I’ve run every Microsoft OS since MS-DOS 6.22. 

I think there is a tendency to idealize memories, to look back on them with rose tinted glasses. Windows 95 was one of the best versions of Windows *upon release* in my best attempt at remembering. Windows 98 was broken at release and wasn’t trustworthy until 98 SE. 

Windows ME was arguably the worst version of Windows. It famously crashed during Bill Gates’ demo of it. I had the misfortune to run this 98 + Microsoft Plus abomination for over a year. 

Windows 2000 Professional was stable, but slow as Christmas. It wasn’t really meant to be used by consumers, so that kinda makes sense. 

Windows XP was a good bit faster, but had nightmares with drivers for any hardware released prior (owing to it being a new kernel) and struggled with stability until SP3 and 4. 

Windows Vista introduced UAC which was almost universally hated. We still have it, so Microsoft won that one. It actually became fairly useable during its last SP. 

Windows 7 was the last major upgrade to the Windows kernel to date. By far the most loved version of Windows, Microsoft focused on security and performance issues. UAC bugs were mostly fixed and the UI was cleaned up. I ran this one through its entire lifecycle and it was a clean OS. 

Windows 8 was Windows 7 with an early attempt at making Microsoft relevant in the tablet space. I feel sorry for anyone who endured this. They managed to get everything wrong. 

Windows 10 was Windows 7 with aero basically shut off and strangely ran faster on the same hardware very often than Windows 7 did. Gamers seem to love this OS as DirectX became really good around this period and the OS got cleaned up of a lot of bloat. 

Windows 11 is Windows 7 with aero turned back on. It continues to unify the UI. Microsoft has mostly innovated on the UI level, and of course added telemetry and online services in the age of Chromebooks and cloud computing. Security has also been a focus, and it’s the first version of Windows I’ve ever been able to run for two years without a third party anti-virus and not had to reinstall. 

Windows 12 is shaping up to be the first innovation in the underlying OS made since Windows 7. Indications are it will be an immutable operating system with atomic updates. I expect ARM support will be a primary focus. Microsoft may be late to that party however as ARM licensing has become a nightmare and MS’s primary partner for ARM (qualcomm) is now investing heavily in RISC-V. 

Just my two cents on Windows history to add to the conversation. 🤣