Microsoft has announced the date that it will stop supporting Windows XP. You have one year from today to before XP will become officially 'unsupported'. Here's how the NBR reported it:
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/microsoft-calls-time-windows-xp-still-used-500000-nz-computers-ck-138309
XP was released in 2001 - so is showing it's age with three iterations of Windows (Vista, Win7 and Win8) having been subsequently released.
It's a shame, but progress has to be made. The fact that the operating system (OS) will no longer be supported does not mean that it will stop. Microsoft will just stop issuing updates and support for it. If you have an old XP system running on old hardware it will keep going.
I love XP. It's a wonderful, faithful old companion. I like it's simplicity and the way it worked. I spent many thousands of hours playing Doom II on an XP system - these were some of the happiest times of my IT career.
What shall we do with old hardware which won't run the later versions of Windows?
1. Keep running XP on it. As mentioned above, XP will keep going. When the hardware breaks then dump it.
2. Upgrade the hardware. This sounds great, but is not really an option. The costs are prohibitive and you would be better buying a new system.
3. Install Android. Yup - you heard me right. I installed Android 4.0 onto a pen drive and use it to boot my old XP laptop up. Android works wonderfully on old humble hardware and will become my laptop's OS should XP die on me.
The Android OS is free to download so you have nothing to lose. Search the Internet for instructions using the keywords "x86 Android" to find out more or use this link to the Wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android-x86
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