What I don't understand is... why? I understand keeping alive software for the sake of hardware compatibility, but browsing the web and running Discord? Is it all really just to save a few hundred dollars over... 24 years?
Perhaps because the level of respect that Windows has for its users has dropped with each successive version?
Not to mention bloat: I have a keyboard with a dedicated calculator button. On a machine with Core i5 something or other and SSD it takes about 2 seconds for the calculator to appear the first time I push that button. On the Core 2 Duo machine that preceded it, running XP from spinning rust, the calculator would appear instantly - certainly before I can release the button.
But also WinXP was the OS a lot of people used during their formative years - don't underestimate the power of nostalgia.
Also, for some people the very fact that Microsoft don't want you to would be reason enough!
Personally if I were into preserving old Windows versions I'd be putting my effort into Win2k SP4, since it's the last version that doesn't need activating.
(I did have to activate a Vista install recently - just a VM used to keep alive some legacy software whose own activation servers are but a distant memory. It's still possible, but you can't do it over the phone any more, and I couldn't find any way to do it without registering a Microsoft account.)
I'm not a part of the Windows XP community, but I've gotten close. I love that I can make it look just like Windows 2000 and that I know where all the little knobs and dials are. I can get a Windows XP installation configured to be exactly as I want it to be very quickly and I know it won't suddenly change on me.
[0] https://www.mypal-browser.org/ [1] https://github.com/DiscordMessenger/dm
Not to mention bloat: I have a keyboard with a dedicated calculator button. On a machine with Core i5 something or other and SSD it takes about 2 seconds for the calculator to appear the first time I push that button. On the Core 2 Duo machine that preceded it, running XP from spinning rust, the calculator would appear instantly - certainly before I can release the button.
But also WinXP was the OS a lot of people used during their formative years - don't underestimate the power of nostalgia.
Also, for some people the very fact that Microsoft don't want you to would be reason enough!
Personally if I were into preserving old Windows versions I'd be putting my effort into Win2k SP4, since it's the last version that doesn't need activating. (I did have to activate a Vista install recently - just a VM used to keep alive some legacy software whose own activation servers are but a distant memory. It's still possible, but you can't do it over the phone any more, and I couldn't find any way to do it without registering a Microsoft account.)
I'm not a part of the Windows XP community, but I've gotten close. I love that I can make it look just like Windows 2000 and that I know where all the little knobs and dials are. I can get a Windows XP installation configured to be exactly as I want it to be very quickly and I know it won't suddenly change on me.
[1] https://github.com/skeeto/w64devkit
This was interesting!
https://github.com/kalnod/Win32Dotnet10Starter