That's not how I remember it. Windows 9x was slow and constantly crashing. It was like... both. If you had a did your own clean Windows installs, had an

That's not how I remember it. Windows 9x was slow and constantly crashing. It was like... both. If you had a did your own clean Windows installs, had an extra $100 of RAM, defragged the HDD regularly, and disabled crapware and unnecessary services etc. the UI felt real sharp and instant. However this was not the typical experience. Typical experience for most people was that you clicked the Start menu and then listened to the HDD grind away.