There’s loads you can do to harden XP but I won’t be doing online banking or purchases with XP after the end of April. However I will continue using XP for non security-critical stuff for a considerable time to come. I back up up the system every fortnight. It will be most interesting to see if the doom-mongers are right about XP.

If you know your system intimately, a HIPS is well worth the nag popups.