Part of being in the software development business is that sometimes you have to support software for a long time. Longer even, than Microsoft does. So the fact that XP is about to become an unsupported unsecured target of every virus and botnet in the wild doesn’t change the fact that I need to keep it around as part of an old build system.

But, that doesn’t mean I need to keep it around as real hardware. So, it’s time to say farewell to that old Sony Vaio – one of the finest and quietest old Pentium machines I’ve owned. Its soul has been removed – virtualized – leaving behind an empty hulk of hardware with, get this, the last of the old tube monitors.

Its spirit will live on, joining a virtual community of old Windows 2000, Windows 98 and Windows NT build systems. Waiting in limbo for the possibility they’ll be called into action again to support a customer running some ancient legacy software.