Realistically, how many years is XP around for?
 

So I'm looking for a windows OS to run in bootcamp for my mac. Probably mostly basic programs but most importantly games. And I know that XP is probably still better for gaming due to the lower system resource use...

But I have to admit that I feel reluctant paying 100 bucks to buy a 7 year old operating system. :orly: For 30$ more I could just get vista. Yet, so far I don't really like it, at least it seems pretty awful without that service pack.

So do I buy the outdated OS that supposedly won't even be sold for very much longer? Or go with the newer OS for future compatibility..

Neither.

Download a copy of well rated copy of XP from a reputable invite-only torrent tracker and put the $100 down on some new games. Univesity/student editions of XP are a dime a dozen these days.

craigslist yourself a copy of XP, i'm sure someone upgraded to vista and doesn't need it anymore :p

It's worth every penny. XP is a great OS, especially if you tweak it a little. Buy it.

Realistically they have committed to this timeline for all their products.
Generally I have seen MS bless places that bought XP licenses and still ran 9x and Win 3.1 back in those days. I would think the practice is still practical.

I just bought a new computer from Dell a few months ago. It came stock with Vista but I had Dell replace it with XP Pro. Vista is a bloated piece of crappola. Most of the "revolutionary" stuff that Microsoft promised got scrapped because of deadlines. I'm sure that MS will fix Vista just like they fixed XP. But right now Direct X 10 is the only advantage that Vista has over XP (In my opinion.) I'm quite happy with XP for now. Maybe a year from now I will switch to Vista. But I'm in no hurry. Hell, I sometimes miss Windows 2000!

Microsoft is halting production of new Certificates of Authenticity/site licenses/etc. for Windows XP in 2010.

I'd say XP is going to be around for a lot longer past 2010, however! I say go for it. XP is awesome.

Boy people sure love their XP..I guess Microsoft will have to pry it out of your cold clammy hands. ;)

Microsoft is brilliant.

Make a crappy OS that comes on every prebuilt system.

People go buy the old one at full price to replace crappy OS.

I mentioned that I opted not to get Vista with my new Dell. Cost me $90 more to get XP Pro! Could have had Vista for no additional cost. No thanks. But Ustwo is very much correct.

I have not seen a good reason to touch Vista yet. The obscene hardware requirements are the first problem I have with it, as my Athlon +1900 with 1 GB of ram works beautifully for me yet groans at the very thought of that OS. The only current upgrades I want to do are to something like a Athlon 2600+ for the CPU and 2 GB for the ram. My current systems are only six or seven years old with some upgrades along the way and fill every need thrown at them.
It would be nice to build one of those new snazzy machines, but I would run my current copy of XP for the windows apps, and use Ubuntu or something similar with some of that *nix eye candy.

I run Vista on all of my machines (wifes, mediacenter, laptop and work) and have had no problems with it. I like the look and feel much better and if you are using a Wacom tablet, the inking support and flicks are really useful. I actually took my gaming computer and hooked it up to my TV and ordered a remote receiver and TV tuner card and Media Center is my new DVR.

My advice is a little different.

You will have to upgrade to Vista at some point, but I wouldn't do it before the first service pack is released.

So I would buy a Vista business license (which really has everything you would need) and down-grade it with a legal XP copy. That way you can then upgrade to Vista w/o additional expense.

MS Will eventually force us all to use Vista. I will wait as long as I can. I don't want to "upgrade" to an OS that runs games 15 to 20 percent slower and needs 2 GB of RAM just to function. Most of the features that MS promised had to be stripped from Vista to meet the release date. It's just a big pile of crap. DX10? sure, that's a selling point. But don't ya think there's a reason that they won't release DX10 for XP? I'm thinking more and more about switching to Linux.

This presumes that you have people to invite you... :(