Blog Details

Well, it turns out Microsoft XP isn’t dead after all. All the hype over “Dump XP, and get into Windows 7 or 8… ASAP” has been given a “stay of execution” by the recent hack spotted by betanews. The hack involves utilizing Microsoft’s existing support of POSReady machines until 2019. It just so happens that these machines also run XP SP3, but in a 32 bit flavor.

The updates provided to these POSReady machines are essentially the same updates that would’ve been provided to the average user had support not ended for these machines. The only caveat is that these POSReady machines utilitze a stripped down version of the WinXP retail release (which is designed for POS applications exclusively). Therefore, it is essential to disclose that had MS not ended support for the WinXP full versions, you might have gotten more updates compared to what this hack will provide you with.

All that aside, with this Hack you can essentially get continued updates until 2019. How cool is that?

This is how it is done.

Create a text document, and call it XP.reg. You’ll need to make sure .reg is the proper extension — so not “XP.reg.txt”. If it’s not showing up as a registry file, open any folder, go to Tools > Folder Options, select View and check ‘Show hidden files and folders’. Also, uncheck “Hide extensions for known file types”.  That should fix the problem.

Right-click the file, and select Edit. Paste in the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]

“Installed”=dword:00000001

Save it, and then double-click the file. That will make that change to the registry. That’s all you need to do. Windows will now automatically fetch updates designed for POSReady 2009, ensuring XP remains protected for the foreseeable future.

This trick only works for 32-bit editions of XP, but there’s a workaround for 64-bit versions here.

Of course, there is no way of knowing with any amount of certainty how long this hack will remain open. Microsoft could put a stop to it at any moment. Also, there is a possibility that all the updates downloaded as a result of this hack might not be applicable to your system. Buy hey, if you get an extra 5 years out of the deal…. why not?