What's your favorite Windows?

[Pomorek]

Windows 7, hands down. Afterwards it's just a downward slope.

I used 7 for some years, but was forced to switch to 10 after my old computer died.

And 10 absolutely sucks. I feel my computer is not really mine anymore. It does whatever shit it wants, and I can't control it. Especially when it comes to updates, oooh boy! I hate it, it always happens without any input from me. Why the hell does it need so many updates?!
And it has tons, TONS of useless crap that just slows down the system. I managed to turn off some of it, but there's still more! There's way too many bells and whistles that exist without any purpose.
Some say it's intuitive, but for me, it's frustrating and hard to navigate. And don't think I'm just some grumpy grandpa who's used to his old stuff, I was born in 2004.

I really wish I could have something like Amiga Workbench 1.

My "old" computer still has 7 on it. Never had any security breach because of this. And even if - what can they do, encrypt the drive where I keep my Steam games installed?... Everything else lives happily under Linux, outside of the reach of M$. Total disk erasure might still happen, but there's backup for it.

At this point Windows is for me purely a gaming machine. And something that is used by businesses so I have to deal with that when working. Quite a few of its annoying features (not these updates of course!) actually make more sense in enterprise environments, but at home I don't need to be locked out of control of my own PC and have the decisions taken for me.

 

[Lexicon]

I'd probably have to say XP, since it was the OS that I had for the longest period of time. Even though I currently have 11 on my home computer, I've installed OpenShell and some XP resources to mimic it as closely as possible.
Although, I do also have some fondness for 7 as well. Kalimba immediately blasts me with a wave of nostalgia whenever I hear it.

 

[palta_aguacate]

i'm not a computer enthusiast but 98 and XP are the ones i had most fond memories using them, 7 was decent but everything after it is a slope.

 

[nineret]

still have XP installed on my Virtual box, but I am not window user (linux ubuntu).
but I am gonna tell, I really like XP. its so nostalgia. classic installion music, and start up/shut down and error sound. I also like MS Paint before Windows 7.

 

[Lexiand]

Windows 7 was the best version of windows.
Everything after 7 is garbage in my opinion.

 

[Khafra]

Work computer decided to update itself to windows 11 out of the blue, and let's just say I suddenly gained a strange appreciation for 10. Maybe that was Microsoft's plan all along. They even put a big "revert to windows 10" button in the system settings.

 

[ben909]

maybe because windows 11 is windows 10c windows 10 is windows 9

 

[CreachureComforts]

3.1

Or win7, it's not nearly as naggy/trendy as win10. But that doesn't matter anymore since I've moved on to Linux now.

 

[KimberVaile]

Windows 10. It does have an issue with having to shut off the invasive features, but, it's stable and I can play games on it. It works, and it's not all that difficult to use. It's aight.

 

[Pomorek]

Work computer decided to update itself to windows 11 out of the blue, and let's just say I suddenly gained a strange appreciation for 10. Maybe that was Microsoft's plan all along. They even put a big "revert to windows 10" button in the system settings.

Wait, so they are pushing this auto -update BS again? Thanks for the heads up. Back in the days of auto-updates of Win7 I've blocked this from happening on my PC and my wife's laptop, now I'll probably need to secure her Win10 laptop same way.

Could you please give some more details about that Windows 11? How exactly did they manage to make it worse than 10?

 

[Khafra]

Wait, so they are pushing this auto -update BS again? Thanks for the heads up. Back in the days of auto-updates of Win7 I've blocked this from happening on my PC and my wife's laptop, now I'll probably need to secure her Win10 laptop same way.

Could you please give some more details about that Windows 11? How exactly did they manage to make it worse than 10?

To be exact, it's not an auto update, it's one of those updates that show up as available to install when shutting down the computer. I go through with those for security reasons, but I didn't expect one of them to secretly contain the entirety of Windows 11.

I really didn't play around it much after I found the revert button. First impressions were: The system UI has this ugly touchpad-esque round corner design that I couldn't get rid of, with the start menu looking like a smartphone app list. Work tools (which are not exactly state of the art, but still) were booting up super slow, as did the whole computer. My GRUB config for dual boot got all messed up, and now I boot to windows through bios because I didn't have time to fix it. The control panel got revamped again, looked like ass, and I couldn't find most of the options I was looking for. And the worst part, they completely gutted the right click menu. Literally every useful option was hidden in some stupid crevice that you have to use Google to find. It also looks like shit. There was absolutely no reason to do this. Even if they really wanted to match the style of the new UI, they could've at least kept the options the same.

Combined with the news I've heard of win11's planned hardware and software restrictions, and a general dislike of Microsoft's recent designs (ads in file explorer, for real?), I decided to not stick around.

 

[Pomorek]

To be exact, it's not an auto update, it's one of those updates that show up as available to install when shutting down the computer. I go through with those for security reasons, but I didn't expect one of them to secretly contain the entirety of Windows 11.

I really didn't play around it much after I found the revert button. First impressions were: The system UI has this ugly touchpad-esque round corner design that I couldn't get rid of, with the start menu looking like a smartphone app list. Work tools (which are not exactly state of the art, but still) were booting up super slow, as did the whole computer. My GRUB config for dual boot got all messed up, and now I boot to windows through bios because I didn't have time to fix it. The control panel got revamped again, looked like ass, and I couldn't find most of the options I was looking for. And the worst part, they completely gutted the right click menu. Literally every useful option was hidden in some stupid crevice that you have to use Google to find. It also looks like shit. There was absolutely no reason to do this. Even if they really wanted to match the style of the new UI, they could've at least kept the options the same.

Combined with the news I've heard of win11's planned hardware and software restrictions, and a general dislike of Microsoft's recent designs (ads in file explorer, for real?), I decided to not stick around.

Yeah, what would a Windows install be if it refrained from messing up GRUB... Good to know it's not as sneaky and automatized as those surprise Win-7-to-10 updates back in the days.

What you describe fits with what I read/heard elsewhere. Lots of changes for the sake of it and little rhyme or reason. While I understand that Microsoft needs money as much as any other business, many of their design decisions are still pure WTF. Particularily, that hidden right-click menu thing seems to be really annoying. And the poor performance would suggest that they once again reinvent the wheel when it comes to system basics. So "nice" of them, while I dislike Win10 I'll admit that after years of - often painful and troublesome - updates, it actually got usable. So now they are throwing all this effort out of the window (bad pun, or?...) and want the users to go through those "teething problems" again.

I've seen an analysis claiming that with Win11, they want to move towards closed ecosystem. Much like what exists on Macs and smartphones, where you can install by default only from a central store. Not to mention their silly hardware restrictions.

Like said above, I'm still using a relatively old PC with Win7 and Manjaro on it. It still works well and does what it's supposed to, even my 3D is not much hindered as I know the right settings for things which bring the computing demands for actual 3D fur to really mild levels. Also can't quite afford changing the hardware every few years just for the sake of it. However I do get to wonder, my next PC - whenever that is - may ditch Windows altogether. Games on Linux are still a hit-or-miss affair but this area is progressing. Recently I successfully ran STALKER Anomaly (a fan-made project) through Wine and Lutris. That is quite a significant thing for me.

 

[arashim]

I use windows to host my daily used VMs. Im posting from KALI right now XD I mostly use KALI but need to take a look at Parrot.
I work in Cyber security. I learned on kali. Ive SET UP EVERYTHING on Kali. Its why I daily drive it.

Miss me with that arch bs XD

But if I have to comment on windows.I liked 7 up until I had to switch to 10. Hated 8. WIndows 11 seems ok so far.

 

[Eli The Rabbit]

(I use Linux (Pop!_OS) nowadays but) My favorite windows operating system was Windows XP, and I'll tell you why:

- It was the first operating system I ever used, so it's nostalgic for me.
- I don't remember Windows XP being all that annoying, compared to newer Windows operating systems with their automatic updates and bloatware.
- I genuinely liked the user interface
- 3D Pinball

 

[WanderingAimlessly]

Vista < XP < 7 < 11 < 10 imo