I haven’t been to a real XP machine in over a decade, 12 years, what software am I forgetting?

I just remembered Windows Media Player, with the cool show when you play music but what else am I forgetting that only came out before 2012 for xp machines?

 

It all depends on what you want, other than what comes with XP when you install it. You need to decide that and browse the internet to find what you want. You can have almost anything because there are hundreds (if not thousands), of software that support XP. They need not have come out before 2012, as you ask. There are many newer programmes also that still support XP

For instance, I use VLC player for media, PDFXchange Editor for documents and more than a dozen other free software. If you ask in the forum about suitable or recommended software, indicating what you want to do with it, you'll find enough support here.

 

There are tons of awesome programs for Windows XP. XP is the last version of Windows which works well out of the box with a lot of older devices and classic programs designed for Win3.1 and the 9x series, so you've got quite a wide range of software to work with. What I'm using right now:

-Mozilla Firefox 26.0 (the first version that works properly with the Twitter desktop page and a lot of other modern websites; you can go up to 52.9.1ESR, but I don't need it now)
-VLC Media Player 0.8.5 (the first version that allows me to properly stream .3gp videos with no trouble; the latest version still works, but I'd go no higher than 1.1.11)
-CCleaner 2.36 (the last version that will work with Windows 98/98SE/ME; it's lightweight and lightning fast, and my preferred version because of its simple/effective interface; AFAIK the latest version still works but I'd go no higher than version 5.32)
-Defraggler 1.21 (the last in the 1.x series; provides a fast and reliable defrag without unnecessary bells and whistles that the newer versions have)
-Disk Cleaner 1.5.7 (the last version of this obscure yet useful program that will work on Windows 9x/NT4/2K; you can go up to 1.8.1795 [which is the latest/presumably last version], but right now I don't need it)
-MS Office 97 (takes care of all my document/spreadsheet/presentation needs perfectly; you can go up to Office 2010, but I don't need it now, and I'd advise going no higher than Office 2003 w/the compatibility pack)
-Opera 9.27 (the last version with the classic 'Technicolor' skin; still very good for older/basic HTML sites, and while you can go up to 12.18 [if you'd rather stick with Presto Opera] I find myself not needing it at the moment)
-Winamp 2.79 (the oldest version I've tried that works reliably for my needs on a daily basis; the latest version [5.8] still works with XP, but it offers no major advantages to me over 2.79)
-7Zip 9.20 (the last version natively compatible with Win9x; the latest version [18.05] still works with XP, but I don't find myself needing it now)
-WinRAR 3.51 (very fast/reliable, and will run even on Windows 95; the latest version [5.61 IIRC] still works with XP, but I'd go no higher than 5.40 because of later versions defaulting to RAR5 [which is not compatible with old WinRAR versions])

I'm also using the Inexperience Patcher (version 0.7.2, which I believe is the latest and last unless there have been unofficial updates since then [which I would be iffy about anyway), which replaces many of XP's built-in components with their counterparts from Windows 2000, as well as some elements from Whistler betas and Windows ME. On my current system (an HP ProDesk 600 G1 with a Core i5-4690 at 3.5 GHz, 8GB of RAM [XP only sees 3.4GB, which is more than enough for me], a DVD drive [not a burner, but I seldom if ever burn CDs so it's not a big deal; hooking up an external burner is no great challenge], and a 500GB HDD), XP is running with the reliability of a nuclear clock. Absolutely incredible. If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know!