This longevity could, at times, be downright annoying. XP's tenure was significantly longer - it was Microsoft's primary consumer OS for over five years (2001-2006) and continued to be popular in-market until after the release of Windows 7 in 2009. Prior to XP, Microsoft had iterated its consumer operating systems relatively quickly, with Windows 3.1 in 1992, followed by Windows 95, 98, and Windows ME in 2000. When Bill Gates decided to put a major emphasis on security with Windows XP SP2, Microsoft didn't go with rebranding or launching a new version of the OS despite making a number of significant changes under the hood. This was partly a reaction to Windows Vista and partly the result of XP's unusually long tenure. Windows XP was also the first OS to seriously suffer from a major 'good enough' problem that saw end-users refusing to update long after the OS had passed its prime. Fortunately, Windows 7 was good enough that most people let go on their own. Initially controversial for its 'candy' visuals, devoted fans of the OS were clinging to it with both hands by the time Windows Vista was mature, insisting they'd let go when God Himself reached down to pry their fingers off. This is not to say that XP didn't or couldn't have stability issues, or that every 16-bit piece of software or 98SE-loving peripheral behaved well with the OS, but XP remains the only operating system I ever looked to for its ability to resolve issues outright that were hampering a machine on a different operating system. What I remember most about it was its ability to stabilize formerly recalcitrant PCs that didn't behave particularly well on Windows 98 SE. I was an early adopter of Windows XP, from RC1 forwards. The OS was supported in-market (in one form or another) for 17 years, 7 months, and 16 days - just shy of being old enough to vote. Surveys like the Steam Hardware Survey no longer show any results for the venerable OS, while NetMarketShare claims worldwide, 3.72 percent of machines are still running XP. It's not clear how many users are still using Windows XP worldwide. Prior to this point, it was still possible to use a registry hack to enable OS updates on still-operating versions of Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro SP3, though Microsoft strenuously argued that users shouldn't do this. The venerable operating system's last publicly supported variant - Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 - reached the end of its life cycle support on April 9, 2019.

As of today, the long saga of Microsoft Windows XP has finally come to an end.

Windows xp sp3 pro