I’m currently using XP for the ‘doze-specific CAD/CAM programs that will only run on it and that Wine will not work on, but I remember well how familiar all this sounds when I reflect upon the problems users encountred when attempting to Switch Up from Win2k.
Thankfully, at least then there was no mandatory or stealth “upgrades” yet produced back then.
Still forced to use ‘doze for the few programs that still do not have ports for Linux as of yet, but for pretty much everything else I have been quite satisfied with Linux for years now.
Yeah, when XP came out, everyone hated it. :’) A friend had to replace his WFW box, he kept the old inkjet printer, and the XP warning was that the driver may need an update or weird errors, etc. Worked fine.