I thought this was cool, it's evidently; it's already well known, but I never realized it. You can actually, right now, download directly from the Microsoft site the iso to Windows XP (2009) - only they don't call it that, they call it "Microsoft Windows Embedded POSReady 2009". This guy downloaded it a few months ago and installed it on a 20 year old Dell desktop pc, burnt the iso to cd, installed it entered his existing windows key and demonstrates a fully functional working Windows XP in action in 2026.
Here's the Microsoft page for it.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11196
It says it's specifically for retail, kiosks, and ATMs, but it is clearly Windows XP Professional in every respect
I haven't looked at the video, but I wonder if Windows Update works on it. That was a problem if you attempted to install earlier versions of XP. There have been recent updates to XP, for, as the name of this iso implies, it's still used in a lot of POS installations.
@artisan-radio I don't think so, I think Windows update for any XP install ended years ago. But this "Windows Embedded POSReady 2009" is a 32-bit (x86) operating system based on Windows XP Service Pack 3, designed for point-of-service devices
. - Just looked and any extended updates for it ended in 2019, but that doesn't affect its operation in anyway, nor do I think most people would use XP for online anyway, so it doesn't really matter