Windows XP was the greatest OS in computing history.
Even if they had to get rid of it, they still could have kept it as a lower-tier OS for people who don't want the bells and whistle.
BTW, Windows 10 is "popular" only because Gates is force-feeding it to you and you have no choice but to upgrade.
Because most of the built in holes had been found exposed, and patched closed. So new software with new holes had to be pushed out.
Yes and yes.
The Windows XP kernel, which is 5.1 (basically, Windows NT 5.1) is not sustainable in a world of advanced hacks and buffer overflow attacks.
The Windows 7 kernel is actually is 6.2 (Vista was 6.0, and Windows Server 2008 was 6.1), and has deep level improvements that couldonly be achieved thru a complete kernel rewrite (the 6.x kernel) and has such features as elevation of privilege, buffer overflow mitigation, placing user executables in user, not system folders, and other controls.
Both Windows 8 and now Windows 10 improve on this and further limit successful attacks.
Did you know that the Legal department at Microsoft is the single largest department?
EVERYDAY the face multiple lawsuits from various organizations and users that were successfully attacked and their data lost, stolen or compromised in some way.
Back during the 1990s, it was expected that security was the responsibility of the end user. This was flipped over the years.
To prevent liability from dumb practices and lack of security on the part of end users, Microsoft has put many of these measures into the OS.
In many cases, you can turn them off, but they are now on by default.
If you want to go into the cesspool that the Internet is without protection, by all means, go for it.
But it ain’t Bill Gates making you do so (by he way, he’s long since retired and has nothing to do with the company’s operations.)