We've warned you about the risks of running XP after the support cut-off date, and your options for replacement. Ghacks reports on an unsupported registry change that could extend the life of XP updates in certain situations.
The registry addition tricks Microsoft into thinking your PC is running the Point Of Sale "Embedded" version of Windows, which will continue to have updates until 2019. The change only works on 32-bit systems, not 64-bit. Microsoft warns this is a bad idea and suggests, naturally, you replace the operating system with Windows 7 or higher. If you make this change to an XP machine, you do this at your own risk. To make the change:
Make sure your computer is properly backed up in case anything goes wrong. Then, open Notepad to create a new text document.
Paste in the following text:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady] "Installed"=dword:00000001Save the text file, but change its extension from .txt. to .reg.
Double-click your newly-created .reg file to make the tweak.
If you have a system that you can't quite get rid of yet, this could make it last a bit longer. Hit the link below to read more about the tweak.
How to get security updates for Windows XP until April 2019 | Ghacks
Photo by Nina J. G.