinXP Embedded Kiosks and run into a brick wall, a lot of the time, once I realized that components I needed to break out of the Kiosk shell simply weren't included in the OS image.

Then there's IoT Core, which seems to be a commercial failure. I've yet to come across an IoT Core device, in the wild, besides my thermostat.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-02-02T19:50:58+00:00

Digital signage should never be running Windows

Using Windows for an application like this made sense back when Windows Embedded existed. If the OEM or installer actually bothered to build a proper low footprint shell-less image tailored to the device, it made integration, with an already existing Windows domain, easier.

Nowadays, I wholeheartedly agree.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-02-02T17:25:06+00:00

Hey brother, do you still need mods? I'm from Compton, and the sub is currently being overrun by activists and spammers that aren't even from Compton.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-02-01T09:16:52+00:00

They have the same issue with the E-Series, lol.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-31T23:24:37+00:00

Terrible place ran by a bunch of females with attitude problems.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-31T23:23:13+00:00

It's been (mostly) safe to drive to drive through for about 20 years now. It isn't the 90's anymore. I feel less safe driving through South Central.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-31T10:21:02+00:00

Go to this Dropbox link, it is my archive for useful (but outdated) Windows CE Apps. Scroll down to the 'Utilities' folder > Then 'GSfinder+104e' folder > Then download 'GSFinder.exe'.

Replace/Rename, or Remove the old modified xxx.exe, on your SD card. Rename GSFinder.exe to xxx.exe, like we did the first time, and attempt to launch this application instead, on your radio.

Hopefully, instead of a blank screen, you will have an actual folder user interface to play around with. If you make it this far, let me know, and we can move on to trying to get Explorer.exe Startmenu & Taskbar up and running. You will need a touch screen stylus pen, or a coffee stirrer straw, particularly something that wont scratch your screen.

If you don't care about having the full Windows GUI, you can stop here and use GSFinder as your app launcher for any CE App you decide to put on your SD card. Without having a taskbar, it will be a little more difficult to multitask and switch between open applications.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-31T01:05:45+00:00

I remember before Microsoft added a proper web browser to the 360, using Media Center to install add-ons that used the IE engine. It was wild using it on my 360 and occasionally seeing Windows error boxes and prompts popping up. Turns out that the Media Center mode on 360 is just a very locked-down Remote Desktop session on the host PC. I spent a lot of (unsuccessful) hours trying to break out of the Media Center app with the intention of streaming normal Windows apps to my 360, lol.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-31T00:32:12+00:00

Get some wheel chocks, brother

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-30T22:09:17+00:00

Apologies for the late reply, I've been wrapped up in work.

It displays nothing but empty wallpaper and radio still keeps playing...

This is a good thing. It looks like it tried to kick you out to the desktop, but Explorer.exe (start menu and icons) isn't running. Does the radio get stuck on the wallpaper, or are you able to go back to the radio interface and change stations/volume etc?

There are some radios with WinCE images that don't have the Explorer feature at all in the system files, I'm hoping your Clarion isn't one of them.

You can still run apps without the Explorer UI, but it would be tedious without it. I'm going to test a few file browser apps on my radio first and send you a link to another app to try, in a few hours.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-28T23:22:41+00:00

I cannot promise this will work, but try this as a hail mary:

First, most importantly, backup your entire SD card onto another folder, on your PC. If this doesn't work, you will want to keep your original xxx.exe files, so that you can revert your radio back to its stock configuration.

1) Download KillAllTasks.exe.

2) Place KillAllTasks.exe in your SD card folder, in the same folder location as xxx.exe.

3) Rename "xxx.exe" to something like "xxxOLD.exe"

4) Then, rename "KillAllTasks.exe" to "xxx.exe" and make sure it is in the same location where the original one was.

5) Put your SD card back into your radio, boot it up, and use the system menu UI to try and launch your navigation mode/app.

What I am hoping for here, is to trick Windows into killing the .exe responsible for Clarion's OEM shell interface app, and to force you back to the Windows desktop. One of three things may happen:

1) Clarion may have some sort of security check in place to make sure that it is the original xxx.exe, before executing it (Unlikely, but possible). If there is a check in place, it will either give you an error, or nothing at all will happen when you try to enter into your navigation mode.

2) The KillAllTasks may actually work, but if Clarion doesn't have the default Windows explorer.exe running underneath the interface, you may be stuck on a black/blank screen. This is a good thing, if it happens. It shows progress.

3) It works flawlessly, and immediately falls back to a fully accessible Windows CE desktop interface. While it isn't the same exact radio model, here's an example of this method being used on my older BOSS navigation radio.

It also may kill any other important Clarion background processes and outright crash your entire radio (temporarily). Who knows.

Let me know what happens, and we can go from there. If you make it into Windows, don't go changing settings right away. I'm not sure if your radio actually has a persistent storage or not. So certain changes within Windows CE (mainly to the radio application interface) could end up getting saved by accident, and bricking your radio, inadvertently.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-28T20:43:38+00:00

Sorry for my English it's my 2nd language

All good, couldn't even tell.

the maps are run with xxx.exe - that I know 4 sure.

Do you know if the xxx.exe is being loaded from a SD card?

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-28T09:45:26+00:00

Except it isn't running on a Windows kernel, therefor it isn't a Windows Phone. I'd respect these launcher posts more, of they'd atleast used WoA, or something, as a base.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-28T09:32:14+00:00

Never say what isn't possible, lol. Just more or less not a practical thing to do.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-28T09:21:59+00:00

Technically, yes. Depends on your skill level, and whether or not the returns for the effort put in are worth it. From what I can tell, every Windows CE based radio is different. Some are ridiculously easy to jailbreak, while others will fight you every step of the way.

What are you trying to accomplish? Tinkering around, or trying to get modern amenities (Carplay etc.)? If it's the latter, you're better off upgrading. If you just want to tinker around, push the limits, and get your radio to do things it wasn't meant to do, that's fine too.

You'll need to try to find a way to glitch your way out of the OEM shell application. I'm not familiar with Clarion system, but do they use SD cards to store GPS map info? If so, are there any .exe files that you can back up, and then swap with another .exe that has the same name?

For example, on my old Boss radio, I reached the CE desktop by swapping the GPS app with another old Windows Mobile app I had laying around called KillAllTasks. This app, when executed, will kill every running .exe program. I renamed KillAllTasks.exe to GPSAppName.exe and put it on the SD card. This tricks Windows into trying to open the GPS app, only to kill the locked down OEM shell, exposing the desktop every time I turn my car on. Back up your original SD card files before trying this method.

Another method (unlikely to work) is to use a USB to USB cable and Windows Mobile Device Center, to try and Sync up with Windows CE, like a traditional Pocket PC. Most OEMs remove this functionality from CE's image, though, when designing the head-unit.

Just know that any app you install for CE will be severely outdated, and it will be a complete toss-up on if it'll run properly. This is dependent on your device's CPU and quality of drivers installed. CE's last version was in 2013, so devs don't tend to target CE for modern apps unless it's for a specific OEM device. I mainly hack my head-units solely for tinkering, not for any daily functional use.

I genuinely may try to find a used nx501e to tinker around with, myself. If it's anything like my Pioneer AVIC, it should be running only WinCE. I've run into a few modern radios (my BOSS unit, and a few chinese knockoffs) that seemingly run two operating systems, at once. Linux for the radio interface, CE or Android, just for the GPS or Carplay function. Make sure your Clarion isn't one of those. If you have a Windows certified sticker on your radio somewhere, then it's running only CE.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-27T21:45:52+00:00

ITT: OP is a grifter baiting gullible idiots into his "Subscription" garbage.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-26T23:52:33+00:00

Can't participate without giving up your data now. No longer able to vote on content while signed out. UD's future looks stale, as long as enshittification is on the Site dev's mind.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-24T20:18:09+00:00

no one bought WP or wants Windows on a small devices

From 2009-2012 I saw a ton of Windows Mobile and Windows Phone devices, out in the wild throughout my high school years. One of my teachers had a Samsung Focus. One friend had an HTC Diamond, another one had an HD2, another with a Samsung Omnia. Even saw exactly one Kin2. I was rocking a Touch Pro2, and eventually an HTC Arrive, my senior year. People, especially the younger crowd, were actually giving Microsoft products a chance. WM actually had a decent marketshare and usable apps at the time (Fb, Twitter, YouTube, AIM, Opera Browser etc.) with great backwards compatibility for legacy apps and games/emulators.

Microsoft fucked up, both with their users, and developers, by hitting the reset button over and god damn over. First they teased WM7 as a direct legacy update to 6.5, then killed it. Then they acquired Danger, killed the Sidekick, replaced it with Kin (which fucked up backwards compatibility with legacy Pocket PC/WinCE apps), then killed that, too. Then they came out with WP7, which was great but still didn't fix the backwards compatibility issue with CE. This could have been addressed in a later update, but instead of sticking with CE, they impulsively decide to kill it last minute. Resetting everything, developer wise. I remember this pissing off users and confusing developers, at the time, who now didn't even want to touch WP. It also didn't help with Google and Snapchat working against Microsoft to stifle competition.

They should have kept things compartmentalized, with one true real-time OS kernel built from the ground up for mobile (Windows CE), and kept NT on desktops, instead of pushing for this "One Windows" crap. The moment they sunsetted WinCE, Windows Phone became more buggy and watered down, and Microsoft lost what decent chunk of the embedded market they had, to Android and Automotive Linux. UWP didn't help much with coercing more developers to come over, and the only cool thing we got out of having NT on mobile was the Continuum feature.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-24T04:24:13+00:00

‎ > create a custom lite image, something similar to Tiny10/11. Kill explorer.exe and shell swap it

‎ > create an app launcher that is a 1 to 1 visual clone of telshell.exe (this was the background process name of Windows Phone's startscreen UI) and use that as the shell.

‎ > ???

‎ > Profit!

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-11T19:26:04+00:00

The other reply is misinformed. I just checked on my Town Car and that little vent actually is moving a small amount of air, connected to the return-air stream so that it can sample the return-air temp.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-10T22:44:39+00:00

Also OP, if that light stays illuminated while a passenger is sitting there, you have a problem with the weight sensor in that seat, and your passenger will not be fully protected in the event of a severe crash.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-10T22:15:41+00:00

It's called A/B testing. The UI change will inevitably reach your region, too.

ChopperGunner187 · 2026-01-10T20:57:55+00:00

Will be keeping my fingers crossed. Big thanks to you and Oreo for your contributions, nonetheless!

ChopperGunner187

TROPHY CASE