Is Windows XP Dieing?

Is XP Dieing?
The article said XP was going to exit faster than previously
thought because support by the secondary market as well as
the manufacturer would rapidly go away, in spite of the
large number of computers worldwide still using it.

Has it begun? Are the walls already crumbling?
Below are the symptoms that make me think so.

My computer is always on. Good? Bad? Who knows?
But here is what happens, automatically, every day:

* Microsoft Security Essentials does a complete "Full Scan."
* Microsoft Updates are downloaded.
* AVG Antivirus Free does it's protection thing. (no firewall)

Here is what I do every day:

* Clear "History" 2-3 times a day.
* Run SUPERAntiSpyware "Complete Scan" nightly.
* Use Windows Task Manager to "End the Process" of Firefox,
when it sucks-up all the RAM 2,3,4 or more times a day.
* Run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Full Scan.
* Run Windows Disc Cleanup 2,2,4 times a day.

And, weekly go into "Safe Mode" and:

* Run all of the above.
* Run CCleaner.
* Run Spybot Search & Destroy.

STILL, the computer is slow.
A few to many seconds are needed to perform a function.
It has begun "locking-Up."
"Restart" has no affect.
Total shut-down makes no difference.

Now what?

defrag your hard drive.

Sounds like it's buggered up. Try reverting to a previous known good working configuration.

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/307852

Windows XP has been in feature updates for years. SP3 was released in 2008.

Security, breakfix ends April this year. After April no more Security Essential updates, no more OS security fixes.

It's slow because XP was never intended to run today's resources intensive programs. Code and performance metrics for applications have a baseline that exceeds XP's ability to deliver response that a user in 2014 expects. Moreover a majority of systems running XP are using hardware resources which are simply inadequate for running a more resent OS like Win7 or 8.

Likely time to upgrade your hardware and OS. Just upgraded my hardware just about a year ago.

Quote :

It's slow because XP was never intended to run today's resources intensive programs.

That's the short, and probably most accurate answer.

Unless there is an internal component going out, ie., memory, hard drive, then your computer is just as fast today as the day you bought it. However what it is trying to do today has changed and become more demanding of your computer.
The bigger problem is once the support stops for XP it will be extremely vulnerable. The time to upgrade may have come for you.

Better bump to Win7 at least. I have a Dell XP as my desktop for well over 10 years now. Keeps on tickin'. Need to upgrade soon, but don't want to go through the hassle of moving all my crap over. I also have a Win8 laptop for my security cameras.

Threat actors love XP, the attack surface and ease of entry is as easy as it gets.

Hard to know if Shatto ever comes back to read these responses but one other thing to check is if there's a pending window update. It's a possibility if you've disabled automatic updates. Pending updates love slow computers down.

* My antique, steam-powered, Soviet computer bit the dust.
It wasn't XP becoming obsolete, it was some capacitors on
the motherboard swelling and beginning to fail, causing
weird, unpredictable behavior.
So I gave my computer guy $340.00 for a prettier box with a
dual-core processor, more RAM and more of the other stuff
that makes this almost pretty-much modern. Ohboy!

Nice. That is a step up from soviet technology but Intel has been selling 6 core PC processors since around 2010.

Are you still using XP?