Hello 7toXP,
XP was, in my humble opinion, the best OS of it's time and is still viable today. Like the change from Windows 3 to Win 95, from Win 95 to Win 98SE2. Certainly Win 7 and onward do things a bit, or a whole lot better than XP in some respects. But, for the average user, or even a power user, XP is just plain fun. There are tweaks and other other modifications for XP I would not dare even try with Win 7. (I have two PC's, one with Win 7 Home Premium and the old clunker with XP Professional).
Faster - well, depends on the hardware a lot of course. I can say that hard disk to USB stick copy or cut/paste is a lot faster with XP on the old clunker than with Win 7 on the "800 pound gorilla". Application open time is about on par for both OS's except for massive office suites or massive flight simulators. I don't miss a thing about it because I still use it every day and it is, strangely enough, my OS of choice. I suppose ten years of using XP gives a bit of experience with what XP can actually handle helps and then the "tweaking" as well. I am given to changing OS's from time to time - different flavours or Linux, BSD, Haiku, and a few more, even OS/2 but always keep my fully loaded hard disk with XP in my desk drawer. I have seen GRUB do horrible things to a hard disk boot sector and now never use a dual boot set up.
Back to XP - sure 32 bit it is (for me anyway) but the sheer wealth of software, open source, freeware for XP never leaves me without the program or app I want. Certainly Win 7, Win 8, or even the much maligned Vista look "prettier" but do they do the ordinary things any better than XP. In most cases it is, "line ball" to me. Most of us use an OS for ordinary things I suppose. Why use a cannon to shoot a canary. I like simplicity but that is just me I suppose. When I first installed XP on a P3 machine with 128 Mb RAM and a 550 Mhz processor ten years ago I found XP rather slow. Now, today, XP Professional on a ten year old Dell (1 Gb RAM and 3 Ghz processor) XP really flies. Good enough for me anyway. If I could categorise the best points of XP as it suits me they are:-
Robust - easily repair any problems with many apps or the original install CD.
Familiarity - I know what XP is doing "under the hood".
Fast - even on old hardware these days.
Support - this forum and many places on the web.
Simplicity - ok, the GUI looks a bit dated but it is the ability of the OS to "do the job".
Yes, Microsoft has ended support but a good anti-virus program, firewall, malware removal program, and the usual clean up and optimise programs keep XP "fresh".
I suppose having and using XP is now like driving a classic car, say a 1970 Boss 429 Mustang. Look after the classic and it will continue forever and give you enjoyment and functionality.
My thoughts anyway.
Cheers,
Aunty Jack.