Poll: What is your favorite version of Windows

First time creating a poll, hopefully I have the formatting right. Seems to be no ability to preview, so pardon me if anything looks odd.

There seem to be some strong opinions on this question. I'm just curious to know what the majority of people think.

Probably Ten. But I am starting to like 11, which will most likely become my new best friend. (For as long as it lasts)

It has to be 11 for me. I've only got one laptop dual booting with 10 and only boot to it, now and again, to keep it updated. Win 11 seems more efficient to me

I think XP was the best ever windows -- still don't like 11 on the whole -- -- prefer 10 but one has to move on.

As for servers W2003 or W2K3 server was brilliant (XP was based on it) and LTSC 2022 is also a winner

probably though many youngsters here on these boards will never have used XP --I'm sure plenty of oldsters remember it though.

Glad though no option to vote on Windows Me (Windows Millenium edition -- not W2K which was for its time and hardware not too bad) -=- that probably was the worst ever.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

I think XP was the best ever windows

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I see this said time and again, yet I remember that up until SP2 (which was really a new version of Windows, not a service pack) XP was an absolute dog that made Win ME look stable, which was supprising as XP was built on top of the fabulous Win 2k.

Nor being funny it's usually the version I'm using in this case Windows 11. It has a lot going for it and much of the criticism is unfair. It's stable looks good and so far it runs everything I throw at it. I'm not a gamer so can't comment on that.

z3r010 said:

I see this said time and again, yet I remember that up until SP2 (which was really a new version of Windows, not a service pack) XP was an absolute dog that made Win ME look stable, which was supprising as XP was built on top of the fabulous Win 2k.

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I used SP2 -- which was the edition I should have mentioned. W2K was stable and worked great -- I didn't realize that XP SP2 was essentially a new version of Windows -- although the SP2 service pack was quite large, and hardware was somewhat picky then -- but from my experience I never really got any success out of Windows millenium.

Windows 11 to give it its due runs better and more stably now than at release but some of the Insider builds just confuse loads -- even on the same build the same features aren't rolled out to all the users . Seems it's a lottery on what you get on insider builds these days.


cheers
jimbo

I liked XP the best.
It should have been x64 from the get go.

I think it was more what an OS should be... just an OS.
It was clean, intuitive and didn't fight with the user 24/7.

I don't know who's designing Windows now... but it NOT intuitive. Every setting is a fight.
Now-a-days, it kind of like... I'm working on someone else's computer, and can't find anything.



It seems like XP just tried to be an OS... and today OSes, try to be everything... which is a mistake.
Windows and ALL software should be like a socket set.
Windows being the ratchet, and all the little everythings should be like the sockets (plugins).

I think ALL developers of all software have gone down the wrong road... or gone down the right road, the wrong way.
Software is getting too hard. Software should be a tool I use... it shouldn't be like undergraduate studies.

We will obviously need to learn how to cook, but we shouldn't have to learn how to use a spoon, again and again and again.



I have the same complaints about Bitdefender, for example. It should be a basic AV/firewall, with plugins for all that other stuff.

All I want Windows to do, is run a few programs of my choice, and go online. The rest should be plugins or even 3rd party solutions.
Developers need to get back to "knowing" how to develop compatible software. That should be their job, not mine.
On my end... things should just work.

I'm a large, loud proponent of backup software, but it has the same problem. It tries to do everything in one piece of software.
Backup software should be... simple. It should do backup/restore, have bootable media, protect it's own backups, and then have plugins for all that other stuff.



Linux has the right idea with their "packages". The only problem with Linux is that it's written in Klingon or something.

z3r010 said:

XP was an absolute dog that made Win ME look stable

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That would be a neat trick.

Either Vista or Win 7. I liked the Aero Glass, and enjoyed customising the OSes to my needs, and the backup software was more user friendly. Since then Search has improved, but my customisations are lost whenever a feature update is applied.

I liked 3.1, 95, 98 and Millennium too. But only 10 responses are allowed in a poll.

It has to be the latest, unless MS releases an absolute dog. I like Windows 11 and look forward to its imminent next iteration.

kelper said:

I liked 3.1, 95, 98 and Millennium too. But only 10 responses are allowed in a poll.

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All a distant memory now. Unless you’re into running a VM of course

I got started with MS-DOS 5 with Windows 3.1 in '92, retired and new job in '94 and started building computers. I ran all later versions including WinNT 3.51, NT 4 and 2000. The only versions I never had were WinME and WinVista although I had clients that did have them. I got Win11 on a new Notebook the month it was released and a new Desktop 6 months later, like them. With prices being as they are it's good to find decent buys of OEM machines versus building one but then I'm not a gamer.

Now this is a hard question! Because it's difficult to be objective and not be influenced by feelings of nostalgia and souvenirs.
I personally really enjoyed XP and seven. But I would not go back to any of those. (not even 10). In 2023 Windows 11 is my
favorite and for me it has been a great and solid OS.

I even miss windows 95 and the message I received few times every day:

I think most of the opinions you'll get on this poll will depend on the age-demographic of the folks giving them. Personally, I prefer an OS to be an OS, not do-everything, end-all, be-all solution to manage everything.
While 11 hasn't given me any major problems, 7 was my all-time favorite to use (minus its update problems). I liked how clean it was and how easy it was to navigate.

Of the "modern" OSes it would have to be 10 before MS started throwing a lot of 11's features into it. Then, 10 was kind of a bridge between the old world and the new and I could live with that. I don't dislike all of 11. Just parts of it. 11's settings stink, as does all the foo-foo junk that most people do not want and will never use.

In a perfect world normal users would have a choice of either a Windows designed for people who work with their computers or one designed for those who play and want all the extra crap MS is forcing on everyone. But the world ain't perfect and technology marches on.

Wouldn't it be great if during a Windows install we were able to choose the features we wanted and check off all the the stuff we didn't

I would have to say 11 is.

glasskuter said:

Wouldn't it be great if during a Windows install we were able to choose the features we wanted and check off all the the stuff we didn't

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You can! Write an unattended install file using a generator.


If you can't acess this from Windows (site appears to be overloaded) use Android.

You can include out almost any app that comes with Windows, such as OneDrive, Teams, Office 365 nags and many more.

10 was my pick, as XP was a failure of an OS with the default setting for accounts being enabled with full Admin-level privileges.

Yes, please, don't bother trying to educate me on how it could be changed, I know this already. The average user, though did not know, and it was when layered security really became not only prevalent but also, I'd say, absolutely imperative to have on a machine running XP. XP would have been a good choice for me if it had not been for that aspect that Microsoft in their infinite wisdom thought was a good idea.

Vista and 7 tried to mitigate this with UAC, which apparently pissed a lot of people off - mostly the same people always getting viruses and needing help to clean their machines, I might add. But once I started using 7 I liked it well enough.

8 / 8/1 - fuggedaboutit. Never liked that OS at all, not even on tablets.

10 is probably the one OS I use for the longest time, and it (mostly) just worked. 11 is shaping up to be a decent OS, but both 10 and 11 still, IMO, try to be more than just an OS, as noted above in other responses.

The problem is that companies don't like serving up single-purpose software anymore. They want to give people suites, to entire them to use any given piece of software more because of its integration with other software that they may consider using. It's not just Microsoft either. But that is the world we live in today - get people into using software suites, then move to a subscription model that generates a better ROI than one-time installation payments.

kelper said:

You can!

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Thanks. I've read all the posts folks here have written about answer files but didn't know enough about it to ask intelligent question or attempt one. After looking at that article, I'm not too proud either to admit some of it is over my head and is greek to me as I am ignorant about what some of those options are. But I'm geek enough to play around with it and will do just that on my next clean install. But Joe Blow user setting up his new windows 11 computer for the first time takes what MS gives him, just like I did.