Things run fine and have for years without any MS updates. I follow that same regimen with Win 7 and it works.
Xp WAS a great operating system for it’s time. I loved it. However, Win7 was even better. That’s where I stopped because Win fell back into their mediocre practices with win* and above. A year ago I put Linux Mint 16 on my computer, and have upgraded to 17.3 which is the latest edition. I LOVE it. It’s a very polished OS and will work on an XP machine. It’s free, secure, has a ton of free programs to do anything you want done. If you’re a total diehard for windowsxp or win7 because you are madly in love with certain software, you can still use it! Mint runs windows too as a Vm machine. The only flaw I found was in saving files to be accessible both in and out of the windows vm,m but it IS doable. I just didn’t know how to do it. It’s something you have to do when you set up the VMM.
OR you can set your machine for a dual boot so that you can choose which system you want to boot into when you turn the machine on.
There is nothing I can do in windows that I can’t do in the linux flavor I use. Mint isn’t the only choice, there are many choices and some work better than others on any given machine so you can decide which one is best for your particular machine.
For those afraid of linux, the android operating system on your android phone is linux. It’s THAT flexible. Google customizes it for their phones. Linux is customizable.
mjIt took me a while to make the transition because I really didn’t want to so I had to overcome my own headspace. It became much easier to do that when win8 and above came out, and when they started trying to force windows 10 upgrades on win7 macnines, as well as when win7 upgrades were so poorly designed that they began to crash the OS.
Additionally, I didn’t like having to let windows claim space on MY harddrive and computer by forcing me to do what they refused to do...secure their os. I was constantly having to maintain, upgrade, install protection software, antivirus updates and programs, malware programs, rootkit programs..you name it, I got sick of it. And every time I turned around there was yet another security failure or security update to turn you into a criminal thief.
I have more important things to do with my time and energy than futz around with windows bs.
I had one piece of windows software that I used a lot, and had files that I needed. So, I installed ‘doz, the software, uploaded the files to an online drive and emailed them to myself. I downloaded the files, converted them to a format that a linux program could utilize, and got rid of windows.
I learned a new software which is every bit as good if not better to accomplish my task. It’s worth making a few changes to break away from what I’ve come to see as a rather expensive addiction.
Why should I have to buy a new computer to accomodate a new windoze and go through the hell of upkeep and repair of that OS only do discover it’s really nothing more than a trojan? No thanks!
“Irrelevant, do not connect with squat, so where is the security risk?”
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Your use case is the exception. The vast majority of Xp machines are connected to the internet.