3 ms·

Personally, Win XP was the pinnacle of Windows. Everything has gone downhill since then.

by whalesalad 4y ago

bluedino 4y ago
As long as you turn off the Fisher Price interface
- whalesalad 4y ago
  It’s my fav! Loved the media center ui too.
- toast0 4y ago
  It wasn't so bad as long as you turned the window title height down to normal. Then it was nice because you wouldn't prick your finger on sharp edges anymore. Out of the box, the extra window title height took up too much room, ugh. But then now there's so much whitespace everywhere.
endgame 4y ago
I call it the start of the decline, as it was the first version of Windows which featured on-line activation, legitimising the practice in the wider industry.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Microsoft online product activation was first introduced in Office 97, a few years before WinXP.
  - Hublium 4y ago
    Where do you have this information from? As far as I know, product activation for office started with Office XP ("2002").
    - int_19h 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_activation#Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_activation#Microsoft Win2K was the first one for which I've heard about it personally, probably because that's when it started to show up en masse in developed markets.
      - Hublium 4y ago
        Thank you, was not aware of that. There was no mention on this Wikipedia article that I used to double-check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Product_Activation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Product_Activation Let's rephrase @endgame's comment as "Windows XP and Office XP were the first versions of their respective series where product activation was mandatory on all retail editions." Point still stands I guess.
RedShift1 4y ago
To me it was Windows 7. XP was great, 7 was amazing. (Reference, NT4 was my first Windows).
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  7 also had the most flexible/capable iteration of the Windows theme engine, which enabled the creation of a wide variety of high quality third party themes you could use if Aero wasn't quite your thing but you also didn't want to drop back to Win9x look. 8 gutted the Windows theme engine because most of it wasn't needed to render flat squares and it still has yet to recover.
- Underphil 4y ago
  7 for me too, and my first was 3.1.
lmm 4y ago
XP was just 2K with a silly UI; it was a huge regression.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It took, what, 3 clicks to disable Luna and get back to slate grey? And one more click to disable the XP-style control panel. OTOH app compatibility in XP was quite a bit better, esp. with games. IIRC that's when Windows first started to experiment with features like virtualized disk and registry writes?
npteljes 4y ago
XP, yes, but don't forget the service packs. Win XP sucked SO much when it came out initially. Just burned a lot of resources for seemingly no gain, and it was very unstable, compared to the previous editions we ran at the time. With SP1 it was much better, but that was years after it came out, 2001 vs 2004 I think.

Personally, Win XP was the pinnacle of Windows. Everything has gone downhill since then.

bluedino 4y ago

As long as you turn off the Fisher Price interface

whalesalad 4y ago
It’s my fav! Loved the media center ui too.
toast0 4y ago
It wasn't so bad as long as you turned the window title height down to normal. Then it was nice because you wouldn't prick your finger on sharp edges anymore. Out of the box, the extra window title height took up too much room, ugh. But then now there's so much whitespace everywhere.

endgame 4y ago

I call it the start of the decline, as it was the first version of Windows which featured on-line activation, legitimising the practice in the wider industry.

int_19h 4y ago
Microsoft online product activation was first introduced in Office 97, a few years before WinXP.
- Hublium 4y ago
  Where do you have this information from? As far as I know, product activation for office started with Office XP ("2002").
  - int_19h 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_activation#Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_activation#Microsoft Win2K was the first one for which I've heard about it personally, probably because that's when it started to show up en masse in developed markets.
    - Hublium 4y ago
      Thank you, was not aware of that. There was no mention on this Wikipedia article that I used to double-check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Product_Activation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Product_Activation Let's rephrase @endgame's comment as "Windows XP and Office XP were the first versions of their respective series where product activation was mandatory on all retail editions." Point still stands I guess.

RedShift1 4y ago

To me it was Windows 7. XP was great, 7 was amazing. (Reference, NT4 was my first Windows).

kitsunesoba 4y ago
7 also had the most flexible/capable iteration of the Windows theme engine, which enabled the creation of a wide variety of high quality third party themes you could use if Aero wasn't quite your thing but you also didn't want to drop back to Win9x look. 8 gutted the Windows theme engine because most of it wasn't needed to render flat squares and it still has yet to recover.
Underphil 4y ago
7 for me too, and my first was 3.1.

lmm 4y ago

XP was just 2K with a silly UI; it was a huge regression.

int_19h 4y ago
It took, what, 3 clicks to disable Luna and get back to slate grey? And one more click to disable the XP-style control panel. OTOH app compatibility in XP was quite a bit better, esp. with games. IIRC that's when Windows first started to experiment with features like virtualized disk and registry writes?

npteljes 4y ago

XP, yes, but don't forget the service packs. Win XP sucked SO much when it came out initially. Just burned a lot of resources for seemingly no gain, and it was very unstable, compared to the previous editions we ran at the time. With SP1 it was much better, but that was years after it came out, 2001 vs 2004 I think.