I recall reading through one of the public NSA or USAF whitepapers on securing Windows XP for usage within their organization and I'm pretty sure they recommend

I recall reading through one of the public NSA or USAF whitepapers on securing Windows XP for usage within their organization and I'm pretty sure they recommended using a Virtual Machine that had been set up following a bunch of extremely secure protocols. Essentially the VM had network access only for the length of time necessary to transfer the file and the host's security was also dealt with. Then there was protocol which they referenced was supposed to be standard which was the wiping/reset of the VM image at certain intervals and upon specific events (contact your supervisor if...). It contained a lot of "Contact your supervisor if..." and "Failure to follow this can result in..."