The time frame for support of WinXP has not been changed.

Microsoft has recently extended, by six months, the time during which they will provide WinXP to OEM builders so that people who buy new machines with Vista installed can be offered the "downgrade" to WinXP.

The extension of the time during which you might be able to get WinXP does NOT AFFECT the date on which it becomes "unsupported."

WinXP SP3 does change some "security features," especially if your WinXP wasn't "completely up to date" before SP3 was installed; and it may have affected other programs on your computer. There have been a few reports of specific programs that did run on WinXP that cease to run when SP3 is iinstalled. There may be other programs that run, but not quite as well.

WinXP SP3 was installed on my prior computer, just before it died of extreme old age, and it caused no noticeable problems there. It was recently installed on Lin's fairly new WinXP (originally with OEM SP2) with no problems.

Those reporting problems appear to be mostly those with machines more than 10 years old, with less than 1GB RAM, with limited (less than 150GB) hard drive space, with limited (often on-the-motherboard) graphics cards, and those using lots of "third party software." (Lots of games have been the subject of complaints, due to graphics card demands and poor third-party compatibility.)

If you can identify a specific program that's having a problem with SP3, you may find an update is available from the program builder. Graphics cards and printers may have new drivers that will help.

Many WinXP users may be still using Office programs that went "out of support" some time ago. WinXP patches caused my Word 2002 to "cease working" more than a year ago, although Lin's Word 2003 still seems to be fully functional with WinXP SP3. (Office 2002 was the "standard" with "WinXP Business" when I got my previous machine.)

Since WinXP is at "end of life cycle" you can expect that future security patches will not be checked for full compatibility with other "end of life cycle" Microsoft programs, or for compatibility with third-party programs, and that lots of things will begin to "work less well" as the OS is allowed to die.

If your machine has any problems with WinXP SP3, you may assume that you should NOT ATTEMPT to use it with Vista. Vista is a "workable" pain in the a** if you have enough machine to run it. If you're forced to replace older Office software, the only description I can give for the only replacement available from Microsoft - - Office 2007, is "TOTAL FUCKUP."

John