Windows XP guide for everyday use
If you are reading this guide, I am assuming you already like the idea of using Windows XP, but are unsure if it is still practical or safe to do so in this modern day and age. Don't worry! It's not as bad as you think!
The main concern in regards to security on Windows XP is that it is no longer being updated, which does admittedly create some risk. However, it's not as if Microsoft and Windows have ever been known for their high standards of security to begin with, and all versions of Windows have been greatly susceptible to virus attacks, updated or not.
If you used Windows XP in the past without worry, or are currently using a different Windows version without worry, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about using Windows XP now; the situation has not changed in any major way (if you are using Linux, then what are you doing here? Go feed your penguins). Just be careful about what programs you run, and scan anything you don't trust with VirusTotal and you will be fine (this advice applies equally to all Windows versions!). You could also do a periodic scan with ClamWin, if it sets your mind at ease.
The only Windows XP-specific precaution I'm aware of is that you should never disable the firewall. There seems to be a vulnerability that's exposed when the firewall is disabled which can infect your computer without you having downloaded or run anything, but as long as the firewall is up you will be safe. The built-in firewall works perfectly well and is usually enabled by default when you create a network connection, but do check just to be sure. It's still fine to make firewall exceptions for any ports or programs that need them.
Although that last point about the firewall might seem a cause for concern, as long as you keep the firewall enabled, I would say that the Internet is actually a safer place for Windows XP than it has ever been. It used to be the case that you could pick up a virus just by clicking a link or opening a spam E-mail, however newer Web browsers and E-mail clients have much higher standards of security than Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, so those days are long gone. Additionally, very few are still looking for vulnerabilities in Windows XP or trying to make new viruses for it, and similarly few are still distributing the existing malware (at least knowingly), as the Windows XP user base has become far too small for such endeavors to be worthwhile.
These are all my personal opinions, bear in mind that I am by no means a security
expert, or even a security amateur for that matter.
If you rely on modern software, this may seem like a major obstacle to switching to
Windows XP. Which it may very well be if you do 3D rendering or rely on other
graphics-intensive software, and switching to an older, Windows-XP compatible
version just isn't an option for whatever reason, or you just really want to play
certain games that don't support Windows XP. In that case, dual-booting Windows XP
alongside another operating system may be the only option for you (or using two
separate computers, if you prefer). You might also want to look into the
If after considering these options, you decide against using Windows XP altogether, I ask that you strongly consider at least getting Windows 7, if you are so unfortunate as to currently be using an even later version.
If the newer software you need to run doesn't require use of the graphics card, however, a simple solution is to run a newer Windows version within a virtual machine. This was my preferred method when I first moved from Windows 7 back to XP, in particular I used VMware Workstation's Unity mode, which displays each program window from the VM on your host desktop, so it feels like everything is running natively, and it works quite well even though it feels like something that shouldn't even be possible.... You can even create shortcuts on your desktop that will seamlessly start up the VM and run the program in Unity mode, just like running any other program. One detail to note is that, if you are using a 32-bit version of Windows XP, you will only be able to run 32 bit VMs, and therefore 32-bit software.
However, it may very well be the case that older versions of the programs you use could suit your needs just as well. They might not even need to be as old as one might assume, considering that Windows XP only lost official support in 2014, and many programs kept support for it even later than that.
Still, finding the right software can sometimes be difficult, but you can always stick with the VM option until you find a Windows XP-compatible alternative that you're happy with. In addition to resources linked at the bottom of this page, good places to find old software include The Internet Archive and sometimes even wiby.me. You can also try asking around for specific software recommendations on forums; either the various Windows XP-related forums listed at the bottom of this page, or perhaps more specialized, hobby-specific forums, depending upon your needs. RuTracker.org also has a good selection of software that might be hard to find elsewhere, but do be careful about what you download from there and scan everything before running it.
I would recommend the regular 32-bit version of Windows XP Professional for most people. Although it is not strictly necessary, I would recommend getting Service Pack 3 unless you have a specific reason for not wanting to, as it fixes some bugs. However, if you want the versions of Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player that originally came with Windows XP, I would advise that you avoid the Windows XP ISOs that come bundled with SP3, and instead install SP3 separately afterward. Internet Explorer in particular seems to be impossible to revert to a lower version of, once the newer version is installed.
Since the 64-bit Windows XP was never very popular, any program that supports Windows XP will almost certainly support 32-bit Windows XP. However, if you want to run a 64-bit OS within a virtual machine, you may want to get Windows XP Professional x64 Edition instead. This is basically Windows Server 2003 x64 with a Windows XP skin, so check that your hardware is compatible with Windows Server 2003 if taking this option. Keep in mind that you will lose the ability to run 16-bit programs made for Windows 95/98, and may encounter issues with some 32-bit programs or drivers that were never tested on a 64-bit operating system. I have used it a bit myself and never encountered any major issues however.
You could also try this patch to increase the RAM limit in Windows XP, but I can't recommend it myself since I have never tried it before.
Any pre-built computer or laptop that supports Windows XP should be fine. If you are going to build your own computer, there are a few things to keep in mind. Any hardware newer than 2009 will have been made for Windows 7 first and foremost, so while it will probably work fine as long as it has Windows XP drivers, you might be better off with pre-Windows 7 hardware if you want to avoid any driver issues. If you want to play computer games, graphics drivers are an important consideration. I would advise using a graphics card released only within a few years of the oldest games you care about playing. If it gives you issues, try to use the oldest driver for it you can find. Nvidia's advanced search hides older drivers past a certain point, but you can bypass this by selecting an older graphics card in the search and checking for your card in the compatibility list.
I have heard that there are issues using solid-state drives in Windows XP but cannot speak to this myself as I have never used one. It's probably fine either way, but my personal advice is to stick with hard drives, it's more authentic anyway, and you get auditory feedback when your computer is under heavy load :). If a standard hard drive isn't fast enough for you, perhaps try a 10,000 RPM one such as WD's VelociRaptor line, or use two hard drives in RAID 0.
A solution has been found, hooray! Run this file (more information); it will generate an activation key for you and apply it automatically, or you can enter it manually if you prefer.
This may be the only category where using only period-appropriate software is no longer viable, due to ever-changing HTML and encryption standards. Fortunately, there are a few Mozilla-based browsers for Windows XP still being regularly updated by roytam1, to whom I extend my utmost gratitude. There are a lot of specialized builds and they are labeled in a rather technical matter, but the one you will probably want is New Moon, a fork of Pale Moon, itself a fork of an older version of Mozilla Firefox. It is labeled on roytam1's site as "NM28XP"; get either Win32 or Win64 depending on your OS type. If the Win32 version doesn't work, your CPU might not support the new SSE2 instruction set, in which case you will need the build labeled "Win32 SSE". Users of old or low-powered computers may also want to look into K-Meleon and RetroZilla, both of which are much less resource-intensive and have updated encryption protocols, but lack some newer HTML5 and JavaScript features.
If you want an E-mail client built into your browser, roytam1 also has builds of SeaMonkey, named "IceApe-UXP". You can also get the E-mail client separately with "IceDove-UXP", or use the Mozilla Thunderbird fork "MailNews". For the sake of completeness I should also mention that there exist Windows XP builds of very new versions of Mozilla Firefox and even Google-freaking-Chrome listed on Skipster1337's site linked at the bottom of this page, but why anyone would actually want such a thing is beyond me...
The IRC clients I can recommend are IceChat 7 and Microsoft Chat. XChat 1.8 and mIRC aren't bad options either. There are no IRC clients with up-to-date SSL for Windows XP that I know of, but any IRC client can be connected through SSL using stunnel (32-bit version). You can still use AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo! Messenger with Phoenix, and MSN Messenger with Escargot. Pidgin has plugins that support many popular chat protocols. For screensharing and VoiceOverIP I recommend TeamViewer 7. It can't connect to the TeamViewer servers anymore, but it can be used over a virtual LAN using Hamachi. Hamachi 2.2.0 is the only one that still works on Windows XP that I have found, but it uses Internet Explorer for its login screen, and their site no longer loads on any Windows XP version Internet Explorer. You can still log in though, you just need to click “Attach to LogMeIn account” in the system menu, then approve the client through the Hamachi web panel. An Eclipse Community Forum user suggested TeamSpeak 2 as a VoiceOverIP client with several public servers still available.
ConferenceXP (Wikipedia) (Download) is also deserving of a mention, although without a server you will be restricted to a two-way call over Hamachi (The server isn't easy to set up either, you need a Windows server and a multicast connection, and even having both of those, I could never figure out how to get the multicast recognized by Windows...). Still, the list of features is quite impressive: text chat, voice chat, video chat, screen sharing, streaming video files, a shared web browser, a shared drawing pad, the list goes on!
I like Microsoft Office XP, but use any version you prefer. There is a plugin for Microsoft Office 2000, XP, and 2003 if you ever need to open the new XML-based formats. For text editors, I like Crimson Editor, but Programmers Notepad and Notepad++ seem good as well, although I haven't used either very much. JWPce is one of my favorite programs in general; it is a Japanese word processor with a complete Japanese-to-English dictionary built in. I also use it to type in Japanese and then copy the text over to wherever it needs to be, as I find the IME built into Windows to be rather annoying to use.
VMware Workstation 10 is very advanced and pretty easy to use. Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 (or 2007, if you need to run Windows 7) is a much simpler alternative, although I would only recommend it if you are brand new to virtual machines, as VMware isn't too hard to set up.
I use Paint.NET 3.5.4 for general image editing, GraphicsGale for pixel art, and Adobe Photoshop CS2 for graphic design. I highly recommend the entire Adobe Creative Studio 2 series, which you can find for free on The Internet Archive taken down ;A; but I'm sure you can figure something out.
I recommend using both VLC Media Player and MPC-HC with the Combined Community Codec Pack, they both have their strengths and weaknesses. For VLC Media player, anything newer than 2.0.2 (Twoflower) hasn't worked very well for me, although even the latest version supports Windows XP in theory. Winamp is my favorite music player mainly due to the extensive library of skins available for it. FFmpeg is very useful for re-encoding video and audio, although it takes a bit of learning due to its command-line nature, I think it's worth learning to use, if you have need for such things. You can find various Windows XP-compatible versions of it online without much trouble.
This section probably won't be as useful for most, but I'm including it as an example of the great plethora of software available for Windows XP, regardless of what you use your computer for. I don't personally use all of these since many accomplish the same task, but I have tried them all and found them to be good. Cidoku's Windows XP page and the OldSchoolDaw forum are good resources for other types of music software not mentioned here.
Driver Identifier: Most driver finding programs you will encounter are just plain malware, this is one of the few exceptions. Snappy Driver Installer is good too (Thank you Cidoku for recommending version R2201, I had also been having issues with later versions).
JDownloader2: Among its other uses, it is good for downloading from sites that break on New Moon.
Voidtools Everything: Indexes every file on your hard drive and lets you search for them instantaneously.
qBittorrent: The latest working version is 4.1.8. Use version 3.3.16 or earlier if you don't want the new flat icons. You can also still use uTorrent 2.2.1 or earlier if you like, although I have had issues connecting to some peers, likely due to outdated encryption
Process Hacker: A much more useful version of Task Manager
Unlocker: Lets you delete/move files that Windows won't let you
Total Commander: While it could be used as a total replacement for the Windows file explorer, I mainly find it useful for large file transfers, as it can be paused and resumed, and it lets you retry and resume if it encounters an error. It also supports Windows versions all the way back to 3.1 O_O
Vieas: A simple image viewer that gives you a window with the image and nothing else in it, no toolbars or buttons cluttering up the place
MWSnap: A very nice tool for taking screenshots
https://skipster1337.github.io/posts/windows-software.html - List of the newest versions of programs to support Windows XP
http://cidoku.net/notes/windows_xp_2 - A fellow Windows XP user's list of preferred software
http://wp.xin.at/archives/4212 - New games ported to Windows XP
https://www.oldversion.com/ - A place to download previous versions of software
https://gist.github.com/denizssch/72ec2aa1c5d0a84ffb57076f7dbf30d6 - List of Windows XP serial keys (it is amusing how long this has been left up, considering that Github is owned by Microsoft...)
https://www.xpforums.com/ - XP Forums
https://msfn.org/board/forum/34-windows-xp/ - MSFN Windows XP forum
http://board.eclipse.cx/viewforum.php?f=11 - Eclipse Windows XP forum