I don't see why people are up in arms over this.

Windows 2000 is a four year old operating system, and there are times when you have to move foward. If someone was still on RedHat6 and they were complaining about having to download and upgrade to Redhat9, we would give them a firm slap across the face. But when it's Windows and Microsoft, "NO ! no! unFAIR!"?

Sure, XP costs $125 on ebay. And? After four years I'm sure you could have saved that money up, and if you didn't prepare for future computer upgrades rather than playing it cheap to think that one particular version of anything is going to outlast and outpreform (even on gaming) a newer OS release... then it was your fault.