Of course I could get a Mac, bt I'd really rather not switch platforms or buy a bunch of extra expensive hardware for this one purpose. I could also run Linux, but until very recently the selection of music production software has been poor.
That said, I don't have any complaint with MS about their decision to abandon the platform, I think they've done a good job in supporting it this long. I do wish they'd rethink their driver priorities though, MIDI has been around for over 30 years, and being 7-bit ~32kbps it can't be that hard to get decent realtime performance.
XP was crappy - it hit the disk so often and hung.
DYI http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-... although you'll have to wade through some non-techie voodoo interpretations if you peruse the whole thread. Also, bear in mind that this is a particularly fussy demographic. I sometimes think if you are that obsessed then maybe MIDI isn't the protocol for you, but OTOH there isn't much in the way of OSC hardware on the market :-/ It's notable that there's a bit of a CV renaissance underway though, a lot of people prize timing/resolution over versatility.
If it uses ASIO MIDI back end it'll miss all the problematic message loops.
I only use SYSEX and use the Triton Studio sequencer though as its the most awesome thing ever made by man.
(To break the metaphor, our server is hooked up to a PCI-X card which runs a radiation sensor. The drivers for the card will not run under anything after XP. The vendor has discussed possibly considering looking into designing a new card that would might run under Vista, but that's probably five years down the road.)
Our products using XP Embedded are expected to still be in the field well past 2020. We are already making plans to transition to Windows 8 simply because it will soon be impossible to buy XPe licenses.
At this stage, Windows XP users are like Japanese soldiers stranded on an island, growing old not knowing they lost the war. Except without the excuse of being on an island.