98SE, XP, and 7 each were relatively solid for their time. They all had issues, but were far better at being an OS than what we have now or are trying to be sold to constantly upgrade to.
ME was even worse. It either worked fine or just didn’t work at all (BSODs all the time). 98SE was crap as well, but ME is the leader in that department.
It had its issues, but for the time it was good. Probably depended on the machine and what you were running. That was back in the days when making things work meant the right drivers, and the Win98SE CD usually made it work.
ME was so bad that MS forgot about it themselves. I bought a new laptop with ME installed that ran terribly, replaced it with 98 and it ran great.
The death of the DOS line of Windows (3.x, 9x, ME) lead to the decision to inject clown DNA into NT in order to appeal to the masses and that’s how we ended up with XP.
Vista was an attempt to eradicate the clown, but it was still there, people hated it and because Microsoft thought they had eradicated the clown, they thought people wanted more clown, and that’s how we ended up with Windows 8.
What about 7? The clown gene skipped a generation.
I run Debian at home because “Microsoft evil”, but I kinda think the Windows 10 image we use at work is alright. I work at a Forbes 500 company with a huuuge IT department, so I’m guessing they’ve done well at setting up group policies or something to make a de-cluttered experience for us. At least I never see any ads or Bing bullshit, and the Start menu works like I expect from ye old days. I could never make W10 work just as sleek at home, so I gave up and moved to Linux.
That said, most developers here still use a local Linux VM for actual developing lol.
Has there ever been a good version of Windows? Old versions were functional but terribly insecure and newer versions are reasonably secure but cloud connected ad platforms.
Windows 10 is probably the middle ground although the newer versions come with the same anti features Windows 11 has
Long Term Support Channel. It’s Windows 10/11, but without all of the app crap. It’s frozen in time to when it was released, just takes security updates, no feature updates. Same as any Windows before 10.
The first release of 10 made my old laptop useless, so much delay it was not possible to perform real work. I switched that old thing to NixOS now it is like a new machine hosting web meetings, getting spreadsheet work done. All our work customers complained when the W10 upgrade happened by their IT departments, their engineering CAD suddenly took a performance hit. Just frustrating because tech is supposed to get better not worse.
Try LTSC 2019 (there are 2 other releases for 10, LTSC 2021 and LTSB 2016, back in 2016 it was named Long Term Support Branch). It’s almost like Win7 regarding speed… almost.
Not saying you should switch, but I dual boot because sometimes I need things that just don’t run even in Wine, so if I have to use Windows, I use LTSC. A lot less intrusive, doesn’t have the bullshit apps that come with regular Pro and Home, and, on top of that, 2019 has a 10 year support cycle (they changed it to 5 with LTSC 2021). So, basically, I’m covered till 2029.
That’s because MS didn’t invest time and money in it after 10 came out. A lot of bugs went unfixed. But, if you fix the start menu and removed all the apps, that thing was unbeatable regarding speed. It was fairly faster than 7, even on a spinning drive.
Best MS OS regarding speed. If they fixed the bugs, it would have been even better than 7 or 10.
Everyone knows that Windows 7 was peak Windows
You misspelled Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.
tada.wav 4eva
It peaked somewhere between 2000 and 7. Personally, I place it in XP, but opinions vary.
98SE, XP, and 7 each were relatively solid for their time. They all had issues, but were far better at being an OS than what we have now or are trying to be sold to constantly upgrade to.
98SE was complete crap and people only forget about it because it was followed by ME.
ME was even worse. It either worked fine or just didn’t work at all (BSODs all the time). 98SE was crap as well, but ME is the leader in that department.
It had its issues, but for the time it was good. Probably depended on the machine and what you were running. That was back in the days when making things work meant the right drivers, and the Win98SE CD usually made it work.
ME was so bad that MS forgot about it themselves. I bought a new laptop with ME installed that ran terribly, replaced it with 98 and it ran great.
Fire up React OS one of these days
2K was my jam.
The death of the DOS line of Windows (3.x, 9x, ME) lead to the decision to inject clown DNA into NT in order to appeal to the masses and that’s how we ended up with XP.
Vista was an attempt to eradicate the clown, but it was still there, people hated it and because Microsoft thought they had eradicated the clown, they thought people wanted more clown, and that’s how we ended up with Windows 8.
What about 7? The clown gene skipped a generation.
I run Debian at home because “Microsoft evil”, but I kinda think the Windows 10 image we use at work is alright. I work at a Forbes 500 company with a huuuge IT department, so I’m guessing they’ve done well at setting up group policies or something to make a de-cluttered experience for us. At least I never see any ads or Bing bullshit, and the Start menu works like I expect from ye old days. I could never make W10 work just as sleek at home, so I gave up and moved to Linux.
That said, most developers here still use a local Linux VM for actual developing lol.
Has there ever been a good version of Windows? Old versions were functional but terribly insecure and newer versions are reasonably secure but cloud connected ad platforms.
Windows 10 is probably the middle ground although the newer versions come with the same anti features Windows 11 has
Good question. I will say W7 because W10 necessitated an SSD to stay performant, so bloat and bullshit got rolled into W10
LTSC has almost the same performance as Win7… almost. It is runnable on a regular spinning drive.
Ltsc?
Long Term Support Channel. It’s Windows 10/11, but without all of the app crap. It’s frozen in time to when it was released, just takes security updates, no feature updates. Same as any Windows before 10.
The first release of 10 made my old laptop useless, so much delay it was not possible to perform real work. I switched that old thing to NixOS now it is like a new machine hosting web meetings, getting spreadsheet work done. All our work customers complained when the W10 upgrade happened by their IT departments, their engineering CAD suddenly took a performance hit. Just frustrating because tech is supposed to get better not worse.
Try LTSC 2019 (there are 2 other releases for 10, LTSC 2021 and LTSB 2016, back in 2016 it was named Long Term Support Branch). It’s almost like Win7 regarding speed… almost.
Not saying you should switch, but I dual boot because sometimes I need things that just don’t run even in Wine, so if I have to use Windows, I use LTSC. A lot less intrusive, doesn’t have the bullshit apps that come with regular Pro and Home, and, on top of that, 2019 has a 10 year support cycle (they changed it to 5 with LTSC 2021). So, basically, I’m covered till 2029.
Good info, thanks
It’s true. Add scrolling of non-focused windows and it’s unbeatable.
8.1 but go off
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Thats the version I’ve seen people experience the most issues with relative to the time they’ve used it.
That’s because MS didn’t invest time and money in it after 10 came out. A lot of bugs went unfixed. But, if you fix the start menu and removed all the apps, that thing was unbeatable regarding speed. It was fairly faster than 7, even on a spinning drive.
Best MS OS regarding speed. If they fixed the bugs, it would have been even better than 7 or 10.
Vista*