Windows XP reached End of Life in April 2014. Its recommended to avoid continued use of this version of Windows unless you need it for specialist applications, in most cases a Virtual Machine on newer hardware is recommended opposed to using an old computer. See my Virtualisation guides.
A standalone Unofficial Service Pack 4 was released for Windows XP:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Signatures-Updates/Windows-XP-SP4-Unofficial.shtml
Applying this Unofficial Service Pack will patch your Windows XP installation all the way to the 8th of April 2014 when the last update for Windows XP was released.
Legacy Guide
This guide should be considered a Legacy Guide. I have not tested it out in some time and the Unofficial Service Pack is much faster to download and install.
The WSUS Offline Update should be used to patch all Windows XP physical installations and virtual machines offline. It can be downloaded from the WSUS Offline Update Website:
http://download.wsusoffline.net/
Specifically version 9.2.1 should be used as its the last version that supports Windows XP:
http://download.wsusoffline.net/wsusoffline921.zip
Detailed instructions in patching a Windows XP installation fully are documented here
- For a physical machine start at 4:14 as the earlier part of the video demonstrates setting up a Windows XP VM
- For details in setting up a virtual machine start at the beginning:
The video below is displayed in two formats, natively on WordPress and also on YouTube. Ensure to select HD to the top right or watch on YouTube with the maximum video quality for best results:
is this still working? I mean are the servers still up and running?
Not tried using the WSUS Offline Update with Windows XP in ages. There is a far more elegant solution however – "the unofficial service pack 4":
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Signatures-Updates/Windows-XP-SP4-Unofficial.shtml
USP 4 trashed my old XP Pro Inspiron laptop. Thankfully I don't use it much, but it's a lot of work rebuilding it. Totally do NOT use that thing. I am a longtime XP expert and I trusted it, which I wish I hadn't done!
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH< trying to install and patch a windows xp iso/disk for updating a windows xp vm on a hypervisor as use for testing applications for app development projects I'm working on and I could not get xp to properly connect to the internet to any modern site (sites after the early 2000's IE google) and this just might prove to be useful for me, so THANK YOU FOR THIS.
I can confirm as of right now, it is downloading updates for xp on a modern windows 7 system as of august 2017, even though microsofts own website would not let xp connect to it to find updates.