Your favourite and least favourite versions of Windows

[Dryicor]

Favourite = XP. Nostalgia, easy-to-use and works on 4:3 or 16:9. I run it to this day on a 2001 4:3 laptop offline. Second is Windows 10 (sleek!) but by a mile.

Least favourite = Windows 7. Crap music cues, and Windows Aero is not good. Followed by Windows ME and Windows 8/8.1 (no improvement).

[Torisakia]

Favorite is probably Windows XP, since I mostly grew up with it and I'm a stupid kid who is blinded by nostalgia. Least favorite has to be Windows 8 with its slow, shitty tiled "start menu". Vista wasn't that great either, but I didn't use it much and honestly I'd rather use it than Windows 8.

[Valentine Z]

Favorite is probably Windows XP, since I mostly grew up with it and I'm a stupid kid who is blinded by nostalgia. Least favorite has to be Windows 8 with its slow, shitty tiled "start menu". Vista wasn't that great either, but I didn't use it much and honestly I'd rather use it than Windows 8.

As I have said in my post, everything about Windows XP just screams fast and I like it pretty much compared to the newer versions. Like, I don't know if it is the design, or because of the rather lackluster experience I have on Windows 8 and 10 respectively when it comes to using their Modern counterparts of settings (some of the settings are moved from Control Panel to the Modern App, which has a tendency to crash almost half the time).

And then you had Windows XP, which is pretty much fast: Click. Open. Done.

Part of me feels that I should have played with the customisation more, because I love the idea of being able to change every bit of Windows. Even to baby pink with Comic Sans headers.

[The Cosmic Mainframe]

Favorite is probably Windows XP, since I mostly grew up with it and I'm a stupid kid who is blinded by nostalgia. Least favorite has to be Windows 8 with its slow, shitty tiled "start menu". Vista wasn't that great either, but I didn't use it much and honestly I'd rather use it than Windows 8.

As I have said in my post, everything about Windows XP just screams fast and I like it pretty much compared to the newer versions. Like, I don't know if it is the design, or because of the rather lackluster experience I have on Windows 8 and 10 respectively when it comes to using their Modern counterparts of settings (some of the settings are moved from Control Panel to the Modern App, which has a tendency to crash almost half the time).

And then you had Windows XP, which is pretty much fast: Click. Open. Done.

I actually had the opposite experience with XP. Perhaps it's because the computer was filled with viruses, or was relatively low-powered, but the Windows XP desktop I grew up was painfully slow, often taking several minutes to start single applications. The Windows 7 laptop I had afterwards was a lot faster, probably because the hardware was more powerful. At least, it was faster until it also became filled with viruses.

[Trollgaard]

Windows 95 or 7.

[The Blaatschapen]

Vista has united everyone in hating Vista.

And I have some sympathy for the product. It tried to implement a lot of security and it was.very clunky doing so. As another poster said the aero interface was just beyond most of the equipment of its time, i completely forgot that, but i do remember turning it off the day or two after I bought it, and that did help the performance a bit.

Without vista, you never get to 7, and 7 was OK, except for getting rid of telnet and hyperterm.

You could always get a standalone telnet client.

Or puTTy, which is what I used, because ssh is <3

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Windows 10 seems very Marmite - people either love it or hate it. I wonder what the difference is? It has been nothing but trouble on my last few laptops - are the people who like it lucky enough to have top end machines?

[Vivolkha]

Favorite is probably Windows XP, since I mostly grew up with it and I'm a stupid kid who is blinded by nostalgia. Least favorite has to be Windows 8 with its slow, shitty tiled "start menu". Vista wasn't that great either, but I didn't use it much and honestly I'd rather use it than Windows 8.

As I have said in my post, everything about Windows XP just screams fast and I like it pretty much compared to the newer versions. Like, I don't know if it is the design, or because of the rather lackluster experience I have on Windows 8 and 10 respectively when it comes to using their Modern counterparts of settings (some of the settings are moved from Control Panel to the Modern App, which has a tendency to crash almost half the time).

And then you had Windows XP, which is pretty much fast: Click. Open. Done.

Part of me feels that I should have played with the customisation more, because I love the idea of being able to change every bit of Windows. Even to baby pink with Comic Sans headers.

Strange, I've never had any problems with the Settings app, except for the fact that it exists for no reason. The settings were fine in Control Panel.

Windows 10 seems very Marmite - people either love it or hate it. I wonder what the difference is? It has been nothing but trouble on my last few laptops - are the people who like it lucky enough to have top end machines?

Well I'm kind of in the middle - it has several annoying features, but strictly speaking it works fine. My device isn't bottom of the barrel but it's far from top end.

[-Astoria-]

Windows 10 seems very Marmite - people either love it or hate it. I wonder what the difference is? It has been nothing but trouble on my last few laptops - are the people who like it lucky enough to have top end machines?

This.

Why do system apps (that you never even use) swallow so much data?

[Vistulange]

I feel like Win7 was Microsoft's magnum opus. I'm okay with Win10, as well, but it just seems to guzzle up so much RAM and CPU.

Also, I like how Vista isn't even on the poll. Good call, I think we all want to forget Vista.

[Valentine Z]

Strange, I've never had any problems with the Settings app, except for the fact that it exists for no reason. The settings were fine in Control Panel.

Mine would be stuck on that gear logo and crash, or crash at some inner parts of it. Though, it seems to be happening less and less, so I am glad for that.

I actually had the opposite experience with XP. Perhaps it's because the computer was filled with viruses, or was relatively low-powered, but the Windows XP desktop I grew up was painfully slow, often taking several minutes to start single applications. The Windows 7 laptop I had afterwards was a lot faster, probably because the hardware was more powerful. At least, it was faster until it also became filled with viruses.

Ohh yeah, the viruses and malware... the bane of every computer back in the 2000s. I have done that to my machines before because young me didn't bother to read the fine print and thus would ended up installing toolbars upon toolbars.

I feel like Win7 was Microsoft's magnum opus. I'm okay with Win10, as well, but it just seems to guzzle up so much RAM and CPU.

Also, I like how Vista isn't even on the poll. Good call, I think we all want to forget Vista.

You could say... Hasta la Vista.

[Ethel mermania]

And I have some sympathy for the product. It tried to implement a lot of security and it was.very clunky doing so. As another poster said the aero interface was just beyond most of the equipment of its time, i completely forgot that, but i do remember turning it off the day or two after I bought it, and that did help the performance a bit.

Without vista, you never get to 7, and 7 was OK, except for getting rid of telnet and hyperterm.

You could always get a standalone telnet client.

Or puTTy, which is what I used, because ssh is <3

When I have too, I use putty now. Hyperterm was good for serial connections. Those use to be important.

[Southern-Aves]

98 + XP were my childhood so they're my favourite, I also have fond memories of 7. Least is 8 + Vista. 10 is tolerable, at least in my opinion.
I've never used it but 95 looks great too.

[East Wolven]

I have two answers for both categories.

Best versions

Windows 2000 SP4
The one I grew up with, and still the one I've never once had a BSOD with. I still use it whenever using an older PC. Windows 2000 is the one that cemented my love of the personal computer, and my appreciation of the turn-of-the-century look.
Windows Vista SP2 (x64)
Why Vista when both XP and 7 exist? Well, its poor reputation is entirely a symptom of the year 2007. By 2011, any PC could run Windows Vista just fine (my daily driver is a 2011 HP prebuilt, and it's rock solid on it), with drivers coming along that work perfectly. All the kinks were worked out, and it turned into a slimmer, more beautiful Windows 7 with a more familiar user interface. Plus the Sidebar.

Worst versions

Windows 98
Windows 98, ladies and gentlemen. The OS so bad it launched a thousand mockeries and an antitrust lawsuit. It's just Windows 95, but chained to the worst liability browser ever made. Was Me bad? Sure, but it gets too bad of a rep. It really just followed the trend set up by Windows 98, just taken to its extreme. 98/Melite fix it up just fine, but at that point, you might as well just go to Windows 2000.
Windows 10
Ah, the marmite of Windows. I'm on the opposing side. Windows 10 is a garbage fire of an OS, which never deserved to be released as perpetual beta. From updates deleting people's files to just making it not boot at all, it's basically the follow up to Windows 98/Me. The UI was redesigned unnecessarily, duplicate functions make computer navigation awkward and unwieldy, and updates have the power to break programs. Even ones made by Microsoft. Like, you know, Windows Explorer. The only way to make it vaguely usable is to install Classic Shell... or, if you're gonna go through that much trouble, ubuntu.

Honorable mentions:

ReactOS
The only operating system I've ever paid full price for. Maybe I'm biased since 3 euro a month is being taken out of my bank account for it, but it's very promising. Essentially, when it's done, it'll be a modern version of Windows XP Pro x64. Right now it's about as buggy as Windows 98, but... hey, that's why it's in the alpha stage. I'm really looking forward to using it and developing for it.
Windows NT 3.51
It's like Windows 3.1, but works on surprisingly modern PCs. My laptop, a 2005 Dell Inspiron 2200, runs it natively just fine and with fairly high performance even when using generic vbemp drivers. Plus, I love the look and feel. I know that sounds backwards, but I used to mess around with Windows 3.1 on a virtual machine back in the day and it brings me back to that time—in addition to it just being different, and kinda openboxy. All in all, when ROS is done, I'm planning on making a desktop replacement for it that gives it the Windows NT 3.51 desktop for all three of the people that agree with me. Only reason it's not on my favorites list is that it's kinda useless in the modern day, since it only recognizes partitions up to 8 gb and programs are a pain to find and install for it.

[Nuroblav]

To give my reasoning:

Favourite: Windows XP - The nostalgia alone wins it for me. It has this warm feel to it that has kinda got lost. Google Chrome wasn't that good on it, but Internet Explorer worked well as a substitute, even if it could be slow at times.

Least Favourite: Windows 7 - Felt too cold for my liking in terms of appearance. It worked fine, although I remember it being slow at times

Windows 10 is alright in my opinion. Not the feel of XP but efficient enough for me.

[Forsher]

For me, it's 10 > 7 > XP > Vista > 98 > 8. Taking out the start menu was the dumbest thing, IMO.

I don't use the start menu all that often and I'm pretty sure I never have. Getting rid of it was a good idea. It's completely pointless.

And if I did use the start menu I'd hate Windows 10 because I hate the way Windows 10's start menu looks. Luckily, I don't have to see it because, again, it's pointless... at least with a functional search button and when you have a task bar (or task screen, whatever Windows 8 called it... I forget).

Either do a nice list like the old start menu or just stick with the start screen, not trying to do both.

Of course, would I have said this before I spent years with Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu as the major operating systems I use day to day? Don't know. But I'm saying it now.

[Destyntine]

7 was my favorite. The interface was clean, simple, and felt like an equal to the Windows 10 interface. While 10 is graphically better, it comes equipped with all of these useless apps running in the background that I had to manually disable/uninstall just to get working properly. I’m pretty sure nobody uses Skype anymore or wastes time with voice commands from Cortana. The built in malware defender was a pain to disable, it was eating up so much processing power from my PC. - Don’t even get me started on those useless random updates.

8 was my least favorite by design. I did not like the interface being on an entirely separate window from my home screen. It was almost like tabbing out just to get where I needed to go. Searching for something on 8 was a pain, because once again all of these useless apps plastered everywhere.

[Ethel mermania]

No love for Xwindows I see.

[Nooooooooooooooo]

Favorite: Clear windows
Least favorite: Fogged up windows.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Out of curiosity are any of the people who like Windows 10, and have no problems with it, using the Home edition rather than the Pro?

[Shanghai industrial complex]

I hate win10 the most because it took me a while to destroy its auto update feature.And win8 makes me feel like it's coming to torture me
I like win7 best because I like its frosted glass theme.And XP. I like XP. The computer I work on is still using that picture as the background.Who wouldn't like that picture?When it comes to Win98, I remember the days when I was a kid obsessed with ra2,cs and war3

[Cekoviu]

I hate win10 the most because it took me a while to destroy its auto update feature.

correct move is to not use windows 10 at all and instead use a rolling release linux distro but never upgrade your software because if you do that you'll have to recompile kernel drivers because dkms doesn't work inexplicably and that's annoying

...don't look at me like that, it's a common thing!

[East Wolven]

I hate win10 the most because it took me a while to destroy its auto update feature.

correct move is to not use windows 10 at all and instead use a rolling release linux distro but never upgrade your software because if you do that you'll have to recompile kernel drivers because dkms doesn't work inexplicably and that's annoying

...don't look at me like that, it's a common thing!

I tend to prefer LTS releases.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

I hate win10 the most because it took me a while to destroy its auto update feature.

correct move is to not use windows 10 at all and instead use a rolling release linux distro but never upgrade your software because if you do that you'll have to recompile kernel drivers because dkms doesn't work inexplicably and that's annoying

...don't look at me like that, it's a common thing!

It was a nightmare

[The Black Forrest]

No love for Xwindows I see.

You’re OLD!

I did have to turn down one job. Test lab guy. They sort of forgot they wanted an expert on windows 3.1. Sorry I don’t practice necromancy anymore. Especially for the salary you want to pay.