I haven't used XP in a couple of years so no idea. At the time it seemed to actually run the stuff I needed to run.
However, recently I tried to install Visual Studio Express 2012 on a machine that's only about 3 or 4 years old that came with Windows Vista and that was a no go - needs Windows 7 or newer. Heck it didn't even bother checking for Windows 7 during the install, it just fails with an obscure error when you run it. Anyway I found that a bit shocking. I guess even Vista is almost 6 years old, but still I thought that was a bit quick of MS to be pulling the plug on supporting it with their own products.
I snidely figured this was how Microsoft was going to make money off their "free" products, forcing us to buy their latest OS all the time now. It would also make their "latest OS" adoption rates improve so things like Windows 8 won't be deemed a failure if you NEED it to run stuff. I think they are a bit worried that people are just happy to use whatever Windows OS came on their computer until the computer is dead and buried - I'm certainly in that category, I'll never do a Windows upgrade.
Anyway, if Vista is already considered this dead to them then XP is going to be even deader. But at long as it runs whatever you want to run I guess it's fine, though you might want to keep it off the internet if MS has stopped releasing security patches.
