I have one old Panasonic Toughbook that still runs XP. It's a control system for a specific scientific instrument. Damn thing just keeps chugging along. Fortunately, I physically removed the wifi chip lest anyone get any ideas.
Hey, I like to live dangerously! I still have a Windows XP ISO (yes, it's pirated come at me micro$oft) I use to make virtual machines in VirtualBox from time to time.
Same, except its a legit pro license and I slip-streamed all of the last updates including the windows POS updates and firefox into an unofficial service pack 4 for convenience.
Could I even install DirectX to get modern games working on it? I remember when Vista came out, the big thing was that it had DX10 while XP only went up to 9. And now they're on 12.
Based on how difficult it was for the authors of this piece to even get a web browser to work or to find drivers for hardware, I doubt you'd get DX10+ to work.
You might be able to copy dxvk and dx11/dx12 libraries from Proton/Wine. Not sure if it'll work as you'll somehow need to find a way to get vulkan to work, but sounds like a good weekend project to me.
I run XP on my Dell E510 (with good capacitors! ). I love revisiting some of my old games that just don't hit the same on modern Win. Battlezone II, Battlefield 1942, Rollercoaster Tycoon.