Now here is something interesting that maybe those that plan on sticking with XP should know:
Microsoft will produce Windows XP updates for much longer than April 2014. The last official updates for Windows 2000 were released last year, 3 years after EOL, and were distributed inside the monthly security ISO update packages. Apart from that, a few more non-public official updates were leaked.
In case of Windows XP I'd expect at least regular official updates until July 2015 (when Windows 2003 is becoming EOL). After April you should definitely check the monthly ISOs available under this link:
Security updates are available on ISO-9660 DVD5 image files from the Microsoft Download Center
Just keep in mind that Microsoft will not mention the existence of those updates in their official news channels. As in case of Windows 2000, the updates can be found inside those ISO packages even though Windows 2000's name itself isn't listed there at all.
More than that, due to the fact that Windows XP is much more popular than Windows 2000, I'm 99% sure that a lot of non-public updates will be leaked as well.
http://www.msfn.org/.../page-4#entry1069185There are some other interesting things in that thread, as well, such as the idea of adapting updates to Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 (based on XP, which will still receive extended support till April 2019) for use in regular XP.
Keep in mind that there are still people out there running 98/ME/2k and their world hasn't melted down, yet, and in many cases they have been able to get the latest security patches through other means, hacked to work with their outdated OSs. There will be nothing to stop XP users from joining them and waiting for the patches for currently supported versions of Windows to be ripped apart and tested to see what can be put together for them, and the bunch of 98/ME/2k users that are still sticking with their old faithful OS. XP users are actually in a better position than the 9x users, since even the latest supported versions are NT based, just like XP, making it much easier to hack a patch for it.
And if you want to see what the future of XP holds, ask the 2k users that didn't upgrade, what their main issues are:
1) trying to run an older OS on newer hardware and trying to find drivers that work, or
2) trying to run newer software on the older OS, or
3) being restricted to older browsers which do not support newer features so accessing things like Flash or YouTube no longer work.
They are not crying about security problems. #2 & #3 were my main issues with running WinME, back in 2008, and would most likely still be my main issues if I were to take that PC out of retirement, with an entirely different issue not even on that list, if I were to try to get it online via anything but dialup. (same issue I had back in 2008, having to replace a combo modem & soundcard with both a NIC & soundcard via a bridge board soldered into an ISA slot, for which the PCI slots on it are disabled at the hardware level, by the manufacturer, leaving only 1 working ISA slot on the board to work with. If I could get past that, I'd likely then have to deal with issue #1)
Recent Posts
(it was here, but imageshack ate it 
)
