Nowadays Windows is filled with adware and is fairly slow, but it wasn’t always like this. Was there a particular time where a change occurred?
Windows 11 seems to be fine, despite everyone whining constantly.
The ads everyone cries about? Can be disabled with a single option.
Slowness? Haven’t experienced it.
11 didn’t introduce anything, for me, that I couldn’t already do. Some of the desktop management features aren’t that bad and the UI is fine I guess. If you don’t like it, turns out it’s pretty easy to replace with a different shell.
Privacy concerns are pretty legitimate, but with about as much effort as getting a Linux distro set up and working you can lock that stuff down.
As someone who recently switched it is incredibly easy to get Linux Mint set up and working, far easier than tracking down where to find all the annoying ad settings I want to disable in Windows.
No, tracking down the settings to disable isn’t that difficult, but I shouldn’t have to, and Linux is even easier.
The correct answer is “whenever you discovered there was an alternative”. Windows has always been shit, but before you thought there was no alternative so you were used to it, ever since you started using something different you’ve grown less tolerant of problems. It’s like someone who’s always had a low end PC and played games on minimum at 30fps, it’s “okay” but the moment you play something on maximum at 144fps your normal experience feels sluggish and bad (even though nothing really changed with it).
I think windows is the same thing, which is why most people will tell you the last good version of windows was the one they were using when they migrated over to Linux.
How was windows XP bad? It did all I asked it to do, it was compatible with all the software I needed and, in general, “it just works”. I remember trying openSUSE back in the day, and being underwhelmed by it. Then I ran Kubuntu for a bit but, even though it had cool software for listening to music and such, I couldn’t use it to game. So I went back to windows because Linux just didn’t have anything for me.
Nowadays, I’d completely agree. Win10 does whatever it wants when it wants, even when it seems mostly tamed. It’s not terrible and it “works”, but yeah I’m switching to Arch before Win11 comes, for real.
Linux has come a long way and Windows has gone down the enshittification route; but it wasn’t like this back in the 00s.
XP was the response to Linux. Before that, windows was a crash fest, remember 98, or Millennium?
Linux was rock stable, so microsoft had to do something and started yo use their server core in the home version of windows.
XP was the response to Linux. Before that, windows was a crash fest, remember 98, or Millennium?
Linux was rock stable, so microsoft had to do something and started yo use their server core in the home version of windows.
They just realized trying to maintain NT and 9x core was foolish. Trying to put the hardware abstraction layer from Windows 2000 (NT 5) into 9x for Millennium Edition was AWFUL. So they scrapped the entire idea of a separate home core, 9x died, and Windows XP (NT 5.1) was born.
But NT was already good. Windows 2000 SP4 was a fantastic OS for its time, as was XP.
Gotta remember that the 9x core versions (95, 98, ME) were (in some ways) practically a separate OS masquerading as Windows.
I barely remember using win98, it was the first OS I used when I was very little. But I don’t remember it being so prone to crashing. At least not fatally crashing. Of course, by the time I was just playing around with paint and shareware games, not doing any serious work, so I wouldn’t know if it was bad.
But that still means it isn’t as straightforward as “windows was always bad, linux was always good”.
redacted
That’s not the question though, they may have backwards compatibility as a sacred cow, but the theme of their changes as of 8 and newer has broadly been more about trying to force other Microsoft agendas rather than trying to just make a better product.
Though I have had some older titles that work better with wine, or even older where I need dosbox to run it.
I seemed to touch a nerve to even imply Microsoft ever has compatibility issues…
Yes, you can get “modern” and give Microsoft continual money, yes, that was the whole point.
As to no alternatives, well, there are. FreeIPA is pretty squarely an Active Directory equivalent. The challenge is that if you have both Microsoft and non-Microsoft infrastructure, you have to use Microsoft management for both because Microsoft will only interoperate with the Microsoft solution. Once you have any Microsoft, then the only option for an all encompassing solution gets automatically locked down to only Microsoft.
Since you probably are employed by Microsoft or a Microsoft focused business partner, your perspective may be a bit skewed.
Windows Vista was the start in my eyes. XP (pro) was amazing. And then Vista came out and it broke a lot of things. Security was garbage, applications would constantly lose root files
Vista only lasted 2 years before they went back and turned it into Windows 7 with a few small tweaks, but more or less the exact same thing
98, XP, 7, 10: Good.
ME, Vista, 8, 11: Bad.
It’s Star Trek Movies all over again. We just need to hang on for Windows 12.
12 is in a weird cybersecurity limbo. It’s supposed to have a top-notch built in anti-virus and firewall, but Microsoft has said the same thing for Vista, 7, 8, 10, and 11. Yet systems are still getting compromised. If Microsoft included a VPN with insurance guarantee of function, I’d be 1000% on board
Windows Defender is actually really good for the common person. If you’re doing highly risky things then perhaps getting better software would be warranted. But if your doing low risk activates, Windows defender is pretty great.
Also, that’s not what VPNs do; you can still download ransomware through a VPN tunnel.
98 still had plenty of jank, but it was worlds better than 95. I would add 3/3.11 to the “good” list if only because that was basically the only other option for a lot of people and it did what it needed to. I don’t recall personally seeing windows 1 or 2.
edit: I guess I could throw NT mostly into the good section, but I mostly just did tech support for it rather than using it.
When was Windows 1 released?
