5 ms·

> That was the best version Microsoft ever made No. 7 was a rollback on Vista. The best one which was not a step back but rather a step forward was Windows 200

> That was the best version Microsoft ever made No. 7 was a rollback on Vista. The best one which was not a step back but rather a step forward was Windows 2000. (Some even swear by NT4, which I feel also has some merit.)

nix23 4y ago
I think WindowsServer2003R2 was the best OS Microsoft ever made, then XP >SP2 and Windows2000, then Win7.
- Koshkin 4y ago
  As to "the best OS Microsoft has ever made," it was OS/2 (which they abandoned in favor of the "hugely successful" Windows 3.0 which was clearly inferior on all technical accounts).
  - nix23 4y ago
    That was made by IBM AND Microsoft, but if we go so far Xenix was the best os MS ever made/buy'd ;)
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  I used Server 2003 R2 as a daily driver on a laptop for a couple of years pre-Windows 7. It was very nice. Most Windows XP software would work fine.
- StillBored 4y ago
  Yes 2003 64-bit was the first official 64-bit x86 windows and is probably the largest advance over 2000, and there really hasn't been anything since that is as large a technical capability addition. I'm on the fence, but frequently say that 2000 was probably the best. Then I have to qualify that maybe the preview 64-bit XP or full win2003 might be first or in the running because 64-bit is such a major/critical feature to modern computer that if you wanted to sell a modern "Windows for business" release you would have to pick one of the 64-bit versions rather than rolling back to 2k. I too ran 2k3 (64-bit of course on my athlon64) for a while as a desktop and technically it was fantastic, but eventually ended up switching back to XP with a few hacks to just avoid the general issue that a number of pieces of desktop software refused to run on a "server OS" without buying the server license for $$$$.
ahartmetz 4y ago
Yes, 2000 was by far my favorite Windows. Very solid, very clean style. I have a burning hatred for the visual design of Windows 7 (and Vista to a lesser degree) - it may have been technically great, but the design felt appropriate for a toothpaste, not for an operating system. I could only stand XP with the 2000 style as well. What the hell were they thinking?
- rzzzt 4y ago
  The theme in Windows 2000 and its classic counterpart in XP 64-bit used a darker shade of blue for the background, which I always tried to hand-select on the systems that I had (and weren't running these versions). There was also some tiny difference between the active window colors as well, IIRC.
- mrighele 4y ago
  I consider Windows 2000 the top that Microsoft reached with regard to style (both look and feel). But you can choose "Windows Classic" as a style in Windows 7 and it will not to be too different, although some thing may be annoying. For example, Windows 2000 was more keyboard-friendly. In Explorer, you edit the path on the top input, then you tab and you move between files. Since Windows XP that has been increasing, and its 5 tabs in Windows 7. Pratically unusable The control panel is not yet fucked up like in Windows 8+ but still you can guess the year in which the entry was written. On the other side, the start menu is better because you have a search field that works well (no web stupid web searches there).
  - KMag 4y ago
    My chief complaint about Win7 is how much slower it seemed to perform than Win2k on late 90s/early 2000s hardware / on a virtual machine. (Also, IIRC, the licensing terms for Win2k were better regarding running on virtual machines.)
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    For me, peak Windows in terms of style was Windows 3.1 with the Hotdog Stand theme. But Windows 2000 was solid as well
monocasa 4y ago
It wasn't really a rollback, but instead a bit more stable from Vista having taken all the flack for the changes like a lightning rod.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Win2K was the only version of Windows I ever ran as a daily driver. I had access to Macs from an early age (since System 7 and through all the processor architecture transitions, except I haven’t gotten an M-series yet), but sold my Mac and couldn’t afford a replacement for some time around the XP transition. My completely unqualified ranking… - 2k: excellent, top Windows - XP: fine, if you turn off all the UI changes, but not appealing over 2k in any way I can recall - Vista: didn’t use it, but I think it got a bad rep for efforts that should’ve been lauded - 7: good enough, mostly didn’t suck for web compatibility testing - 8: I’m one of the weirdos who found it very compelling… but not enough to actually use it. I’m sure it was as bad in practice as everyone who used it thinks, but I really appreciated the bold attempt at a UI for any device. And I’d been very taken by earlier Metro. - 10: seemed like a perfectly reasonable reversion to evolving 7, but also seemed like it got weirder and worse as they dug into no new versions. - 11: new version doesn’t seem to have improved things on that front. - 3.x-98: I didn’t like them, but objectively they were probably just as good as their contemporary Mac offerings just catering to different markets - ME: lol why even did this exist
- Lammy 4y ago
  > - ME: lol why even did this exist To get Internet Explorer 5.5 deployed as widely as possible which was their strategy pre-DOJ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    Extra lulz. I understood ME to be a stopgap in the NT transition, where 2k was supposed to be the consumer/corporate merge but that was delayed til XP for reasons… I think drivers? But of course there was IE strategy. Maybe I’m just softening because I haven’t had to deal with IE for so long, but I really do think it’s an incredible achievement that MS transitioned Windows with as little disruption as they did, with all sorts of good and bad incentives. It’s a wonder Windows even still works, much less keeping such a large majority of install base. Obviously it’s not my favorite software in the world, but I’m thoroughly impressed with what the devs have pulled off through a cartoonish timeline of priority shifts with unbelievable backcompat expectations.
mrcarruthers 4y ago
Vista was a necessary evil on Microsoft's end. While yes some things weren't great (Aero), the main issue was always drivers. Microsoft had to switch the ways drivers work for some very necessary security reasons. This led to many hardware manufacturers just not making new drivers or slapping together the shitiest thing and hoping it worked. Took a few years but eventually everyone had new hardware (with decent compatible drivers), at which point 7 came out which is basically Vista with a new skin. Hell, at the end its life an up to date Vista was actually pretty decent.
- wlesieutre 4y ago
  Their other issue was giving in to Intel on lowering the requirements of a "Windows Vista Capable" sticker, so a lot people were buying hardware for Vista that really shouldn't have been recommended, especially at the start of Vista's era. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/the-vista-capable-debacle-intel-pushes-microsoft-bends/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/the-vista-capable-de...
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Also the start of COM everywhere, after WinDev managed to win over DevDiv regarding Longhorn. So instead of having everyone working together to make an OS where managed stacks take the main role, as Google has managed to push no matter what, regarding Android and ChromeOS, we got Longhorn's demise and its ideas being redone in COM and C++, WinDev darlings.
SanjayMehta 4y ago
NT 3.51 was rock solid stable. 4.0 had some GUI implementation changes which made it unstable in the early days.
grishka 4y ago
Looking at it another way, 7 was the last properly-desktop one, before touchscreens ruined everything for everyone.

nix23 4y ago

I think WindowsServer2003R2 was the best OS Microsoft ever made, then XP >SP2 and Windows2000, then Win7.

Koshkin 4y ago
As to "the best OS Microsoft has ever made," it was OS/2 (which they abandoned in favor of the "hugely successful" Windows 3.0 which was clearly inferior on all technical accounts).
- nix23 4y ago
  That was made by IBM AND Microsoft, but if we go so far Xenix was the best os MS ever made/buy'd ;)
EvanAnderson 4y ago
I used Server 2003 R2 as a daily driver on a laptop for a couple of years pre-Windows 7. It was very nice. Most Windows XP software would work fine.
StillBored 4y ago
Yes 2003 64-bit was the first official 64-bit x86 windows and is probably the largest advance over 2000, and there really hasn't been anything since that is as large a technical capability addition. I'm on the fence, but frequently say that 2000 was probably the best. Then I have to qualify that maybe the preview 64-bit XP or full win2003 might be first or in the running because 64-bit is such a major/critical feature to modern computer that if you wanted to sell a modern "Windows for business" release you would have to pick one of the 64-bit versions rather than rolling back to 2k. I too ran 2k3 (64-bit of course on my athlon64) for a while as a desktop and technically it was fantastic, but eventually ended up switching back to XP with a few hacks to just avoid the general issue that a number of pieces of desktop software refused to run on a "server OS" without buying the server license for $$$$.

ahartmetz 4y ago

Yes, 2000 was by far my favorite Windows. Very solid, very clean style. I have a burning hatred for the visual design of Windows 7 (and Vista to a lesser degree) - it may have been technically great, but the design felt appropriate for a toothpaste, not for an operating system. I could only stand XP with the 2000 style as well. What the hell were they thinking?

rzzzt 4y ago
The theme in Windows 2000 and its classic counterpart in XP 64-bit used a darker shade of blue for the background, which I always tried to hand-select on the systems that I had (and weren't running these versions). There was also some tiny difference between the active window colors as well, IIRC.
mrighele 4y ago
I consider Windows 2000 the top that Microsoft reached with regard to style (both look and feel). But you can choose "Windows Classic" as a style in Windows 7 and it will not to be too different, although some thing may be annoying. For example, Windows 2000 was more keyboard-friendly. In Explorer, you edit the path on the top input, then you tab and you move between files. Since Windows XP that has been increasing, and its 5 tabs in Windows 7. Pratically unusable The control panel is not yet fucked up like in Windows 8+ but still you can guess the year in which the entry was written. On the other side, the start menu is better because you have a search field that works well (no web stupid web searches there).
- KMag 4y ago
  My chief complaint about Win7 is how much slower it seemed to perform than Win2k on late 90s/early 2000s hardware / on a virtual machine. (Also, IIRC, the licensing terms for Win2k were better regarding running on virtual machines.)
- ihatepython 4y ago
  For me, peak Windows in terms of style was Windows 3.1 with the Hotdog Stand theme. But Windows 2000 was solid as well

monocasa 4y ago

It wasn't really a rollback, but instead a bit more stable from Vista having taken all the flack for the changes like a lightning rod.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

Win2K was the only version of Windows I ever ran as a daily driver. I had access to Macs from an early age (since System 7 and through all the processor architecture transitions, except I haven’t gotten an M-series yet), but sold my Mac and couldn’t afford a replacement for some time around the XP transition. My completely unqualified ranking… - 2k: excellent, top Windows - XP: fine, if you turn off all the UI changes, but not appealing over 2k in any way I can recall - Vista: didn’t use it, but I think it got a bad rep for efforts that should’ve been lauded - 7: good enough, mostly didn’t suck for web compatibility testing - 8: I’m one of the weirdos who found it very compelling… but not enough to actually use it. I’m sure it was as bad in practice as everyone who used it thinks, but I really appreciated the bold attempt at a UI for any device. And I’d been very taken by earlier Metro. - 10: seemed like a perfectly reasonable reversion to evolving 7, but also seemed like it got weirder and worse as they dug into no new versions. - 11: new version doesn’t seem to have improved things on that front. - 3.x-98: I didn’t like them, but objectively they were probably just as good as their contemporary Mac offerings just catering to different markets - ME: lol why even did this exist

Lammy 4y ago
> - ME: lol why even did this exist To get Internet Explorer 5.5 deployed as widely as possible which was their strategy pre-DOJ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Extra lulz. I understood ME to be a stopgap in the NT transition, where 2k was supposed to be the consumer/corporate merge but that was delayed til XP for reasons… I think drivers? But of course there was IE strategy. Maybe I’m just softening because I haven’t had to deal with IE for so long, but I really do think it’s an incredible achievement that MS transitioned Windows with as little disruption as they did, with all sorts of good and bad incentives. It’s a wonder Windows even still works, much less keeping such a large majority of install base. Obviously it’s not my favorite software in the world, but I’m thoroughly impressed with what the devs have pulled off through a cartoonish timeline of priority shifts with unbelievable backcompat expectations.

mrcarruthers 4y ago

Vista was a necessary evil on Microsoft's end. While yes some things weren't great (Aero), the main issue was always drivers. Microsoft had to switch the ways drivers work for some very necessary security reasons. This led to many hardware manufacturers just not making new drivers or slapping together the shitiest thing and hoping it worked. Took a few years but eventually everyone had new hardware (with decent compatible drivers), at which point 7 came out which is basically Vista with a new skin. Hell, at the end its life an up to date Vista was actually pretty decent.

wlesieutre 4y ago
Their other issue was giving in to Intel on lowering the requirements of a "Windows Vista Capable" sticker, so a lot people were buying hardware for Vista that really shouldn't have been recommended, especially at the start of Vista's era. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/the-vista-capable-debacle-intel-pushes-microsoft-bends/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/the-vista-capable-de...
pjmlp 4y ago
Also the start of COM everywhere, after WinDev managed to win over DevDiv regarding Longhorn. So instead of having everyone working together to make an OS where managed stacks take the main role, as Google has managed to push no matter what, regarding Android and ChromeOS, we got Longhorn's demise and its ideas being redone in COM and C++, WinDev darlings.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

NT 3.51 was rock solid stable. 4.0 had some GUI implementation changes which made it unstable in the early days.

grishka 4y ago

Looking at it another way, 7 was the last properly-desktop one, before touchscreens ruined everything for everyone.