I loved my XP, but my six-year-old desktop was slowing down despite it being a zippy character when I purchased it. Plus it was crashing more. So purchased a new Win7 system before they were no longer available. Surprised myself - I liked Win7 more than I liked XP. Some new features worked well for me.
Then I decided to reformat the hard drive on my old desktop and load Win7 on it. It has a new lease on life. Works wonderfully well. I fretted the graphics card would not work well without a new driver for Win7, but no issues what-so-ever.
Now I'll be a Win7 hold out for years.