Goodbye, sweet prince
*Good night
There’s a pretty good amount of people still using it, it seems.
I feel pretty comfortable saying that was the last good one, perhaps the best one, and it’s been downhill ever since.
It hasn’t been steadily downhill. There was a plunge downwards with Windows 8, then 8.1 recovered a little and 10 more, before Windows 11 undid the gains.
Windows 7 recovered from the disaster of Vista. Windows XP recovered from Me. It has been a bumpy ride for a long time.
Windows 7 was just vista with dipping sauce.
By the time 7 came out Vista was fine. Vista was the usual bugs of a new OS, plus the new drivers which most manufactures decided to not do properly so they made Vista look much worse than it actually was. The much higher system requirements really didn’t help.
If you bought a new machine with hardware that came out post Vista’s launch you probably had a good experience with Vista. I personally had 0 issues with my machine in 2008.
Vista paved the way for Win7 by highlighting the abysmal driver and support issues. Which got significant work done on it so by the time Win 7 acme out things were in a good state.
Vista was, much like ME, was a decent OS hampered by its time and hardware, but have been meme’d into festering shitpiles.
I’m on board with your Vista–>7 thoughts, but I do take issue with ME. It never was a decent OS and it very much was a steaming shitpile. It was far too much new code stupidly rushed for the holiday season. I remembering installing it being a roll of the dice even with the same hardware. It would work, then it wouldn’t, then it might work with some odd issues, then it deffo would not at all. Hours wasted trying.
I really did try, but never had a good experience with WinME and I know of no one else who did. Even first Vista was better (though saying that makes me shudder).
Well, it was more than that.
I actually did an interview at MS about a year after Win7 was released (was fresh out of college), and I asked a pretty pointed question about why the release quality seemed so… variable. The manager’s answer was that they had done entirely in-house QA for XP (we didn’t go into WinMe), outsourced the vast majority for Vista, and brought it entirely back in house for 7. He further mentioned they were taking a hybridized approach for 8. I remember questioning the decision, given the somewhat clear correlation between release quality and QA ownership, and got some business buzzword gobbledygook (which I took as “the real answer is so far above my pay grade that I can do absolutely fucking nothing about it”).
TL;DR: it was largely just profit-driven quality cuts done too aggressively, so they had to backstep and reinvest a couple times to normalize it for the user base.
Vista shows how important the initial reputation is. Everybody had made up their mind to hate it, even if the hate wasn’t fully justified. There wasn’t much Microsoft could do about it, other than releasing Windows 7.
Windows 8 on the other hand was genuinely bad.
I agree with reputation, but just made up their minds to hate it? That’s a tough take. Design wise it looked cool and introduced the search bar. But there weren’t enough benefits to switch. While on the cons side, it was a very heavy OS. In an age of 128 and 256mb of ram, vista needed 512 to function normally. That was a huge performance hit out of the gate. It didn’t feel like an upgrade.
Even when computers did improve and became able to handle Vista people weren’t willing to change their minds about it. Windows 7 had a 1GB memory requirement. Why didn’t more people use Vista right before the Windows 7 launch?
Same with windows 8.1. It had to be replaced with 10.
Vista’s major problem was that it released during a time that the PC industry was racing to the bottom in terms of pricing. All those initial Vista machines were woefully inadequate for the OS they ran. 1-2GB RAM, which was perfectly fine for XP, was pathetic for Vista, yet they sold them anyway. If you bought a high-end machine, you likely had a pretty decent experience with Vista. If you bought a random PC at Walmart? Not so much.
And it was the OS that introduced UAC. Vista took a bullet for 7.
Except ME was part of the DOS line, while XP extended Win2k which is NT.
But I take your point, just that Win2k was (largely) the end of MS producing DOS-based operating systems (with XP being the final nail in that coffin).
In business, once Win2k was out, we stopped deploying Win9x entirely. Before that, NT was problematic on some hardware and for some software/users. Win2k solved most of that.
Win2k was (largely) the end of MS producing DOS-based operating systems (with XP being the final nail in that coffin)
Win2k and WinXP were not built on DOS. They were not DOS-based. They were NT-based. ME was the final nail in that coffin.
Historically, every other edition of Windows is good. The logic is that they release a version, then fix it and make it good. In your examples, vista became 7 and ME became XP.
As long as recall is a thing I will never move to 11. I’ll move to Linux.
I hate Microsuck for this. I just want to come home from work and have my PC work not have to play IT guy whenever Linux acts up. :(
Windows Pro does “just work”. Configure GP when you setup, and all this garbage isn’t an issue. Even without the more extreme changes I make (beyond GP), most people would be fine.
MS pushes this crap in Windows Home users, because they know those people have no idea what to do with it.
Strangely, that generally is how my Linux boxes have been - way less IT guy than when we had WinXP or Win7. You have to use a stable distro however - which TBH is the problem with Win10 and 11 for a lot of people - finding the “stable” version isn’t available to home users or is complicated - so you have new OS deployments every 6 months. Windows Updates are now forced and still often have problems or bugs.
That all said, I think we’ve just got to get used to unstable / rolling release OSs cause “everyone” is doing it. Even Alma is not as stable as previous enterprise linux rebuilds due to Red Hat not releasing point release security updates anymore.
“Downhill” in the sense of falling into a gorge.
Win 11 has as many wins as blunders
Well, I used to be quite positive about Windows 11. The WSL thing is cool, being able to use bash and Linux tools. The hypervisor thing is cool, enabling fast virtual machines. And the styling is all round better than any previous Windows at least since Windows 7. But then I’ve had systems broken by updates more than once recently, everything feels slow, applications hang all the time, the Start menu still doesn’t work, even opening File Explorer leaves me wondering whether it noticed my mouse click, I have to fight it to create a local user account instead of a Microsoft account, fight it to avoid unwanted tracking, fight it to stop the ads popping up in all kinds of corners by running a network-wide DNS filter which reports huge amounts of requests to Microsoft telemetry domains, fight it to make sure file don’t end up in OneDrive, and it still can’t handle USB sticks reliably, it still steals focus constantly from wherever I’m typing, there are far too many services eating up resources, and so on.
It’s just constant low-level frustration that I just don’t have with other operating systems, because Microsoft has cut out QA and spent years prioritizing marketing strategies, gimmicks and cosmetics instead of improving the things that matter to users.
As far as the performance issues go, I’ve experienced a lot of those when I first upgraded from 10 to 11. After reinstalling though, the performance has been amazing.
I hate all of the constant advertising of MS products and services, especially in the case of Edge, because so many of those products are genuinely amazing, and people won’t give them a chance because it’s shoved down their throats.
I agree that it gets bogged down and needs a reinstall sometimes. But after I recently installed it on a new machine that also has Linux, Windows 11 still feels comparatively slow. I get the impression that even out of the box it has too much baggage and unoptimized code. Edge is fast though, and a perfectly good browser. Edge even runs on Linux too, which is surprising.
Edge is just chrome…
you use Linux now, right?
I use Windows a lot of the time, because I need to use several pieces of professional Windows software. But yes, I use Linux some of the time too, and I find it more relaxing.
what distro?
We shouldn’t accept an OS with comparably sized lists of wins and blunders. Subsequent OSs should be a steady upward trend, perhaps with slight dips here and there.
I mean, that’s a decision for the managers or execs at Microsoft, not for me. They released the product with a ton of issues, not us.
Plus, plenty of users are sticking to Windows 10 because it’s the better OS for them, whereas Windows 11 has fixed so many long-term issues and introduced enough useful QoL features that make it far better than 10 for me. I think the market share difference compared to previous Windows versions speaks volumes on how badly Microsoft screwed up.
You know the saying: every second version of Windows is
goodusable.That hasnt been true for a while.
8 was bad, 10 was bad, 11 is bad.
I think they are trying to ensure that no future Windows is ever good again. I mean, it was Win10 that made me frustrated enough to permanently kick the habit of using Windows.
Same! The two straws that broke the camel’s metaphorical back were the stupid functionality of the search bar in the start menu; and the beginning of the removal of local accounts.
Windows 10 legit doesn’t work with hard drives. It keeps scanning and scanning endlessly, slowing everything down. If you go down the “disable useless services” rabbit hole you might go too hard and end up with a useless Windows install without being able to remember how you disabled the firewall, for example. It wouldn’t let me run the update without the firewall service running.
I just threw NixOS on it and only booted windows once since
I really don’t see the issue with W11. It works fine. As did 10, and 8.1. I’ve not encountered any ads or many of the other shitty things that are constantly reported on.
If you’re a technical person, or you run Windows Pro instead of Home, you probably won’t see as much crap. But there’s a ton of new telemetry/tracking in Win10 that’s even worse in 11.
As someone who’s been part of OS and software deployment since before WinNT, Win11 is hot garbage unless we do all sorts of preconfig to not make it so.
This isn’t really new, just that much worse in 11. With the previous versions of Windows, we didn’t have to configure as many Group Policies to restrict as much nonsense. And the home versions of 10/11 are so much worse, especially since they don’t support GP, you have to Registry Stamp any changes you want to make to disable all the telemetry garbage - stamps which an update can easily revert. At least GP is reapplied at boot/login.
I don’t let my family buy Home versions of Windows. Pro costs more, because it’s worth it from a support perspective.
I appreciate the insight. Just curious, do you have a link to things I should be disabling in group policy?
Typically I’m not a fan of modifying that much especially registry wise, as I feel this is a cause for many people’s problems, but I’m not uncomfortable making GP changes if they make sense.
I’m currently using W11 Pro activated with massgravel scripts and I’ve got DNS level blocking set up on my network, although I’m not sure how well that does at blocking telemetry. It’s my second line ad block primarily.
Yep, I’ve said this before.
Windows 7 was the last great OS by microsoft.
It was light enough to not be a bother on even used hardware.
It was exceedingly stable and didnt need regular reformat and reinstalls like all previous windows OS’s.
Didnt need to be constantly rebooted every time you exited a big task like previous Windows.
and you were able to do pretty much anything on it easily and without much fuss.
and, outside of like driver installs, the OS pretty much stayed out of your way.
It was brilliant. It was the best.
It was the peak of the curve. 3.11/95/98/ME/NT/XP all built up to 7, and 8/10/11 are all falling further and further away from 7.
The only reason to get rid of windows 7 is that there was no further way to monetize it since it had pretty good market saturation. If it wasnt for that Win7 would probably be the default OS for another 10+ years.
3.11/95/98/ME/NT/XP
How badly did Vista hurt you?
That and ME is a huge dip in that curve.
Yes
There’s the RAM limit that would need addressing. Also UEFI struggles with the Windows 7 splash screen, but that could be replaced with a simpler logo.
I dont want to do the whole “640K ought to be enough for anybody”, but I cant imagine most home users, average and production, hitting the ram limit of windows 7 which is like 200gb or there abouts.
I would think anyone running loads that would require that much are probably running linux, like servers and such.
but even so, I’m sure it could have been expanded if there was an actual need.
Oh, I didn’t realize Pro and beyond had such higher ram limits compared to home, til.
2000 is a huge omission from that list. Windows 2000 on the NT kernel is really what solidified modern Windows.
And Aero was amazing. Those glassy status bars yassss.
Best looking for sure.
8.1 was a gem
Lol, don’t forget to add /s, so people will understand your sarcasm!
8 was horrible, 8.1 was fine. 10 wasn’t great but got better. 11 was and is bad.
https://time.com/12854/microsoft-to-take-windows-xp-off-life-support-despite-its-29-market-share/
XP was a whopping 29% at EOL which is impressive to me that 7 is only 3%. But it makes sense that 10 has such a large market share since it was free and ran on (almost) everything that ran 7.
I think a large part of it is how most of the machines that could run 7 can run everything after 7 (maybe just need more RAM), but many many MANY machines running XP couldn’t move forward because the CPU or the integrated graphics just couldn’t take it.
My hard drive couldn’t take all the background shit in 10, it would literally stutter scanning my files. When I tried to disable the anti-virus and it told me “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that”
I’m not trying to judge, but you installed and ran a modern operating system on a spinning platter drive?
I had to switch to SSDs in 2016 because macOS was dragging hard on a Pro notebook.
My old laptop doesn’t have an M.2 slot
It ran fast enough in windows 8 and linux. It only became unbearable on windows 10
And XP was 32 bit only, it was really an updated version of Win2k, which was really rock solid.
Which kind of supports your point.
XP did have a 64-bit version, but at the time 64-bit wasn’t widely used.
this is full EOL not like normal user EOL, normal user EOL ended in 2020.
Wish I could upvote you for your username! Haha
There’s nothing stopping you.
I already upvoted for the comment, I’m out of upvotes!
I upvoted them for you.
OK guys, guess it’s time to upgrade to Windows 8. I bet it’ll be great!
could give Linux a try. Its come along way, even if you’re a gamer.
OK guys, time to upgrade to Redhat 6 from 1999. I bet it’ll be great! It has Kernel 2.2, and I’m hearing good things about the upgrade to ipchains from ipfwadm!
ipchains… That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time…
I thought those last two were Doom cheat codes for a hot minute.
idkfa idbeholds
They were the cheat codes you used to keep hackers out! :P
Iddqd
They told me Windows 10 was the last Windows and I intend to make them fulfill that promise. And when I fail to make them fulfill their promise, I will keep it for myself.
/sigh at this point i feel like “that guy” but M$ didnt say 10 would be the last Microsoft, a specific employee said it in a specific situation, that in context was pretty obviously “latest” and not “final”.
The internet just took that one line and ran with it, as they are known to do.
/sigh, I barely use it, and when I do, it pisses me off. I’ll try to remember this anyway, thanks.
Just in time to switch to Linux for me. Now that all my games run on Linux that will be the logical choice
Win10 is the last windows. Defang it and put it in a VM. Still a better UI than the competition although KDE plasma is getting close, dolphin is very nice
KDE these days is better at being Windows than Windows. Dunno how long it’s been since you’ve used it (or how much/little you tinkered with it)
I tried it last week. It looks and feel great. But it’s missing a lot of software that I want and many things are in the wrong place. Maybe when they add seamless network transparency to Wayland and I can just stream the applications that I want.
That’s just because you’ve been raised on it.
Yes, I will not retrain my muscle memory plus the incessant fucking around in console to do basic things like search files. I want everything, irfanview, alt-snap, , explorer patcher features, consistent dark themes, ditto clipboard manager, fancyZone, xmousebuttoncontrol. Exactly identical, I’m staying on defanged win10 until then
I feel Microsoft is in for a huge surprise when they end support for all versions of Windows except one that requires you to throw out your old hardware. At the same time, Linux is better than it’s ever been and is almost, if not just as easy to use as Windows. Not to mention, most work is done from a browser these days.
I’m going to say there’s a 10% chance Windows 11 gets BIOS support (or rather drops UEFI requirement) and drops TPM/SecureBoot requirement in the next three years. I think that’s more likely than extending Windows 10 longer.
I have a ton of application issues with Linux, so I have a dual boot.
What you mean ended? It was just released the other day…
That was like two decades ago.
There was official support for Windows 7?
Only the embedded variety meant to run on machines like ATMs, POS systems and other long term support machines.
Well, plus all the other versions too, but embedded especially in this case
Aww, that’s the last version of windows I ever owned.
I don’t think I’ve ever owned any version of Windows.
Technically nobody else has either.
Well, Microsoft has at least.
That’s a very “Citizens United” definition of “nobody”
Windows 7 still has a similar market share to desktop Linux. I suspect that some of those users are holdouts, rejecting the Cortana nonsense but too stubborn or lazy to switch. But I’d also wager that, in the longer term, a decent portion of that 3% ends up on Linux.
But I’d also wager that, in the longer term, a decent portion of that 3% ends up on Linux.
Or they just continue to use their out of date OS. XP still has a 0.6% market share, and I have no idea what remotely modern software works on XP. Browsing the modern web will be a pain with the new encryption standards.
There’s a lot of systems that still uses it, cause it does its work and would be a pain to change. Of course they should avoid any contact with the net.
I wonder how they figure the 0.6% if those systems aren’t sending telemetry via the internet. Is there an organization that does a hardware census or something?
It’s my understanding that many of those surveys do so from tracking user agent strings from browsers. Whole they can be modified, most people have no idea how to do so.
At least on 10 it is relatively simple to disable Cortana and forget it exists. I can’t believe Microsoft is trying to make Copilot key a thing.
Copilot key
I’m dreading the time I’m gonna have to buy a laptop now
That makes me wonder. Can you escape it with a non-us keyboard?
Give me ReactOS or give me … fedora.
Not super catchy…
deleted by creator
Wow, that’s an interesting metric.
Windows has been alternating between good and crap for decades. ME, crap. XP, good. Vista, crap. 7, good. 8/8.1, crap. 10, good…ish. 11, steaming feces. 12 will probably be at least half decent.
I doubt that will be true anymore. 12 will probably have even more spyware and ads than 11.
I really ought to switch my main pc to Linux.
11 made me make that switch. My main gaming / media machine is still on W10 and will be until it dies. Then I’ll finally invest in figuring out gaming on Linux.
But for day to day browsing and development. Ubuntu has been excellent and is much more snappy than windows. I also picked up a cheap ancient MacBook pro for interviews and it’s a solid machine as well.
No regrets so far.
Do it today.
I switched to Bazzite on my main PC at the start of September and it’s been great. I only use Windows for steam link vr streaming
The most Windows-like desktop(and more) on Linux is KDE, second maybe to Cinnamon, and XFCE if we’re talking XP-ish and classic.
On Linux, your underlying system is not reliant on your GUI. They are not bonded in any sense, and the GUI can be any number of different programs, known as Desktops.
You can run a Ubuntu system with the KDE desktop, or the Gnome desktop, Unity, or XFCE, or Cinnamon… or maybe two or three at once and choose at login! he’s a madman!
I like how GNOME looks, I’ve messed around with it a little on my laptop.
Fedora on kde is nice.
Second Fedora, prefer Cosmic or Gnome tho.
12 will very likely just be 11. They don’t do OS development like they used to. Windows is essentially now an OS that gets DLC every 6 months.
11 is just 10, so… yeah.
Fake news. MS said that Win 10 was the last one they were going to make so all of those others you mentioned are obviously fake.
10, good…ish.
Windows 10 was never really good, its launch was very rocky. Most people just stockholmed their way into liking 10.
It started to get some much needed dev features around 2019.
I’m a heretic, but Vista > 7 and 8.1 > 10.
Fuck you
Love you too <3
I use Arch BTW.
I’ve had the opposite experience - 10 sucked, but I have no complaints about 11… Though it might make a difference that my experience with 10 was after my old (win7 vintage) laptop took the free update, while my 11 experience is based on a new laptop that came with it preinstalled…
Lately I’ve been using OpenSUSE GNU/Linux and so far I’ve been relatively happy with. The installation process is simple and concise, and the system is rock-solid and easy to use.
One of us!
I have Leap on my homelab and Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop for >5 years now. It’s been awesome, and it’s my favorite so far from >15 years of Linux.
Glad you’re enjoying it! Next step: get unreasonably obsessed with chameleons.
I’m running Tumbleweed myself! Been very pleased overall. I believe OpenSUSE may have just cured my distro-hopping.
I’ve distro hopped for over 20 years. I always come back to SUSE. SUSE 8 was the first distro I use and they just always seem to have some qol additions I’m used to.
Opensuse is a very good and somewhat underrated choice imo
Maybe I should try OpenSUSE first when I’ll switch my gaming desktop back to Linux. My first Linux experience was with SuSE 6.2 and that was very positive. Good to hear people are still happy about it.
POSReady
Hehe
I have an old ASUS laptop with a 670M on Windows 7, any prayer the jump to Linux for drivers will be smooth? 🤞
I have an i914900KF desktop on windows 11 (I have to use it) and loathe the OS lol. Definitely wish there were programs for chopping down Windows 11 spyware crap.
with a 670M
Your GPU doesn’t support latest drivers, and older drivers are a nuisance.
Bummer 😓
Rest of the system should work with iGPU, if you aren’t interested in heavy gaming you can use Linux just fine.
Unironically, the best bet for them is nvidia 540xx drivers on the AUR with an LTS kernel.
I’m not up on current Linux drivers, how good/bad is that news? 🥴
It’s very good.
Basically, there is one maintainer in the AUR (the name escapes me, jonathon I think it was?) who applies the necessary patches to the old NVIDIA drivers to make them run with a modern Linux kernel.
Of course, there won’t be any Wayland support, but the experience is acceptable as long as you temper your expectations in terms of graphics API support. (No vulkan sadly)
I hadn’t used it myself but I know a person who does and loves it. iGPU handles Wayland stuff while the NVIDIA is there for the heavy lifting in Xorg.
Nvidia’s website returns me only 390 and 415 for 670M
I probably misremembered something then, 390xx it is then.
But whatever it may be it is in the AUR 100%.
salute
o7
