A friend of mine was having problems with his Windows XP machine, and he asked if I’d take a look at it. Unfortunately for him, my answer was “No.”

Imagine you’re an automobile mechanic. A friend drives up one day in a Model-T. It has plate glass windows. It has no seatbelts. It doesn’t have an airbag. It doesn’t have anti-lock brakes. It doesn’t have turn signals. It doesn’t have side rear-view mirrors. It doesn’t have a roll cage.

What a quaint and curious car, you think. It would be great to have one in the garage, and maybe on sundays you could take friends for a drive around the block in the sputtering beast.

Your friend then says to you, “I need this car fixed right away. I’ve got a delivery business and I spend ten hours a day driving this thing through city streets, on freeways, and down winding mountain roads.”

What do you say to your friend? Do you fix his car, and send him off to endanger his business and his life in that vehicle?

No. You tell him to stop driving his Model T and get a new car. You explain, in layman’s terms, why his quaint Model T is out-of-date, unreliable, and unsafe. You tell him this not because you hate Ford & Ford’s Model T, but instead because he’s your friend and you care about his livelihood and his life, and because you would be peripherally responsible if something bad happened to him.

In other words, “No, I won’t fix your Windows.” Get a new car.