As far as older WindowsXP inbedded in ATM's and other stuff, there's not much you can do to protect yourself there except to not use ATM's and other stuff when they become unsecure.
Most of the embedded software for the Worlds ATMs was actually written by Students at Abertay University. Adamson at NCR in Dundee found it cheaper (free) to use students studying for their postgraduate mechatronics coursework than to actually employ professional programmers. The NCR ATMs didn't require much more processing power than a 80286 running Windows 3.1
The NSA backdoors in MS Windows only really appeared in Windows 98 or 98SE I believe from memory. Much of the UK Nuclear Missile Submarine fire control systems use Windows 2000. I wouldn't really worry about WinXP assuming that Service Pack 2 was installed to ensure greater stability.
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