Hello.
Well right now I'm not on xp I'm running windows 7. I did have an xp desktop years ago and I liked it but I like windows 7 more.
Personally I have no problem upgrading I've never done it so I don't know how but that's another story. I would love to have windows 10, I don't fear unknown computer stuff or inaccessibility, you will run into that on any os eventually. As much as I enjoyed xp in the past I think it's time to get rid of it. It's becoming a problem especially when trying to run new software. I think you should develop your game for newer windows computers and forget about backward compatibility at least for now.
So to sum all that up, I have no problem with newer versions of windows, I haven't used xp in years so I'm not worried about that.
Hth.

I used to primarily use Windows XP because I couldn't stand newer versions of Windows. When I moved to a Mac in 2013, my only reason for using Windows was to play games so I continued to use XP. The other problem I observed was that some of the older games were a little unstable on Windows Vista/7/8. However, I'm now ready to upgrade to the Windows 10 Creators update since we have a talking installer. That was my biggest complaint about Windows. I couldn't troubleshoot it on my own. Now, I can. Yes, I still don't really like newer versions of Windows, but I'm going to have to move on at some point. The major accessibility enhancements will make me do that regardless of the stupid advertising Microsoft is baking into the operating system and all the other problems.

As for Windows XP compatibility, I don't really care anymore. If this is going to be developed with modern versions of Windows, the legacy support may not make sense. This is especially true now that Microsoft is cranking off new major builds once or twice a year. Windows 7 will shortly become obsolete and no one in their right mind liked Windows 8 and 8.1. Ideally, I'd like to see all future audio games become available for all accessible platforms, but that might be wishful thinking on my part.

I'm in a position where I certainly could use windows 7, I did use windows 7 for 5 years now and can live with it, I have my reasons for not yet upgrading to windows 10, privacy concerns related to telemetry, and the ads built in. But my situation prevents me from running anything above xp. I could certainly do it, but my situation is that I'm running virtual machines off an external hd. I also run mac so don't need windows for much. For both of those reasons, I decided to go lightweight, and windows xp is significantly lighter compared to windows 7. I did try windows 7 and didn't have much problems, but the hard drive itself is what makes me hesitant on running 7. The hard drive has this problem where it'll randomly disconnect from the mac. I don't know why, it's as if the drive hits a millisecond power serge or something to that effect. The drive is a seagate desktop 2terabyte sshd inside a usb sata enclosure, and that enclosure is powered externally. Nice idea to avoid going bus-powered, but thanks to these serges I'm not sure if my power strip is serge protective or not, because if it is it shouldn't be going through what appear to be power blinks Because my hd disconnects, windows gets interrupted, a kin to pulling the plug on the pc. So if I were to use windows 7 and yes this has happened on windows 7 for the record, startup repair would pretty much ram itself down my throat because of all these unexpected powerdowns. Hell I don't even think it's that good for windows xp either, I've had my Twitter session data for Chicken Nugget corrupt on me after a few of these disconnects. But bringing xp back to life is nowhere near as much of a headache as windows 7. If I can just get this fixed I may consider upgrading to 7 but for now, this is where it has to be.

You're right, I don't know of anyone else who has my situation practically forcing me to run xp. You'd think running on a fairly top of the line mac with 8gb ram opens up a world of opportunity for running all versions of windows, which it technically does, but when you sacrifice your internal hard drive space in exchange for higher ram, external hd's come into play to make running vm's harder. It's unfortunate that the mac's hd can't be upgraded, so it's a done deal.

I upgraded to win7 in 2012 and Win10 in 2016. Personally, I think the reasons for blind people sticking to XP are somewhat similar to sighted. Sometimes they don't like the prospect of upgrading, sometimes they can't afford the upgrade right away, being in poor countries, etc. While a lot of blind people might want to hang onto XP, many, many more sighted people are doing this too. I don't think enough blind people are using XP to make it a global concern, but what do I know? Lol
While I hold nothing at all against people who continue to use XP, I do respectfully remind them that they are running an unsupported operating system. To many PC users this simply doesn't matter... until services they've hoped will hold onto XP support finally drop it and they are left hanging. Until upgrades fail or cannot be accomplished, until the new software they want won't run, or the PC gets infected because of a security breech that has since been fixed. Or until the computer stops working and they are forced, unprepared, into new territory. This exact thing happened to a friend of mine about a year ago. So, what operating system you use is your choice, and I couldn't really care less what it is. I won't hate on you or nag at you to upgrade if I find out you are using XP. But with that said, I have very little patience with people who finally are forced to upgrade for one reason or another and want to insist it's not fair. I understand that people hold onto it simply because they can use it to do the things they want to do without a problem. But the world is changing, and like it or not, we can't pretend it isn't. We don't have to like it but we do have to acknowledge it and live our lives.
ON the other side of the field, we have people who hate the thought of even mentioning old versions of things. They'll drop support for it simply because they no longer officially have to, and I don't condone this. Now, if keeping legacy support really does start to hinder development, and there's no easy workaround, then I believe dropping legacy support is by far a reasonable thing to do if it would have some significant benefit to the development of a newer, more modern product that could make the most of currently available resources. It sounds like you're on the fence about whether XP support is needed, as the decision will affect the complete course of development. IMHO XP support isn't worth it, but I'd wait for at least a few hundred people's feedback to get a somewhat representative sample of computer users. A few, or even a few dozen, isn't enough to make this kind of decision.

I'm basically with Chris and Jack, in most regards. On a Mac, an XP VM is small and efficient, has a Start menu that I actually want to use, and can be locked down tighter than a duck's arse. Later versions of Windows are simply less good. However, I would use them if necessary. Where I diverge from popular opinion is in acceptance of Windows 10; I have already said, many times, and my position is reenforced with every stupid decision Microsoft makes, that I will vigorously avoid a platform that disregards my privacy and shows me ads. The accessibility improvements (and the bash shell/Linux subsystem) are wonderful, but not enough to stop me using Windows 7 or 8.1 with Classic Shell (the latter I find quite acceptable, actually, and very stable too, much more so than Windows 7 ever was). If Microsoft will let me pay for a version of Windows 10 that doesn't offend my sensibilities, I will seriously look into it again; until then, it's either an XP VM or a fully-booted native Windows 8.1. HTH.

Hmmm, I find this talk of adds on windows 10 rather strange since I don't notice any particularly, not on the operating system itself.
it is true that there was a lot of stuff which came with the computer by default which I removed using c cleaner, but that is true of any machine, hell my original xp machine came with a lot of links to microsoft gaming zone etc that I  didn't want.

Microsoft Edge by default did seem to be showing lots of adds, but whether that was just the webpage it was pointed at I'm not sure.

Hi.
I'm running Windows 10 on a virtual machine on my Mac without any issues. It runs very stable, and much better than Windows 7.

This is all really interesting. I'm surprised that thus far, the only people who are using XP are those running Windows in a VM on a Mac. That's really fascinating. Obviously this is a very small sample size—but maybe it's not as important to design with XP compatibility in mind as we'd originally thought.

As I said Joseph, I did use xp up until recently and indeed this is an xp laptop I'm using now. But these days there is just too much that won't work on xp to make it worth the continual hassle of trying to runn it, and most older games do! work on Windows 10, indeed one of the first things I installed was Esp pinball classic and I was extremely pleased how well that worked.

Plus as I said, I much prefer 10 to 7 myself.

Well In fairness I did use Xp longer than planned since I originally intended to get a new pc much earlier, but things like getting married got in the way of that temporarily.

As to other things, I did try 7 several times and disliked it. The layout of windows explorer even when set on lists, and the start menu I found extremely irritating, plus I still miss outlook express as the mail alternatives such as outlook and live mail are far too cluttered and don't have instant contact management, one reason why I'll likely be checking thunderbird in windows 10 shortly and why I installed classic shell to handle the start menu in a logical way rather than recommended this and last used that, since generally i like my program groups and such in sufolders and I like my subfolders to stay where I put'em .

Also as I said I've found both my lady's windows 7 machines to be buggy as hell and extremely finicky, though to what extent this is due to the os and to what due to the hardware I don't know, still this combined with the other factors I mention doesn't endear me to 7 as an operating system.

I admit I was apprehensive of Windows 10 particularly in layout terms, but when I found out more about it it turned out things were fixable in a way I could work with, and indeed as I said in a way that I prefer to 7, though I am still not entirely happy with the default windows 10 email program.

A further and more distinct problem I had, is the problem of concrete differences, indeed this is one I routinely argued with Thomas ward about.
People would say things like "windows 7 is more secure" or "windows 7 handles data faster" to which I would respond "but what does it do?"

it often seemed that i was being asked to give up  convenience, program compatibility and an easy to use layout for some nebulous set of "it's more" type of statements that ultimately didn't amount to much other than security paranoyer and desire to have larger computer specs for their own sake, and of course because microsoft were greedy bastards who weren't doing their job of making something better than xp ie, able to run all the stuff xp did but with increased security etc.

This situation however definitely began to change in about 2015 or so, when increasingly newer software and even web services would no longer run on xp, and to compensate the associated problems with running older software on newer os were being solved (though not due to microsoft's efforts).

While I do admit to being late in upgrading to windows 10, I really should've done it a year ago or more, I still don't regret waiting until things were relatively stabilized.

I have never seen an ad in Windows 10, outside of third party websites. Never. Are you sure you don't just have malware?
I used XP until 2010. It became clear that I needed a computer with higher specs (and a second computer, in case mine broke).
I was a little nervous, but I upgraded to Windows 7 at that point and had to upgrade Jaws in order to do it.
Similar experience in 2014 when that computer failed.
This computer came with Windows 8, and I took the free Windows 10 upgrade when it was offered.
It's always a learning curve but I can't say I've ever had a major problem.