Things I learned at Microsoft.com

Mainstream support for XP ended on April 14, 2009.
Extended support will end on April 8, 2014.

(But it's not clear what the difference between mainstream and extended is.)

"Without Microsoft support, you will no longer receive security updates that can help protect your PC from harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software that can steal your personal information. For more information go to Microsoft Support Lifecycle."

There is a page where one can look up an old program and see if Windows 8 will support it. I looked, and it will support Noteworthy Composer 2. However, they call it a 'Music and mp3 program' and they don't mention MIDI. I hope they know what they're talking about.
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Somebody said something about Microsoft making 'change for the sake of change.' I don't think that's what they are doing. They are changing software because people are changing. People age 10 to 40 want everything at their fingertips, they want it immediately, and they want to communicate in 140 characters or less.

Microsoft needs to realize that the person who is designing an interstate or composing a song wants to work at a different pace from the teenager who desperately needs to text a buddy with "Wotcha doin?"

Have you ever noticed how many chord requests we get from people who have a problem but don't explain anything about what they need? I figure they were raised on Twitter. Regular catters have to log on and tell them it's okay to talk about themselves for a bit.