The final set of "Patch Tuesday" security fixes for Windows XP will be released in six days.

In seven days, then, things might start getting ugly. If you still have an XP machine around, now is the time to deal with it.

Another year, another round of "OMG the PC is dying!" surveys.

We get the hint, market analysts. We've been expecting this for a long time. The sky is not falling. The PC is not dying. The computer market is doing exactly what we'd expect a functioning market to do under the current conditions.

People seem to think that I'm that guy who "knows computers". They're probably right, considering the unholy amount of time I spend building, fixing, programming, cursing at and occasionally using such devices. Maybe you, too, are "that guy", in which case the rest of this article will be face-palmingly familiar.

Or maybe you're looking for such a character, a Wizard of the Order of X86-64 who can help you with "a few little problems" your favourite laptop has developed. The answer is yes, we can (probably) put your hopelessly borked, slower-than-a-tortoise-on-Nyquil, late Paleolithic era Windows machine into a somewhat more usable state. But there are caveats, and you should know that: