Microsoft may do the unthinkable to make you dump XP, Vista and Windows 7  

I think we may all remain in the dark on that one

Ztruker said:

The problem is going to be hardware. A lot of older XP systems cannot run Windows 8.1 X86 or X64 though they can run Windows 8.0 X86.

Agree. A lot of these older MoBo's won't support it. It depends on RAM being DIMMs or SIMMs, but I've heard it'll run on as low as 512MBs. Probably not very fast, but it'll run.

The main peripheral is the CPU. First thing is it needs at least 1GHz frequency. The real crusher is support for PAE, NX, and SSE2.

System requirements - Microsoft Windows

What are PAE, NX, and SSE2? - Windows Help

Then, of course there's video support. Perhaps a new MoBo if one can find one to fit the case. A little cost savings if one is savvy enough.

MS would have to provide some kind of incentive with the OEM manufactures to get cheap new hardware to these folks with Windows 9 already installed.

Hardware today is far less expensive than in XP days. Keeping in mind the inflation ratio. Popular hot sellers such as the convertibles will be more expensive. Other freshly introduced products as well.

I'm not sure what 9 will demand, but I don't think it'll be any more resources than 8.1. In fact, I think it'll be less. They slimmed 8 down by omitting the candy, but added other features, so it ended up being a little slimmer. There's still a little bit of Aero in 8 which they might omit in 9. My thinking is along the lines that 9 will have far more Modern/Metro, if not all, save the Desktop app/portal perhaps.

Have you ever noticed the Aero wave that the Start Flag makes when the mouse pointer is over it initially? Kind of like a wave goodbye.