Mixture
I can only agree re the warnings - 5 years.
You have guessed it: All three of my XP copies were purchased. One was an upgrade from Win ME (There lies a story), and the other two were new builds.
[Edit: Good point. re many users - They would accept the OS as just part of the PC package when purchased]
What set me thinking, were the comments on the Magazine podcast - by someone who should know what they are talking about, was the intimate relationship between the anti - virus prods and the Operating System (I suspect this does not only apply to XP). Bearing in mind your previous comments, re API vulnerabilities, could third party patches work (we would probably have to pay !!!)
The biggi is, for those of us with valuable (in work terms) legacy software.
The other biggi: the time and trouble, many of us have taken in setting up reliable and tested backup systems.
I have used an early Ver of Acronis 8. Very successfully. Others have had problems - Norton Ghost has worked well on the systems I've used.
Cloud backup: the obvious choice for many has been undermined by recent revelations - Encrypted or not.
For ordinary bods (me) the upload time for a smallish busy personal system say 25-30 Giga Bytes took ages -
Downloads were more practical.
I know there's a fundamental difference between a "System Backup" and a repository of critical personal work.
Simplicity is best for many people: Windows 8 really does complicate things and therein lies the problem.
CAT III
Last edited by Guest 112233; 31st October 2013 at 10:05.