Ha, found the dark theme! Now my eyes can rest in peace. Two pieces.
Problem with WinXP now, if not ever, even for those just trying to manage with the minimum, is the lack of a proper 64-bit version. Or so what I experienced. Many apps now come 64-bit only, let alone +4GB RAM. Chrome, AFAIK, does not officially support 64-bit OS's anymore. Perhaps even later 32-bit apps aren't WinXP ready too.
If I remember correctly, you can disable automatic updates in Win7. If true, just do that
@Wallaby Dan . It's a good feature Win10 lacks. WIn7 is cool and a good jump from XP. Many later apps also still have Win7 on their requirements list but not XP in the most part.
Oh, I have an i5 750 from late 2009. This tells stories about the RAM and mobo too. Video card is a GTX 480 which is an early 2010 part. Win10 2004 worked just fine on it until I upgraded that build just two days ago with the i5 3570k I removed from my main computer for an i5 10600k (only mobo, CPU and RAM were the upgrade). Perhaps your newer build is giving you trouble because its on an AMD/ATI platform? My old beater is Intel/Nvidia. AFAIK, Intel and Nvidia have better and longer support than of AMD/ATI. But this is just a guess.