> Does the author actually use Windows XP?

I've switched to XP (from Windows 7, on a VM) and the performance is astounding even on limited hardware settings. No bloatware, just good old Win32 x86.

I recently pulled an old laptop out of the closet with a mostly stock image of XP to play with an old device and it felt so snappy.

It's sad how bloated things have gotten.

Is it connected to the network?

Mine is. Why?

Because XP is no longer receiving security updates

And?

What do you mean and? The implications are implicit; any vulnerability will be unpatched, so bad actor (tm) has to know only ONE vulnerability after XP support was ceased. If he has means of talking to the machine through TCP/IP or UDP he will have 100% guaranteed access.

You wouldn't believe how much traffic is hammering IP ranges with known vulnerabilities. Forward port 22 to your Linux box or similar, check the logs for number of "connection attempts", it's going to be glorious log. A-HOLES of this planet are doing this just to get control of devices connected to the internet, if for no other reason than use them in DDoS-for-hire service. If there is a quick buck to be made.. they'll be all over it. Human parasites.

You normally wouldn't forward open ports on your VM straight through your host and also through your LAN (or at least, I wouldn't), so that's not really a huge attack vector.

The main threat would be connecting to a malicious server that attacks some hypothetical hole in the TCP/TLS stack when you connect, but such servers aren't really omnipresent, and you can apply the usual measures of 'making regular backups' and 'not keeping extraordinarily sensitive data on a VM' to mitigate any impacts.

(Looking at actual historical holes, I find things like CVE-2005-0048, which requirs a malformed IP packet a modern router wouldn't pass through, and CVE-2007-0069 and CVE-2019-0708, which require a malicious incoming connection to a particular port. There's also stuff like https://www.forcepoint.com/sites/default/files/resources/fil..., but that's not really specific to XP services, and requires many stars to align unless you're running a vulnerable HTTP service.)

> My question is: Does the author actually use Windows XP?

Significant overlap between the types of people who use WinXP and write 3D file format importers in C, I think! Though I prefer 7 myself.