I will definitely keep XP around as long as I can. A lot of the time, I prefer using XP over later versions of Windows anyway. I mean, sure Windows 7 has its fancy start menu search and loads of other neat features, but for some reason XP just feels comfortable to me. I personally don't feel that Microsoft is making a smart move about discontinuing XP. I am aware of the fact that Microsoft's Windows is rapidly advancing and expanding, soon to only be able to run on the latest PC's, but I'd at least keep XP around for those who might prefer XP over the latest Windows updates.

Hi.Well, I'm not done with Windows XP. I'm going to use it for as long as it runs my games.THe reason is of course that I hate anything past XP. Curse Microsoft. Secondly, I use a mac and intend to use a mac in the future as my main computer.So, XP isn't going bye bye for me, not yet and probably not for a long time.I have wondered though, will it be possible to install XP after support is dropped.As it is right now I've got 2 XP machines with no install media and I converted one of those machines into a VM to run on my mac.So, I wonder how I could obtain install media? Not sure if I should pay the ridiculous price for a cd, I think on amazon I found disks for $150 or more.I agree that XP is great at running with very low system specs. I've got good old XP running on 240 mb of ram on the old 2006 mac I got off of Kraigslist and XP runs pretty well, aside from a few random freezes now and then.I remember installing a VM of the Windows 8 preview on my desktop with 1 gig of ram and it was horrible to say the least. It took a long time to start and when it did, the audio was choppy.Oh well, I guess we'll never see anything as good as XP from Microsoft again.I've said it before and I'll say it now and in the future, they screwed everything up past XP.

I won't be using xp anymore. The only xp machine I had was sold. But look at the bright side. When Microsoft drops support, they can't make you stop using xp altogether. If they did, they'd really be annoying stupid jerks.

Agreed with all that say xp is fast to run on old hardware. It used to work great with games on my old xp machine from years ago. Fortunately I still have xp in my vm and I'll have to just rely on that to stay up on eurpod for the longest time possible. I think Microsoft mighy actually stop people from using xp. Don't know if this is true or not, but on January 5th, xp will expire. The OS will still be functional, if you will, but every time you try to access the internet or any internet related thing it'll say fatal error 609, we will now restart your computer to make sure there is nothing wrong with system files. And it will do that every time and foce you to keep rebooting. The situation can be compared to trying to run a windows 3.1 machine on the internet, today. I kind of doubt this is true, but if it is, microsoft are a bunch of blasfamous mutineers. Okay, maybe that was a bit over the edge, but you get the point. If someone is already satisfied with their current os, then why should be forced to upgrade, when they just as well may not be able to upgrade due to financial barriers. And if they have a newer os or a completely different one altogether and have xp in a vm, then why should they be forced to trash their vm and go to win7 if they need it to run old programs or develop dos or command line based applications? Honestly, that's like Apple telling you if you don't buy a mac, we'll bust your windows machine and eventually blow it to smithereens. If my info is true, then Microsoft is doing a wrong thing, especially if all their future versions of win8 and up will be screwed up in their interfaces? I'll be keeping windows7 and my xp vm for as long as I possibly can. It seems like Microsoft are trying to reinvent themselves. However, they are making a big mess in the process. Then again, Microsoft puts minimal effort into their screen reader, and they make it clear that people will have to buy a screen reader for daily use, while Apple is kicking the crap out of narrator with their own voiceover which is like jaws, so we might say Microsoft doesn't care about blind people as much. Cut me a break, I don't have all the money in the world and can't get me a mac. Okay rant there. Okay I'm done.

hi all i am using windows 8.1 now and xp is there in my desktop i mis x p because of the simplysity it has if microsoft is ending xp then i will swich to diviant linux it can run to older p c as well

I'm still using xp, and I dam well hope the internet doesn't stop working in January, since  that would be scummy.

Yep, I probably could use windows 7,but why should I migrate to an os with an inconvenient interface I'd have to spend time learningthat won't run a good part of my games and software?  I've still never heard any good reason to upgrade and frankly I'm a litle pissed off with microsoft  for not keeping at least something with the same interface as they did from windows 95 to xp.

Yep, windows 7 and 8 might be more secure, have bigger amounts of this, more of that and larger numbers of the othe, but if they won't actually help me do anything better on my machine why should I care?  When there are lots of things in a new os I want to do, and lots of things I want to run that require it, then! I'll considder switching not before, and frankly microsoft should understand this rather than force people to buy their newer  os, with no backwards compatibility and their useless interface that you are forced to  use because there is no alaternative.

Oh, and no, I'm not exactly pleased about this.

btw, you  actually can still use win 95 on the internet, since I have met people who do, albeit it doesn't work with a lot of modern sites, so I'd be surprised if xp utterly  stopps working .

It's actually surprised me, a lot of  sites I've visited have recently been saying that ie8 is not supported bla bla expect lower functionality, but I've not actually found anything   I couldn't do.

The only programs I've had trouble running are the more system intensive  modern versions of avg antivirus and avg pc tuneup, (I'm still on avg 2012), which I agree might be a problem in the future albeit not for a few years and by them maybe there will! be something sufficiently good to make me want  to upgrade, (i'm keeping an eye on touch screen suport since that would! be a sufficiently unique change to make upgrading worth it an give the new  interface some point).

I do however wish someone continued with xp, or that microsoft at least hadn't made newer windows so crappy and incompatible.

Btw, regarding security well Avg has solved that problem nicely for  many years for me, so it's not one anymore.

I would considder getting  a map with the xp boot camp thing, accept that I've heard all macs now come with windows 7 virtual machines instead. Plus, while I don't know a lot about the mac interface, I'm still uncertain what good I could get out of one as there aren't  many games on Mac and I don't particularly like Itunes as a music player, plus I'd have to reconvert all my windows documents.

hi dark
you probably should upgrade avg to the 2014 version
the latest version will be smarter and block viruses more efficiently
and it would be kind of pointless to not upgrade an  av program you spend money on

What is up with the eurpod site anyway? Tryed to test out those VMS but can't get there, does anyone have a link? On topic, i think it's only possible to support windows 7 in bootcamp, they don't say anything about XP support.

Well good to know about the internet, though as I siad it'd be surprising.

it was a while ago I admit perhaps two or three years but I did still hear of a windows 95 user. I don't know how she was managing, but apparently she did have E-mail and a basic net connection but didn't  do that much online in way of websites since many  didn't work.

A mac with virtual xp might be where I'd go if I were forced,  though i'd have to try a mac first and decide if the mac was better than windows 7 and 8 for interface (which it likely is).

The only thing that puts me off a mac are A, that there aren't many games and other programs, and B, no winamp, or even foobar. (vlc is okay, but Itunes I actively dislike), I do also wonder about the mac file management especially  with my large audio collection. I'd also have to  relearn mail programs  and writing word documents, though again windows 7 and mac are equal there since silly microsoft  removed  Outlook express, the most popular mail program on xp and replaced it with the far stupider and less user friendly ms outlook, ---- and yes, outlook is usable but as with much of windows 7, with significantly more hassle for no bennifit (I'd miss my easily scrolling contacts list).

Of course, this situation isn't perminant, and it's quite possible either mac or windows will come up with something good for touch screen or similar, but that's not happened yet, and frankly microsoft's atittude of kicking compatibility and customization to the curb is just scummy! I mean, a company with as much money in developement  as them dam well should! give people more choice of their interface and a better experience with compatibility, not just  something which is essentially the same just with a  flashier  less customizable interface and  inability to run older software.

It'd be nice if someone did actually continue developing xp.

Regarding AVg, that is indeed the one problem I've run into still running xp, since when I ran avg antivirus 2013, the ram requirements were far too  high for the system I had, and I had  so much slowdown I had trouble changing the system. This  is obviously a problem, though wouldn't be if xp just had drivers for more modern hardware and I could get a higher spec machine, (again, stupid, stupid microsoft should just upgrade the drivers for xp).

Still,  I've checked with Avg and deffinition  support will remain for at least the next five or six years, heck, they only this year have stopped support for Antivirus 2008, by which time there will hopefully be a  sufficiently good upgrade alternative that will let me do new things, with enough software support to make it worthwhile.

As I said, I'm not anti upgrade or anti trying new systems by any means, (I  bought an Iphone 5 last year and haven't regretted it at all), I just want a better reason than "it looks flashy and has some big numbers", particularly if I have to go to the trouble of running vms and such to play all my old software.

Again, life would be much easier if stupid microsoft just upgraded xp, rather than forcing people to have what they! decide while breaking off all compatibility with the past and offering nothing in it's place.

I will say for all I disagree with many of apple's practices, and for all in some respects they seem just as domineering as microsoft, at least backwards compatibility isn't an issue,  and os upgrades aren't a completely new beast that buggers everything up.

Yup! My next Windows VM, I have determined, will be XP. No need for anything newer, and in fact quite a few disadvantages. Sure XP is a backwater OS, but so what? It actually ****ing works, with minimal poking and prodding, with all the software I care about. I will continue to support it in any further Windows work I do, for the foreseeable future. And all my majority computing needs--the ones well-served by modern stuff like web browsers and whatnot--is on OS X anyway.

So yeah, cheer on Microsoft, I can't hear you above the mountains of coins falling off the cliff you're walking straight for …

Hi Dark.To answer your question about Virtual XP on a mac, I did it in a way that most people probably never thought of doing.So, I have a couple of physical XP machines already that have all the programs and everything I want for WIndows.So, I installed this program called vmware V Center converter onto the computer.I think you need sighted help to use this program though I think it can be navigated with your screen reader's review cursor. I just went with the sighted help.Basically you go through a creation wizard.I forget the steps but you basically choose if you want to create a VM from your local computer or a computer on the network. Then, you choose which version of vmware you want to create it in. I don't think this really matters though.Then you choose where to save the virtual machine files.Once all that is done, the setup window will close and as far as I know there isn't a real way to tell how far it's going.What I did was navigate to the directory containing the vmdk file and watched it grow.This can take a long time, depending on how much stuff you have on your computer.If you have a lot of data, it could take a couple of hours, maybe more.Anyway, I waited about an hour and a half until the vmdk file stopped growing.Then, I took the virtual machine files and copied them to my mac. I then imported the VM into vmware fusion and it worked like a charm.It makes a complete copy of your original machine including documents, programs, system settings etc.You can also install Windows but I don't have a Windows install CD so went with converting a physical machine and anyway the WIndows setup isn't accessible. Stupid, stupid Microsoft. Apple got this right a long time ago.Anyway, getting back to virtual XP.When I loaded it up, it threw up a few errors saying it couldn't install some base system and something else.I tried installing these drivers but it failed so I just checked the do not tell me about this again checkbox.For the most part, it feels like running a physical XP computer. I do get freezes sometimes, though I suspect that has more to do with the fact that I'm running it on 240 megs of ram on a really old mac.This shouldn't be an issue for you if you plan on getting the new macs with 4 or 8 gigs. I would think XP would work flawlessly on a gig of ram.The errors about installing those system base drivers and something else about video don't seem to do anything, audio and all the essentials I would want from WIndows still works just fine.Oh, I should also say that it may throw up an error saying hardware has changed and Windows needs to be activated again.Just choose next and it should do it on its own.Not sure how it does it but yeah.Stupid Microsoft with their stupid activation crap. I mean I realize it's for security but it's annoying and OS X doesn't have it.I hope this helped and if you have any more questions feel free to ask.