Windows 7 was the last good Windows. It was a nice polished OS that had the last decent search feature. 8 was a mess (it started without a start button) and then all the bloat/ads that came with 10 and above
Windows XP was the last good Windows. It had zero bloat, and heck, it encouraged you to use an admin account as your daily account. It didn’t have those pesky UAC notifications, and it would allow you to install each individual Windows KB Update. It didn’t have that high RAM usage that the Aero design had. There was no built in firewall until a later service pack, but you could just opt out of that update.
I think you’re really only remembering XP after SP3. XP in its original form was clunky, buggy and unreliable.
It had zero bloat
Wait are you trying to be funny?
it encouraged you to use an admin account as your daily account.
This is bad. You should not do this, especially not on anything connected to the internet. You should definitely not do this on an XP system connected to the internet.
There was no built in firewall until a later service pack, but you could just opt out of that update.
ME had that thing where you didn’t need to constantly fuss with autoexec.bat and config.sys to use different software. That was an insane amount of added value…
But the rest of the system was so bad that nobody liked the tradeoff. Even today I’m in awe about how MS could make this tradeoff negative. It takes a serious amount of dedication.
I stayed with NT/2000 and my gf had ME on a junker Compaq display model her rents picked up at Circuit City maybe.
I think I switched it back up 98SE so she could write papers without it crashing or lagging all the time. She’d play the Money Python Holy Grail game, but it always would crash at one specific point. I gotta ask her what it was and see if I can find a copy to run in a VM.
Longer ago than the others though. And there hasn’t been a single version of Windows that didn’t make me bite my desk. Windows 95 jammed itself up so often that my friends and I kept a fresh install in a separate directory to at least skip installation when setting it up from scratch.
What also completely screwed Vista was all of the XP era PCs getting a Vista Ready sticker slapped on when they very much did not have the hardware to run it properly.
Vista was replaced piecewise through years until most things started working. By that time, W7 was already out with all those changes packed-up from the beginning.
Windows 8 has some great improvements under the hood. I especially like the task manager changes. But people couldn’t take the start menu looking different, broke their little heads. Shouldn’t have even mattered, the correct way to use the start menu is hit the windows key, type the first 4 letters of what you want to launch, and hit enter
The thing is - we shouldn’t have had to do that. Maybe alternatively, but not primarily.
Microsoft’s problem with Windows 8, was how they got a hair up their ass by being obsessed with mobile technology. Tablets and Phones specifically. That they decided in their ‘infinite wisdom’, to infect desktops with a theme and performance that honestly was more suited for mobile devices.
If I’m honest, I can take them doing that to desktops. I hate it and think it’s stupid, but I can also see that in not the target audience and don’t like computer touch screens.
What pisses me off the most is that they did it TO THE GODDAMNED SERVER VERSION TOO! There is no reason for 2012/r2 to have the tile interface other than both are built on the same architecture. Its so asinine to have a touchscreen interface on a server platform.
It was a stupid and unnecessary decision, yeah. That didn’t make it a bad OS though. It was a step up from windows 7 in almost every way other than a dumb aesthetic choice that people became hyper focused on.
I still miss the windows 7 glass look. That was peak desktop layout. Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
And then they threw all of that good design away for a relatively mid mobile showing.
That didn’t make it a bad OS though
Interface design is an incredibly important part of software development. The users weren’t wrong when they shunned windows 8, microsoft was wrong for shitting on 30 years of interface development.
I’m staying on Windows 10 until Microsoft somehow pulls it’s head out of it’s ass with Windows 11. It’ll take things like Steam completely dropping support of Windows 10, which will honestly happen one day because Valve slapped all of the faces of those when they promised that they would keep Steam running for old Windows down to XP. It’ll take them dropping support entirely for me to consider Windows 11 and even by that point, I’ll just go Linux fully.
Yeah, since it’s exclusively for gaming, I tried Drauger which is allegedly some gamer-based distro. Took an hour to get WiFi working then it hard locked at the login screen after running updates.
Reminded me of my first time trying Linux in 2004.
I’ve been running Ubuntu for a year on my laptop. Might feel brave enough to branch out into something else soon.
Start dual booting now. get a 2nd drive and use your BIOS boot selector to keep everything seperated, windoze has a habit of nuking bootloaders and fucking up linux installs. make sure it has no idea whats going on.
But the real secret to switching is don’t inconvenience yourself. use the right tool for the job and you’ll quickly find how bad of a tool windows has become.
everyone say goodbye to the wonderful decadess of lean, efficient, bloat-free Windows we have known and loved up until Windows 11!
it’s been smooth sailing until windows 11!
Windows 7 was the last good Windows. It was a nice polished OS that had the last decent search feature. 8 was a mess (it started without a start button) and then all the bloat/ads that came with 10 and above
Windows XP was the last good Windows. It had zero bloat, and heck, it encouraged you to use an admin account as your daily account. It didn’t have those pesky UAC notifications, and it would allow you to install each individual Windows KB Update. It didn’t have that high RAM usage that the Aero design had. There was no built in firewall until a later service pack, but you could just opt out of that update.
I think you’re really only remembering XP after SP3. XP in its original form was clunky, buggy and unreliable.
Wait are you trying to be funny?
This is bad. You should not do this, especially not on anything connected to the internet. You should definitely not do this on an XP system connected to the internet.
I’ve eaten the onion, haven’t I?
we used to call Windows XP as “Windows Xtra Problems” back in the day
Someday we will find Windows 9.
Afraid not, because 7 8 9.
8.1 can be considered 9
We said goodbye to that since Windows 8. Windows has been shit since Windows 8.
How young are you?
Younger than Vista, that’s for sure.
Or Windows ME. Ugh.
ME had that thing where you didn’t need to constantly fuss with autoexec.bat and config.sys to use different software. That was an insane amount of added value…
But the rest of the system was so bad that nobody liked the tradeoff. Even today I’m in awe about how MS could make this tradeoff negative. It takes a serious amount of dedication.
I stayed with NT/2000 and my gf had ME on a junker Compaq display model her rents picked up at Circuit City maybe.
I think I switched it back up 98SE so she could write papers without it crashing or lagging all the time. She’d play the Money Python Holy Grail game, but it always would crash at one specific point. I gotta ask her what it was and see if I can find a copy to run in a VM.
Windows ME was incredibly short lived though
Longer ago than the others though. And there hasn’t been a single version of Windows that didn’t make me bite my desk. Windows 95 jammed itself up so often that my friends and I kept a fresh install in a separate directory to at least skip installation when setting it up from scratch.
Vista doesn’t deserve the hate it gets. There was very little difference between it and 7 which everyone loves.
Vista was a giant upgrade from XP, it was like going from GemOS to win95
The issue with Vista was almost solely the lack of driver support for anything.
Vista caused a lot of vendors to slowly but surely start updating drivers for their products and enabled Windows 7 to have a much smoother launch.
Really Win7 stands on the shoulders of Vista.
What also completely screwed Vista was all of the XP era PCs getting a Vista Ready sticker slapped on when they very much did not have the hardware to run it properly.
Vista was fine.ir was just sold on underpowered PCs because Microsoft let them, and it was the first windows os to actually enforce user levels.
Vista was replaced piecewise through years until most things started working. By that time, W7 was already out with all those changes packed-up from the beginning.
Windows 8 has some great improvements under the hood. I especially like the task manager changes. But people couldn’t take the start menu looking different, broke their little heads. Shouldn’t have even mattered, the correct way to use the start menu is hit the windows key, type the first 4 letters of what you want to launch, and hit enter
The thing is - we shouldn’t have had to do that. Maybe alternatively, but not primarily.
Microsoft’s problem with Windows 8, was how they got a hair up their ass by being obsessed with mobile technology. Tablets and Phones specifically. That they decided in their ‘infinite wisdom’, to infect desktops with a theme and performance that honestly was more suited for mobile devices.
If I’m honest, I can take them doing that to desktops. I hate it and think it’s stupid, but I can also see that in not the target audience and don’t like computer touch screens.
What pisses me off the most is that they did it TO THE GODDAMNED SERVER VERSION TOO! There is no reason for 2012/r2 to have the tile interface other than both are built on the same architecture. Its so asinine to have a touchscreen interface on a server platform.
It was a stupid and unnecessary decision, yeah. That didn’t make it a bad OS though. It was a step up from windows 7 in almost every way other than a dumb aesthetic choice that people became hyper focused on.
I still miss the windows 7 glass look. That was peak desktop layout. Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
And then they threw all of that good design away for a relatively mid mobile showing.
Interface design is an incredibly important part of software development. The users weren’t wrong when they shunned windows 8, microsoft was wrong for shitting on 30 years of interface development.
People who care that much about how their OS looks are going to spend hours customizing it anyway
@the_crotch @Nyciferi do you want a bing search?
This is exactly how you get a bing search on windows 11!
No, computer, I dont want to see a bing page with a copilot analysis of all the things “note” could be, I wanted to open Notepad.
Now we’re just swearing and scaring the other people in the office.
I’m staying on Windows 10 until Microsoft somehow pulls it’s head out of it’s ass with Windows 11. It’ll take things like Steam completely dropping support of Windows 10, which will honestly happen one day because Valve slapped all of the faces of those when they promised that they would keep Steam running for old Windows down to XP. It’ll take them dropping support entirely for me to consider Windows 11 and even by that point, I’ll just go Linux fully.
Built my wife her first gaming PC. Installed Ubuntu. I’m shocked at how easily everything runs.
I’ve been running mint full time for a couple months now and it’s been amazing how little i have actually had to do to get the games running.
say what you want about Ubuntu (and god knows people will) but it just works, and that is the main thing people switching want.
Yeah, since it’s exclusively for gaming, I tried Drauger which is allegedly some gamer-based distro. Took an hour to get WiFi working then it hard locked at the login screen after running updates.
Reminded me of my first time trying Linux in 2004.
I’ve been running Ubuntu for a year on my laptop. Might feel brave enough to branch out into something else soon.
Start dual booting now. get a 2nd drive and use your BIOS boot selector to keep everything seperated, windoze has a habit of nuking bootloaders and fucking up linux installs. make sure it has no idea whats going on.
But the real secret to switching is don’t inconvenience yourself. use the right tool for the job and you’ll quickly find how bad of a tool windows has become.
What does windows 11 have to do with my statement about the dumb reasons people rejected windows 8?
Not that you should have to, but web results can be disabled in start search.
Winkey+R will open the no-frills run menu. As long as you know the exact exe or component name, you’re good:
A few decent ones there.