I was persuaded to switch over to Windows XP in the latter part of 2003 by a friend in Los Angeles while I was managing a property that he lived in. It took some persuading though as I was suspicious of anything new from Microsoft, though XP had been out for a year or two by then. I had a computer that was running Windows 98SE and I had also purchased a used laptop running Windows 98SE as well. But after some presistence from my friend I installed XP and have never had anything else since!
Yup! In 2021 I use a Toshiba Satellite M70 (of 2006 vintage) that has Windows XP SP3 (service pack 3) installed and I can do everything that everyone else can do apart from using the newest software by companies in the image and video editing, CAD (computer aided design) and techncial/scientific and crypto currency fields, as their software is now being made for 64bit machines.
There are still millions of computers in the world today that are old enough not to be 64bit machines that you find today in the shops. Yet, unless you know how to configure them properly and which software and browsers to avoid, you will have problems. I have a page here that takes you through correctly setting up Windows XP either from scratch or on a current install of it. I go through everything needed so that your machine runs perfectly.
With my laptop I can do all my banking and go to 99.99% of sites without any issues - as long as I use the Maxthon Browser. Chromium/Chrome, FireFox and Opera have outdated 'security' protocols and will not allow you to connect on quite a few sites like Sourceforge.net (which is another annoyance with me - Browsers shouldn't behave like nannies telling me that a site has an 'unsupported security protocol' and will therefore block me from entering it. They should allow me to click on an 'ignore' button like Maxthon does).
The only issues come when I try using my laptop (and Maxthon browser) in trying to open crypto currency accounts with the various exchanges around the world. These tend to be run by arrogant (in my opion, ignorant) young runts that think they know it all and prevent their crypto wallets from running on 32bit Windows XP machines (you can use Windows 7 with some of these services). They will give ALL sorts of excuses, the main one being that 'Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft.' So???? I have been running Windows XP for a VERY long time with absolutely 0 (zero) updates being installed. I have had to reinstall XP a few times due to hard disk failure but never from any virus or other such nonsense.
Companies lie to customers all the time (John Deere, anyone?) and Microsoft is probably one of the biggest liars of them all in the computer world. What they call 'Updates' are nothing more than subliminal algorithms that play patterns on your screen (I just spent over an hour trying to find the page on Jim Stone's site where I read about it but that page seems to have been scrubbed from the 'Net. I wonder why? - I found the page [pdf] after another hour and the page links to this patent).
There may be occassional updates to plug zero-day exploit 'security holes' but I even doubt that that has happened. The proof in the pudding is that I do not run any anti-virus software (though I used to), I do not run any 3rd party firewall on my laptop (though I used to but stopped using one when I found out that Windows XP has its own built in firewall that is excellent) and stopped listening to the 'experts' yowling about security a long time ago. The term 'security' is used to con the majority of people into believing that their machine is at risk if 'they don't keep their machine up to date with 'updates''.
Back in 2005 Microsoft bought out an Israeli company for around $2 billion - their product? All they had done was create a hack proof version of Windows XP that had been proven to be unhackable by various experts in the field. There were a few articles about this back then but when I tried to find those articles last year (2020) as something to link back to from one of my pages within this computer section to prove what I was talking about, that information had completely disappeared from the 'Net. All I have is the memory of reading about it.
We have now entered a period of World History where your life is being hacked and controlled by those in power and those behind the scenes (who yank the politician's strings) so you need to become aware of things that may be upsetting to you. Your computer or your smart phone is now the major surveillance tool that is being used by your government where ever you are located. So it would be prudent of you to do something about it.
Here is a program that will block a lot of what Microsoft is doing on your computer. It blocks a lot of the communication from happening between various Microsoft products that are installed on your computer and Microsoft HQ.
Anyway, the next page will get you to understand more about why I refuse to go above Windows XP when it comes to using a Microsoft operating system on my computers (though I do have a Windows 7 machine I use occasionally).