4 ms·

My Primary concern with Windows 11 can be described as follows: 98 - ME XP - Vista 7 - 8 10 - 11 Has Microsoft broken the cycle? Time will tell.

masklinn 5y ago
‘Course this is hampered by Windows 2000, which came concurrent to ME and was better than XP.
- geocrasher 5y ago
  Yeah W2K was an oddity that way. I wasn't sure how to fit it in this. But TBH, it wasn't as well adopted as ME or XP and I didn't feel the need to wedge it in there. The point stands, with or without W2K in the mix.
  - TremendousJudge 5y ago
    >as well adopted as ME was ME ever adopted by anyone? I saw more W2K machines than ME back in the day
    - masklinn 5y ago
      I think it was preinstalled on a lot of "consumer" machines, the boxes you'd buy did not usually have 2K instead they replaced 98 with ME. I had one friend with an ME box, and that was the worst POS around, it was so bad. Everybody else was either 2K or linux.
- tehbeard 5y ago
  Enterprise OS built for enterprise needs is > home OS? quelle surprise. That's same now as it was, 10 pro/workstation are better than home.
- dylan604 5y ago
  2000 was back when NT was a separate thing though, right? Didn't they switch to the NT kernel for everything after that?
  - masklinn 5y ago
    Windows 2000 was originally intended to be that. While the official switchover got pushed back (ultimately to XP) that made 2K an extremely capable consumer OS.
Exmoor 5y ago
Honestly, I find this to be a lazy trope. MS has certainly laid some eggs before, but the "every other version sucks" narrative relies a lot on revisionist thinking. Vista was a resource hog on the hardware of the time, but the UI was honestly a huge improvement and a lot of the complaining about Vista centered around security improvements the _ABSOLUTELY_ needed to happen. I suspect plenty of HN readers have memories of the malware infested mess that less technical XP users machines often turned into. XP also had an (accidentally) long life, so the XP that was replaced by Vista was significantly improved. You also leave out 8.1, which was a big improvement on 8.
- geocrasher 5y ago
  I'm speaking specifically of initial releases. I recall working on a Vista SP2 machine that I honestly thought was Windows 7 until I looked closer. And 8.1 wasn't too bad. But Vista at release was just awful. It created as many problems as it solved, as did 8.
- stan_rogers 5y ago
  Personally, I found Vista's UI to be horrible - the only saving grace was that one could use a "Classic Windows" theme to get back to something useful (as you also could in Win 7). UAC was just awful icing on the horrible cake.
- Macha 5y ago
  7 was a success, but mostly it was "Vista with the rough edges ironed out and more time for hardware to catch up". Ditto for 8 and 8.1. So I think it's based on a real phenomenon, where Microsoft was basically unintentionally doing the "move fast and break things" of modern software development, minus the fast part.
- MikusR 5y ago
  Or Windows 8.1 Update that was an improvement on 8.1.
Macha 5y ago
Well, some would argue 8.1 was the rising edge of the cycle and 10 was the falling edge...
Dracophoenix 5y ago
It already has broken the cycle. I was a Windows Insider and have used Windows 10 since the first build in October 2014 and several builds of the bi-annual updates after that (assuming the new features/optimizations were worth the headache). The early RTM versions of 10 really sucked as far as getting UWP apps to operate without random crashing. Since Windows 8, Search of Windows has been designed horrendously and that was made worse by Windows 10 with it's "cloud-based" Bing clutter (something that still hasn't changed since). Telemetry processes gobbled up memory and disk speed on HDDs and required cmd hacks to stop. A plus for Windows 10 is that the OS itself is stable and robust even on early Insider builds. Bad Patch Tuesdays and hibernation issues notwithstanding, it takes quite a bit of effort to get the OS to BSOD. But Windows 10 would have been better of as a reskinned and optimized Windows 7 + MS Store than the perennial Beta test OS that Windows 10 became. And it doesn't look like Windows 11 is going to be all that different in the respect.

masklinn 5y ago

‘Course this is hampered by Windows 2000, which came concurrent to ME and was better than XP.

geocrasher 5y ago
Yeah W2K was an oddity that way. I wasn't sure how to fit it in this. But TBH, it wasn't as well adopted as ME or XP and I didn't feel the need to wedge it in there. The point stands, with or without W2K in the mix.
- TremendousJudge 5y ago
  >as well adopted as ME was ME ever adopted by anyone? I saw more W2K machines than ME back in the day
  - masklinn 5y ago
    I think it was preinstalled on a lot of "consumer" machines, the boxes you'd buy did not usually have 2K instead they replaced 98 with ME. I had one friend with an ME box, and that was the worst POS around, it was so bad. Everybody else was either 2K or linux.
tehbeard 5y ago
Enterprise OS built for enterprise needs is > home OS? quelle surprise. That's same now as it was, 10 pro/workstation are better than home.
dylan604 5y ago
2000 was back when NT was a separate thing though, right? Didn't they switch to the NT kernel for everything after that?
- masklinn 5y ago
  Windows 2000 was originally intended to be that. While the official switchover got pushed back (ultimately to XP) that made 2K an extremely capable consumer OS.

Exmoor 5y ago

Honestly, I find this to be a lazy trope. MS has certainly laid some eggs before, but the "every other version sucks" narrative relies a lot on revisionist thinking. Vista was a resource hog on the hardware of the time, but the UI was honestly a huge improvement and a lot of the complaining about Vista centered around security improvements the _ABSOLUTELY_ needed to happen. I suspect plenty of HN readers have memories of the malware infested mess that less technical XP users machines often turned into. XP also had an (accidentally) long life, so the XP that was replaced by Vista was significantly improved. You also leave out 8.1, which was a big improvement on 8.

geocrasher 5y ago
I'm speaking specifically of initial releases. I recall working on a Vista SP2 machine that I honestly thought was Windows 7 until I looked closer. And 8.1 wasn't too bad. But Vista at release was just awful. It created as many problems as it solved, as did 8.
stan_rogers 5y ago
Personally, I found Vista's UI to be horrible - the only saving grace was that one could use a "Classic Windows" theme to get back to something useful (as you also could in Win 7). UAC was just awful icing on the horrible cake.
Macha 5y ago
7 was a success, but mostly it was "Vista with the rough edges ironed out and more time for hardware to catch up". Ditto for 8 and 8.1. So I think it's based on a real phenomenon, where Microsoft was basically unintentionally doing the "move fast and break things" of modern software development, minus the fast part.
MikusR 5y ago
Or Windows 8.1 Update that was an improvement on 8.1.

Macha 5y ago

Well, some would argue 8.1 was the rising edge of the cycle and 10 was the falling edge...

Dracophoenix 5y ago

It already has broken the cycle. I was a Windows Insider and have used Windows 10 since the first build in October 2014 and several builds of the bi-annual updates after that (assuming the new features/optimizations were worth the headache). The early RTM versions of 10 really sucked as far as getting UWP apps to operate without random crashing. Since Windows 8, Search of Windows has been designed horrendously and that was made worse by Windows 10 with it's "cloud-based" Bing clutter (something that still hasn't changed since). Telemetry processes gobbled up memory and disk speed on HDDs and required cmd hacks to stop. A plus for Windows 10 is that the OS itself is stable and robust even on early Insider builds. Bad Patch Tuesdays and hibernation issues notwithstanding, it takes quite a bit of effort to get the OS to BSOD. But Windows 10 would have been better of as a reskinned and optimized Windows 7 + MS Store than the perennial Beta test OS that Windows 10 became. And it doesn't look like Windows 11 is going to be all that different in the respect.