Windows 1.0, the original version of Microsoft's now-ubiquitous computer operating system, will turn 35 years old later this year. Since then, many different versions of Windows have been released; some have been hailed as revolutionary, while others have been panned for being hard to use, unstable, or as though a step back.
I would nominate Windows 2000 as my favourite version. While designed for the business computing market and originally referred to as Windows NT 5 before its release, it did catch on somewhat among everyday people, and I can see why. The NT base is known for being a lot more stable than the DOS-based earlier Windows versions released for the home market, meaning that Windows 2000 crashed and locked up much less often than Windows 9x or 3.x series, while Windows ME, released for the home market the same year, was still based on DOS and widely panned for instability and general lack of improvement. Windows 2000 retains the "old school cool" look of the 9x series, not having adopted the flashy colour schemes of XP that were compared to "Fisher-Price" by critics, while actually introducing quite a few new features that made it awesome for the time. DirectX support made it compatible with quite a few newer computer games, and the operating system could even support a USB. Also: no online activation required; that was an XP addition. Windows 2000 also has nostalgic value for me, being the OS on the first computer I owned. One more small thing I liked: when you open up a folder, it shows you in the bottom corner the combined total size of everything in the folder, without a need for selecting all or clicking on the properties. Most people probably didn't notice that was gone when they moved on to XP, but I thought that was awesome about 2000.
My least favourite version would be Windows 8. I'm typing this from my Windows 7 computer at home, and I refuse to upgrade until I really have to simply because the newer versions are hard for me to figure out and use. With Windows 8, released in 2012, it was as though the following conversation happened inside Microsoft headquarters: "What would you say is the #1 feature of Windows that people use the most?" "Let's go with the Start Menu." "Let's get rid of it!" It seemed as though it was an operating system for mobile devices, not really for laptop and desktop computers.
I really like Windows 7. I remember when it came out in 2009 and was hailed as the next big greatest thing ever in all the TV advertisements I remember for it, and I do like how it just seems to work. It's REALLY fast (I'm a recent convert from Windows XP, which I used until 2017, hence why I'm still amazed by 7's speed) and reliable, and while I generally prefer the old-school cool of the 9x series in terms of appearance, 7 has a sleek, modern design I also really like. The only thing I don't like is that even though I have an administrator account, I still can't figure out how to access the System Volume Information folder or a bunch of other stuff I was able to on XP and took for granted. I've tried Googling it and doing what the pages said, but it still doesn't work!
What say ye, NSG? Is anybody else on board with me in really liking Windows 2000? Or am I nuts?
Edit: Looks like I forgot Vista in the poll. Goes to show I don't have a very high opinion of it if I forget all about it.
