Windows XP support is dead, Long live XP Support - hopefully until 2019...
However if you update your registry you can get free updates until 2019. The official line from Microsoft is that these updates have not been been tested on Windows XP Desktop only on Windows XP for Embedded. In the past the updates for both variants of XP have been the same. Your mileage may vary
Registry Changes
- Open Notepad, create a new file.
- Add the following (cut and paste works too!) remember the symbols after dword: are zeros not the letter O
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]
"Installed"=dword:00000001
- Save file as .reg extension say XPChange.REG on your desktop or other suitable location
- run the change to the registry by double clicking
- Once run, you will find lots of pending updates in your Windows Action Center
- Reboot, relax, the updates will keep coming until 2019
Its worth pointing out that you should consider retiring XP even on low end PCs Win9 and Win8 are great options.
As a rule of thumb anything with an IDE drive is not worth keeping you need SATA with 700mb RAM most CPUs / Graphics cards are fine.
If you must stay on XP (and even if you are not) get Chrome and Firefox browsers and use these instead of Internet Explorer.