If support is possible on large systems, it must also be possible on small systems, and if m-soft refuses surely this puts it open to independent companies to offer support? In fact, doesn't it make XP an open-market product?
Yawn.
Microsoft have given every man and his dog more than enough notice about the impending obsolescence of XP (EOL first announced 14th April 2009). The fact people are too lazy to have done anything about it is not Microsoft's problem.
Do you realise how much it costs to maintain a complex codeset such as those in operating systems ? Microsoft cannot be expected to support everything forever. They now have support for 7 & 8 running, and are busy working on 9 .... so its only to be expected that they have to drop old products in order to make way for new.
There won't be any "interesting legal cases". And there won't be any "independent support" ... the XP source code remains Microsoft's own intellectual property.... only the same idiots who use XP after April would trust third-party patches !
I've already made it clear above why Microsoft give large government and businesses the opportunity to pay for support .... its because they have legacy systems that will take longer to migrate (or in the case of the NHS they've simply got a vast PC estate of some one million plus PCs... that's just going to take time to get into every nook and cranny). Home users and small business do not have such legacy systems or large estates, and thus they have no excuse not to migrate away from XP.