People forget XP was pretty bad at first just like Windows 98 and like Windows 98 people became less critical after a bunch of major fixes. For Windows 98 this became Windows 98SE and for XP this became XP SP2 (and eventually 3).
Both Vista and 7 had problems before they were fixed after awhile. The most common issue I can remember was UAC and everyone just told you to turn it off to install and use their software and games. There were also a bunch of breaking Win API stuff and a lot of software made for XP just didn’t work anymore in Vista+.
People mainly just remember them after they were fixed, except for Vista because 7 came out fairly quickly (just 2 years later). Microsoft does not have a good track record for initial Windows releases but eventually everyone forgets and even some of the bad ones are remembered as the good ones.