There was no patch for XP until today, so how could they?
XP has been out of support for over three years. Continuing to use it is gross negligence. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened.
Yes. Gross negligence from gov for under funding a core government service.
Quite intentionally, too. One of their parties is looking jealously at the cashflow that a US-style system might provide them. At the cost of everyone else, sure, but what's that to the allure of profit?
that's not really true, windows update has been working fine for pirated copies of windows for ages since creating spam-bots hurts everyone and doesn't really sell more real copies of windows