In your opinion, what are the best/worst versions of Microsoft Windows?

[win32]

There have been many polls like this in the earlier days of this forum, but none in the era of Windows 8/10. I wonder how the recent changes to Windows will have affected opinions towards Windows and its various releases.

Due to poll limitations, the poll options for earlier/more obscure versions have been combined.

Edited June 28, 2020 by win32

[jaclaz]

Seemingly unrelated:

jaclaz

[aviv00]

Windows Server 2008 beta

i did enjoy this os

cos vista was heavy on my pc and that was like light in the tunnel

 

and vista was a bad os no matter what would i do to make it faster

its wouldnt help

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by aviv00

[Ximonite]

37 minutes ago, aviv00 said:

and vista was a bad os no matter what would i do to make it faster

its wouldnt help

Windows Vista SP2 is not a bad OS or slow.

[aviv00]

2 hours ago, Ximonite said:

slow

mb but against server 2008 beta was snappier

from my experience  at least

[jaclaz]

2 hours ago, Ximonite said:

Windows Vista SP2 is not a bad OS or slow.

Oh, noes, not again.

Vista SP2 was eaten up by Windows 7, SP2  was simply too late:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista#Service_Pack_2

Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista was released to manufacturing on April 28, 2009,and released to Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update on May 26, 2009

but the main original issue with the original release of Vista, 2 and 1/2 years before, was (apart some edges that needed to be rounded) essentially that it was widely installed on largely underpowered hardware.

Vista, no matter what Service pack, was, is and will be (extremely) slow on underpowered machines.

@aviv00

Server versions do not count , they are usually much better than corresponding "end customer" OS, either in terms of speed/optimization or in features/capabilities.

jaclaz

[Tommy]

Windows 1.0 to Windows XP were the best versions of Windows.

Windows Vista onwards....not so good.

I just have a real problem with the way Windows NT 6+ operates. It's much slower and requires a lot of power to operate smoothly. But even then, I feel it hiccups a lot more than something like Windows XP did. I absolutely hate how it handles updates. To be honest, I generally preferred the Windows Update website. From what I can see, Windows 10 doesn't even really give you the opportunity to see what updates are available or what they do like Windows Vista and 7 did. Windows 10 isn't horrible as long as it is heavily tweaked and much of the spy stuff turned off. But once updates start patching themselves to the OS, it doesn't take long for hard drive space to go away. I know hard drives are getting cheaper and larger but I still don't see why it needs to take so much space. The only really good solution is every year or so, slipstream all the latest updates into Windows and reinstall from that media so you don't have to worry about extra overhead in patches. I feel patches are just that, patches. The only really good way to ensure your system is trouble free is have them applied right from the very beginning.

[Tripredacus]

My top 3 for best is Windows 7, XP then 98. I had to pick Windows 7 over XP because of the increased stability, in addition to a proper implementation of 64-bit over XP. For uptime considerations, it would be in that order also. My Win7 uptime numbers are already posted here. With XP I had always ran into memory or memory leak issues where you absolutely had to do a restart every now and then because I'd run out of free memory and the computer would get very slow. For Windows 98, my average uptime records were around 3 months before requiring a restart.

For the worst, it was a battle between Windows ME and Windows 10. Windows ME was, at launch, a disaster mostly regarding drivers. However, on a properly tuned system, it was no different than Windows 98 SE at the worst. I can't fault Windows ME for being terrible when it was first released. In the same vein, I can't fault Vista for its launch either. Vista at launch wasn't terrible but it was terrible on low-end machines, of which most of the OEMs and retailers were selling Vista systems without enough RAM. They were selling XP systems with Vista, so 512 MB or 1 GB Vista RTM installs. Vista RTM worked decent with 4 GB RAM. It also had driver issues at launch, but everything since SP1 has been fine.

Windows 10 gets the loss for the worst. The data collection is one aspect. The changing to UWP, using combination new and legacy UI and UI that (sometimes) did not work in certain scenarios such as in audit mode or with no internet access. The removal of service packs or integratable feature updates. The non-transparency of Windows versions on tools. Processor blocking per OS version. Windows update restarting the computer without input... Windows Update upgrading Windows 7 installations with no input.

[wimb]

Booting from USB and Fast Windows Setup and Automatic Install of all drivers is by far best supported in Windows 10 but in other aspects it can be the worst ....

Windows 8 User interface and UEFI booting and Setting the dirty bit of all NTFS drives in case of boot problem was the worst ever experienced 

Edited June 29, 2020 by wimb

[Jody Thornton]

At one time I thought that Windows 2000 Professional was the overall best, most stable version of Windows.  In 2011, I felt that Windows XP x64 Edition beat it out on slightly better hardware.  There was some setup snafus but once every thing was tucked and away, XP x64 just sang nicely.

Now with Windows 8 (minus the Start screen and metro interface on a desktop), I find I have the best the combination of performance, modern looks (sorry but I want a screen to look like at least 2012), stability, and ease of use.  Now I find XP a bit archaic looking and dated feeling.

 

[NT 6.0]

1 hour ago, Jody Thornton said:

At one time I thought that Windows 2000 Professional was the overall best, most stable version of Windows.  In 2011, I felt that Windows XP x64 Edition beat it out on slightly better hardware.  There was some setup snafus but once every thing was tucked and away, XP x64 just sang nicely.

Now with Windows 8 (minus the Start screen and metro interface on a desktop), I find I have the best the combination of performance, modern looks (sorry but I want a screen to look like at least 2012), stability, and ease of use.  Now I find XP a bit archaic looking and dated feeling.

 

Interesting! I've always had the impression that the UI of Windows 8 is an acquired taste. The Metro UI feels rough and unpolished..for some reason it reminded me of the high-contrast themes. But that differs from person to person..those were just my two cents! Although I did like the initial Windows 8 UI more than what Windows 10 came with. Perhaps that is just because Windows 10 is very inconsistent. Even though 8 has just as many remnants from previous versions, the desktop felt like a completely separated entity which in itself was consistent. Whereas the Start screen consistently uses the Metro UI design language.

[jaclaz]

11 minutes ago, NT 6.0 said:

Interesting! I've always had the impression that the UI of Windows 8 is an acquired taste. The Metro UI feels rough and unpolished..for some reason it reminded me of the high-contrast themes. But that differs from person to person..those were just my two cents! Although I did like the initial Windows 8 UI more than what Windows 10 came with. Perhaps that is just because Windows 10 is very inconsistent. Even though 8 has just as many remnants from previous versions, the desktop felt like a completely separated entity which in itself was consistent. Whereas the Start screen consistently uses the Metro UI design language.

Very often the issue in these polls/opinions is the exact way people considers the OS.

I mean, more often than not an opinion is made NOT (as it should in these kind of polls) on the OS as it comes from the good MS guys, but rather on a heavily re-configured/tweaked/customized/changed/what not OS

In the case of Jody, he has a system that is probably very unlike Windows 8 (as conceived and released by the good MS guys) but much more like a "modernized" Windows 7.

I mean when passing from Windows NT 3.1/3.51 to NT 4.00 and then to 2000 and then to XP (which remains essentially Windows 2000 with some added bells and whistles) there was not any "shock".

From XP to Vista there was some shock, but not on the visual impact of the UI, only at its terrible performances (due to underpowered hardware).

From Vista to 7 as well no particular shock.

From 7 to 8 .

Just have a quick tour here:
http://toastytech.com/guis/indexwindows.html

and you can quickly relive the experience.

jaclaz

 

 

[NT 6.0]

11 minutes ago, jaclaz said:

Very often the issue in these polls/opinions is the exact way people considers the OS.

I mean, more often than not an opinion is made NOT (as it should in these kind of polls) on the OS as it comes from the good MS guys, but rather on a heavily re-configured/tweaked/customized/changed/what not OS

In the case of Jody, he has a system that is probably very unlike Windows 8 (as conceived and released by the good MS guys) but much more like a "modernized" Windows 7.

I mean when passing from Windows NT 3.1/3.51 to NT 4.00 and then to 2000 and then to XP (which remains essentially Windows 2000 with some added bells and whistles) there was not any "shock".

From XP to Vista there was some shock, but not on the visual impact of the UI, only at its terrible performances (due to underpowered hardware).

From Vista to 7 as well no particular shock.

From 7 to 8 .

Just have a quick tour here:
http://toastytech.com/guis/indexwindows.html

and you can quickly relive the experience.

jaclaz

 

 

Yes, you might be right. Of course, personal "tweaks" make quite a difference. Thanks for the link! Also; as far as the shocks go: I think I can remember many people that were disgusted by the so-called "FisherPrice" Windows XP UI (Luna). Windows XP received a lot of criticism..but it also had a lot of time to prove that it is indeed a good OS- and so many started to love it... and many love it to this day!

Edited June 29, 2020 by NT 6.0

[Tommy]

I personally always preferred the classic theme UI. It's fast, snappy, and to me looks cool. The fact that Windows 10 removed it all together just makes me a bit disgusted. I don't really like the entirely flat look in the UI. But so many things have followed that trend as far as logos go, Google even being one of them.

A bit of why I don't care for Windows 10's UI also stems from the fact that we use it at work and for the older people who don't get on the computer much but needs to in order to request time off or look at the pay stubs...I always have to tell them how to navigate. One question I have is...what was wrong with the Windows 98 styled start menu? Or really, the 9x/NT4/2000 styled one? With Windows 10, I discovered that you can log off by right clicking the start menu flag and choosing shut down or sign off. Most of the others that help people when I can't tell them to click on the start menu and then click on the little person looking icon and then signing off. Why does something simple like that have to be tucked away? I liked when you'd click on Start (can you truly even call it a "start" menu anymore?) I guess it does say "Start" when you hover over the flag. But you'd click on it and you had actual text of what each option did. Shut down...log off...help....search...etc. I can't completely knock Windows alone because most software developers are moving towards picture only icons. Remember the older IE versions? Back, Forward, Stop, all of those were listed under the respective icon buttons. Now you don't get any of that. Now you have to tell someone to click on the little house icon if you want them to visit their homepage. It's so frustrating because not everyone understands these types of terms.

I also don't care for the "other user" option on Windows 10. I can't speak for Windows 8 but especially on Windows 2000/XP, I preferred always being able to type in your username and password instead of bringing up the last user like Windows 10 seems to do. That throws people for a loop too, more than you know. I liked the CTRL+ALT+DEL to log in which it is obviously capable of doing if enabled...but then you just had a popup window asking for your credentials. Easy peasy! Then again, these are people who complain about having to change their password every year as they finally got this one down pat.

Now...for a company like Meijer which I work for...for those who don't know, it's basically a supermarket like Walmart but is privately owned and only in 6 states right now. But they're in a bit of a pickle and have things set up so archaically because many of their training modules use Flash which is obviously going away. Many things we use also rely on Internet Explorer. So for most things, we have to use IE but then for training, we have to switch to Google Chrome. Some want to use Chrome for everything but that's not possible as some things are broken in Chrome and don't function properly in it. We did use Windows 7 before it was retired and that was set up a bit differently as they had Flash for IE installed but then they had removed it about a year before we moved to new computers with Windows 10 on them. I did prefer Windows 7 only because it was a bit more configurable and they had a generic user account rather than utilizing our own accounts like we do on Windows 10. We're still using Windows Server 2008 R2 for Citrix and I'm sure other things so I'm assuming that they're receiving custom support for it. But I am a bit concerned with how some of these things are going to measure up, especially when Flash goes away. I really don't think there was a lot of planning ahead for these things. I know I'm sort of straying away from the actual OS discussion but so much of this ties into the poor planning of deployment and maintaining which I'm certain also isn't being done. When we got these new computers, they weren't too bad. They use Ryzen 5 processors and have 8GBs of RAM installed...but they're slowing down so much already that people are complaining quite a bit. What also gets me is they're still using Windows 10 version 1803 which has this problem we've dubbed as the black screen of death, where the screen goes black randomly for no seemingly good reason and even though the computer hasn't crashed, you can't see a thing and the only thing you can do is hold the power button down and restart the computer. Horrible when you're in the middle of working on something!

But to really cut to the chase, I'd be all for a new version of Windows that was designed for real simplicity. For those like me who preferred Windows 98 and didn't care how "modern" it looks. Straight-forward and functional are good enough for me. While Windows 7 was probably the best OS Microsoft cranked out for a while and is probably the best of the NT 6.0 line...even it wasn't 100% straight-forward as previous versions. Windows 95 was probably a hallmark staple in the Windows series because of how much more straight-forward it was to use. No guessing what buttons did, it just told you in the UI. The OS/UI didn't assume that every person on the planet who uses that software knew what the picture icons meant. While I've figured most of them out, I'm a guru who works with this stuff day in and day out so I get it. But for those who don't use computers very much or have a hard time with them, MS needs to either have an option or a separate version of Windows that could be inter-compatible with updates but go back to some of the original Windows 95 roots that also maintains security and integrity of Windows NT. And of course, not completely forcing updates and restarts whenever the OS feels like it.

And honestly, as I mentioned up above...why does the OS have to be so large in filesize now? Many have been able to whittle down the OS to much smaller sizes which means lower overhead and most likely speeding up the OS itself. Even powerful PCs can start stumbling the more the OS is patched and the size continues to increase.

[Jody Thornton]

1 hour ago, jaclaz said:

Very often the issue in these polls/opinions is the exact way people considers the OS.

I mean, more often than not an opinion is made NOT (as it should in these kind of polls) on the OS as it comes from the good MS guys, but rather on a heavily re-configured/tweaked/customized/changed/what not OS

In the case of Jody, he has a system that is probably very unlike Windows 8 (as conceived and released by the good MS guys) but much more like a "modernized" Windows 7.

I mean when passing from Windows NT 3.1/3.51 to NT 4.00 and then to 2000 and then to XP (which remains essentially Windows 2000 with some added bells and whistles) there was not any "shock".

From XP to Vista there was some shock, but not on the visual impact of the UI, only at its terrible performances (due to underpowered hardware).

From Vista to 7 as well no particular shock.

From 7 to 8 .

Just have a quick tour here:
http://toastytech.com/guis/indexwindows.html

and you can quickly relive the experience.

jaclaz

 

 

I'd say that yes, my system would be like a flatter, faster, modern Windows 7.  But honestly, I think people make out native Windows 8x to be more shocking than it actually is.  Minus the Start screen, and add Classic Shell, my installation is pretty much like the native desktop of Windows 8.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Jody Thornton