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Windows 7 was peak. Everything after that has been getting worse and worse every iteration.
It may have been a little slow at times, but it just worked. It wasn't constantly trying to advertise to you, trying to get you to download apps, trying to force AI onto you, trying to harvest your data, forcing you to use online services, it was just an operating system and a good one at that
Did it even have any online component? I can't seem to remember. Right after installation it would present you with a desktop. No bs about setting up onedrive or anything.
Microsoft.com accounts made their debut in W8.
But even Vista already had some nasty features like IE Smartscreen which to this day is on by default and which sends every website URL you visit to Microsoft. Vista was also the first Windows version to include telemetry throughout the OS. However, in Vista and W7 you could still disable telemetry on normal editions of Windows.
From a privacy standpoint, the last good-by-default OS was XP. The only bigger issues iirc were the Media Player which downloaded album art and DRM licenses and Active Desktop which Microsoft tried to use to advertise to you. Oh, and (edit): Windows license activation was online for the first time and in some cases you had to reactivate after changing hardware.
I was an XP fan. 7 was cool, too, though.
That's not true. Windows 10 is better than Windows 8. But windows 11 is so bad I'm switching to Linux when it's time to update
Same here. I don't understand people who tell me Windows 11 is alright. I use Windows 11 at work, and it's everything I hated about 10 magnified, with fewer or no ways to fix it. Every time it has an update, it's even worse.
The only reason I haven't migrated to Linux on my main rig is I've got years of regedits investing into Windows 10, but when it loses support, I'm out. I've already installed Linux on my laptop and the mini PC we use for streaming.
So 11 is the new ME/Vista/8?
Just on schedule, we will know if it's so bad that they need to change naming to something different on version 12.
So 11 is the new ME/Vista/8
I don't think it's that. I think it's designed for the Facebook demographic, if that makes sense -- and there are a lot of people on Facebook.
But if you want to have any level of control over your device or any real choice, it's not for you.
I loved windows 8.1 on my surface pro. It was a great touchscreen OS.
Windows peaked with Windows 2000.