Laz, the XP kernel cannot be patched beyond a certain point. The malware threats out there are just too sophisticated for it. You’re a computer guy, look it up and you’ll see just how vulnerable it had become.
The kernel is version 5, after all. That is one up from Windows NT 4.0. Incidently, the name for Server/Professional 2000 was supposed to be Windows NT 5.0, but Gates changed it to glom onto the Y2K scare (focus groups showed that anything named 2000 back then was thought to already be compliant). XPs version number is actually 5.1. Windows Server 2003 is 5.2.
The next kernel release was 6.0, which came out with Vista. Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8 and Windows Server all are part of the Kernel 6 specification. There are tons of new security modules built in and active, such as elevation of privilege checks. XP just doesn’t have the ability to do that in the kernel.
Windows 10 is kernel 10. They skipped 7, 8 & 9 for marketing reasons. Again, lots of kernel features added.
Should read:
...Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 all...
I am going to apply for jobs and declare I was intimately involved with developing, and almost solely responsible for Kernel 8.0.