Statcounter reports that Windows 11 continues to lose its market share for the second month in a row. Windows 10, meanwhile, is gaining more users and is now back above the 70% mark.
Statcounter reports that Windows 11 continues to lose its market share for the second month in a row. Windows 10, meanwhile, is gaining more users and is now back above the 70% mark.
Windows 95 - revolutionary UI changes for its time
Windows 98 - hot garbage update
Windows 98SE - fixed hot garbage and was ok
Windows ME - hot garbage
Windows XP - Windows 95 for grown ups
Windows 7 - This is where it breaks down, since from what I hear 7 was actually pretty good (been a linux user since the ME days) - but if you're counting Windows XP was Windows 5 so maybe they worked on 6 and just didn't release it to break the curse
Windows 8 - Everybody should have just moved to linux at this point
Windows 10 - Who knows. You should have been using linux
Windows 11 - If you're not using linux now you shouldn't have a computer
it was so bad. didnt help that it had higher hardware requirements than win7, and we didnt really have affordable ssd's then so everything was so slow - or, that's what my memory says, I havent used a spinner disk in a long time.
It wasn't so much the lack of SSDs. Vista had much higher memory requirements than XP. At the time, OEMs were still regularly shipping systems with sub-1GB RAM installed. Those OEMs put pressure on Microsoft to change the Vista- Ready certification requirements to include their shitty builds that couldn't really run Vista.
In addition, dual core machines were only just coming to market, so there were a ton of systems with single core CPUs. Plus, with the changes to several driver models and some of the verification requirements (sound, graphics, needing to provide x64 drivers to get verified) from XP to Vista many vendors decided to EOL their products instead of write new drivers. I know many sound cards were EOL that were literally still on store shelves.
Honestly, I just got tired of fighting with it and took my OS into my own hands. Grew tired of the services being pushed in my settings getting reset to whatever Microsoft pleases.
"Peak Windows" is a fun one to ponder. I'd probably pick XP for fairly high reliability and fairly low bloat. Or 2000 if taking business oriented versions in to consideration.
You forgot Vista before 7. The list didn't "break down" because Vista was the steaming pile of shit in between.
8 sucked, 8.1 was good at least in my opinion. 10 was when I fucked off to Linux land permanently after using it on and off for 15 years and have never been happier.
I admit that I am a bit biased. During the 8-10 years I tanked my startup by going all-in on Microsoft Store apps because I absolutely loved my Windows Phones and was convinced that they were the future, especially when Continuum was announced (and it actually worked!).
The disenchantment started when Microsoft forced developers to rewrite their apps for Windows 10 after already having forced the mobile devs to do it from 7 to 8. The hatred ramped up when they killed support for the Lumia 950XL 6 months after launch. I freaking loved that phone.
It pissed me off so much that I went to Apple lmao talk about cutting off my nose to spite my face.
As others pointed out, you're missing Vista from your list. You're also missing Windows 2000 for Workstations (between 98SE and ME) and 8.1 (between 8 and 10) both of which were pretty good releases.
widdows 2000 was the pinnacle for me, beat XP until i wanted to go to 64 bit.
Apart from having 64-bit, XP was a step back; even if I don't count the fucking dog thing.
XP was a fair bit harder to de-bloat than win 2000 and they were hell-bent on forcing internet exploder on the world.
XP was also at a time when Linux was becoming pretty easily usable and mac osx was impressive too - I remember using those imac coloured egg things at university in 2000. They were good apart from the mouse, and ran MS office pretty well.
StarOffice was already better than MS-Word at dealing with .doc format across versions.
and ancient version of Wordperfect were miles better for WP anyway ("reveal codes").
windows XP was already down to gaming, adobe and CAD/other specialist apps, plus maybe MS Excel that just weren't as good or not available on linux.