if you decide to stay with Microsoft: budget for some decent "System backup software" -
You are remembering to keep the vital stuff on COPIES on either the "Cloud", USB or DVD/CD's in a systematic way.
Mac, Windows, Linux I don't care... people who don't have a decent backup routine in place
FROM DAY ONE are idiots.
Drives fail, software goes AWOL, user errors happen
AT ANY TIME .... no backup routine and you're asking for trouble.
Bit strongly worded perhaps, it never ceases to amaze me the number of people who significantly underestimate the importance of a good backup routine !
(not aimed at CATIII-NDB, talking in general here...)
for a non-power user to upgrade TBH
Oh for gods sake....
Its not about power users, its not about supporting Microsoft.
Its to do with the stability of your system, and more importantly the
SECURITY of your system.
If you do online banking, undertake e-commerce transactions, keep personal and private information on your PC, you
MUST move away from XP.
The only safe XP machine after the 8th of April will be one that is
PERMANANETLY disconnected from the internet.
Anti Virus Software has evolved to have a very close intertaction with the workings of operating systems
Anti-Virus relies on the OS, in the APIs and other aspects of the OS. Find holes in the APIs that don't get patched up and your Anti-Virus is a worthless pile of code.
As I've said before, if I were a member of the dark side community, I would be holding back my best exploits and indeed putting more effort into finding new exploits because I would know how stubborn many XP users will be and hence quality exploits post-April will be worth more than gold.