What is your favorite memories with windows xp?

What is your favorite memories when you were a kid or teen or adult mine is when I was a kid here is my story 

Back in 2009 to 2012 I used to play Tomy hawks American wasteland played through every single stage from the high score free Skate with a xbox original controller and I had everything unlocked already because there was a code where you can unlock everything because I was too young to play the campaign but it was the PC version of the game that had 5 disc I think but 

Until that was over i Started to play.   flash games this might be the most sad thing about this that flash doesn't exist anymore only on windows xp still but I used to play Mario games in flash player officially super Mario flash 1 an 2 I made levels but never uploaded them because I didn't have a Gmail account again I was too young to even know what that is so pretty much thats all I can remember but I still have my windows xp computer and I love it

But tell me your stories about your memories of using the operating system hopefully someone will have even more things to say and maybe someone who did the same things as I did.

Flash games still exist (I play them from time to time, racing games mostly and for a time I played Tower Defense games).... They aren't operating system dependent, more browser dependent, no?

I think I played Need for Speed High Stakes on Windows XP. If that is true then I sure do have a lot of fond memories from Windows XP, but really the memories are from NFS:HS. For me that game had everything: super-fun arcade speed without any of the silly gimmicks that arcade racing games have today like OTT jumps, freeze cams and nitro. It was also the first racing game I played that had a career mode. I remember struggling near the end of the career mode on a very long tournament with 8 lap tracks. While it was a bear to tackle that tournament, it had the feeling of epicness that a racing game never had before. I loved the game too much for it to feel tedious. I struggled to get gold on that tournament. I kept getting silver, there was one track near the end of the tournament called Snowy Ridge and I'd bang up my Mercedes CLK-GTR too badly too soon and lose too much performance to hold off my opponents for the entire 8 laps. I think at the time the Mclaren F1 GTR was too fast for me to handle so that's why I went with the slower and poorer handling CLK-GTR. I later came to master the game, though. Getting gold in all the tournaments unlocked the Tournament of Champions, which wasn't all that difficult, but had some memorable tracks such as Summit in reverse and at night. It is actually quite sad to me that there are no games like it to play today and I haven't been able to get it to work on a modern machine (currently have Mac and PC machines). 

I'm sure I have other memories of using Windows XP, but I cannot remember any of them at the moment!

Some of my best memories with Xp are playing some shovel-ware grade helicopter game that came with some cereals some time around '06 and watching Prehistoric Park's"documentary" that my uncle downloaded on my father's old laptop.

The only true memory of Windows XP is getting several viruses and using ms paint like a pro. No, I'm totally not projecting.

I remember playing Minecraft with my cousin in his Laptop with WinXP, I also got to play a game that I don't remember it's name, but it was cool

(Or was it with Windows Vista? I was like 7 or 8 years old after all)

Playing minesweeper, so many fun memories

Changing the desktop wallpaper was so cool and modern. It's already been a thing in older versions, but it wasn't on by default so I didn't know it was a thing until Windows XP. Also I recall the desktop icon labels having opaque rectangles behind them because "transparency in desktop icons" was a toggleable "quality vs performance" feature.

My brother and I finding new ways to explode park guests in Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 and 3

This sample song:

One thing I also remember were the cool and trippy visualizations when you listened to music in Windows Media Player:

Man I really miss the days of Windows XP.

I don't remember that David Byrne song, hearing it now I like it a lot. I remember the other two (Symphony #9 and Highway Blues)

I saw on some random web result searching just now the David Byrne song wasn't included on SP2 or SP3 but idk how true that is.

heh

I liked the silver colour scheme. 

Good old memories playing Quake 3 arena, Unreal Tournament, Sonic Adventure DX and NFS Underground 1/2.

Disabling Aero and making it look like Windows 98 again.

Most fave was hearing this for the first time:

Least fave was hearing this for the last time:

When having a fresh install pressing shift five or more Times to trigger that lock mechanic and disabling it, to not get disturbed while gaming with it.

Look and Feel was nice, later in the life span i had a unofficial black style.

And yes the Games, i remember that i had to get used to it that i can run games as Quake 3, jedi knight jedi outcast and black and white with it.

I and my friends made own Stuff with Movie Maker by using paint to make every frame, somehow the first iterations where better than later ones.

My favorite memory of Windows XP was when I figured out how to reset the desktop to the old school Windows 2000 style. I remember thinking that the default Win XP status bar was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. 

That being said, Win XP made itself useful. From a compatiblity perspective it was better for the games I was playing for my YouTube channel than the perfidious Windows Vista, so XP helped until Windows 7 came out. 

my mum kept a windows XP comp in her dressing room, I remember getting in trouble over having a Myspace when I was a preteen XD other than that I have a lot of lovely memories with Space Cadet. Also the wallpapers were all dope.

There's something I just remembered and it was custom themes, I remember getting C&C Tiberian Sun and getting GDI and NOD themed custom themes. I thought they were really cool and I'd always pick the NOD theme, there was even custom sound effects and icons to go along with it which was dope. Themes still exist today in Windows 10 but IMO they're not as interesting as old themes because they're mostly just wallpapers with some color changes to the UI.

3D pinball is another great memory.

The whole thing. It was my favorite windows OS and so far none since I’ve impressed me nearly as much as XP did. That’s not to say there hasn’t been much needed improvements from XP through Windows 11, but the whole experience with XP was unforgettable. 

Windows XP is the only M$ OS I've actually liked for its own sake. That music is so nostalgic for me. I use 7 on my personal machines, and 10 for work, but nothing is as good as the old school. Or that particular old school. (98 was fun too, but was finicky.)

I had a windows xp when I was 12 and I specifically remember messing around on rpg maker vx a ton back in the day, aswell as playing doom. One thing I used to do a ton was download a bunch of deicide mp3s and have them playing in windows media player in the background while I played through ultimate doom on ultra violence and nightmare. Simpler times

My fond memory of Windows XP is that it was the first Windows which really just worked. Maybe that could have been 2000 actually, but we had it too little and also didn't really have the same luck with. But Windows XP was truly the first Windows which no longer BSODded at the slightest provocation, apps crashing didn't bring the entire system down, and most USB devices just worked without needing drivers, it was this smart. Windows 95-98 was truly a dork age, glad the technology got over it and we got access to sane operating systems. I guess the internet access and proliferation of individual professionals was a strong driver for this, it would have been disastrous for security to have such a weak OS. 

Sure, support for DOS apps like doom.exe was waning, but fortunately back then I was happy to just use Eternity or play other contemporary games. 

XP was good. Still use to today on one of my PC's.

My favorite memories with Windows XP have to be playing through both the original F.E.A.R. and Doom 3, as well as it being the last Windows OS I could install and boot up Doom 95 and Hexen 95 on. Great memories to watch those classic splash install screens pop up:

I liked the part where it wasn't Windows ME.

I had Windows ME and it blue screened every day. I would end up reinstalling a fresh copy of the OS and fully updating it like once a month just to keep it functional.

It sucked so hard I wanted to switch to Windows 2000 or 98SE, but it was the family PC and my dad had just bought it and 10 year old me couldn't convince him.

But eventually we got a copy of XP and suddenly the computer didn't suck anymore.

Spending a few hours trying to get Blood to run on it. And eventually after a few downloads, it did. Happy times.

That I couldn't install it. It was a virtual machine I tried to set up. I was pretty much challenging myself to install every windows version and i failed:

Firstly, I didn't know how to download windows 95, since it required me to use a floppy. Secondly, I failed windows me, 2000, and XP.

My first computer was on XP, so my favourite aspects of the OS are probably all retrospective, realising how good it was not to have to deal with 8's UI that was a complete waste of space, or Vista having the minor issue of not actually working. First memory of XP that came to mind was playing Donkey Kong on Flash with some epilepsy-inducing advert to the side telling me I'm the millionth visitor (again) and I've just won an iPhone 3.