Maybe hands off compared to now, but not compared to any other OS of the same era. If it's not activation licences (it's always amused me that performing a hard

Maybe hands off compared to now, but not compared to any other OS of the same era. If it's not activation licences (it's always amused me that performing a hardware upgrade on a cracked copy of XP was less troublesome than on a legally purchased copy), it's frequent notifications "you're not running our firewall", "you don't seem to be running our preferred antivirus", etc. And worse yet, Windows Updates often sneaks in updates for new software you didn't even request and often don't want: Bing search bars, Microsoft's shitty AV, MSN Messenger (back in the 90s), Silverlight, Windows 10(!!!) etc. Compare that to Linux, OS X, BeOS, any of the BSDs, etc and the difference is night and day. Ok, Ubuntu had a stint of including Amazon results in their search but they were relatively transparent about that and it was quickly disabled by default after the backlash they, deservingly imo, received. Windows has always been very "hands on" because it's designed for users who are very "hands off".