What Windows is overall the best to you and why?

[Bill_Bright]

It's a shame how broken Vista was!

yeah, I could tell the same about 11 nowadays

Umm, not really. Vista truly had many "broken" (buggy) and poorly designed features resulting in them failing to work properly or "as intended".

With 30+ million lines of code, of course Windows 11 has some "bugs". But for the most part, Windows 11 does indeed work (very well even) "as intended".

I emphasize "as intended" because that is THE critical point here. In this context with Windows 11, "as intended" means how Microsoft intends for it to work. That does not mean how consumers want or expect it to work.

The truth is, W11, for the most part, is NOT broken. It just doesn't always do what we consumers want it to do, how we want it to do it, or even what we are used to. But why? Because Microsoft "intends" for it to work "their way", not ours. And it does.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

yeah, I could tell the same about 11 nowadays

I think it was the bug that made me hold off until April, 2022. Microsoft knew about a bug that broke Ryzen performance in the very-early 21H2 days.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'm noticing a trend in the poll.. Feelin the love for Windows 7!

 

[MihaiPopaTech]

For me: it's Windows 7.
Why?

• Vastly, like VASTLY forwards and backwards compatible: iZotope's RX 9, Minecraft: Java Edition 1.21.7 and 1.21.6 on Java 8u51 (via TLauncher 2.899) and other software you can throw at will happily work on Windows 7 without any stupid error messages. It's just magic!
• No AI, no Microsoft's Copilot and Recall nonsense. No ads for TikTok, Microsoft Store and Candy Crush.
• Nostalgic and with a clean and beautiful UI.
• It works on almost any modern and old-ish PC.
• Perfect for the 2010s or modern days!

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

I'm noticing a trend in the poll.. Feelin the love for Windows 7!

I love Windows 7, but it's miserable if the updates are not integrated to the image of the installation media!

 

[Makalite]

Linux, all shooter games online are taken over by cheaters, SP games don't require Windows.

Pro scene, full of cheaters.

Low rating green trust, full of cheaters.

Used to be 7, but Linux has been the best Windows so far ever since.

 

[freeagent]

I like 11

Runs like 10, pretty like 7.. runs mint

Hugely unpopular opinion I know..

 

[Space Lynx]

Windows 8.1 was my favorite, but you don't have it as an option. Windows 8.1 with the mod that made it more like Windows 7, man that OS was fast. But regular Windows 8 was hot garbage. I am not voting since you don't have 8.1 as an option.

10 with a bunch of stuff removed is what I am using now and my current second favorite, super snappy. way snappier than 11

 

[lexluthermiester]

Hugely unpopular opinion I know..

Less popular, but still.. We are in the minority.

I am not voting since you don't have 8.1 as an option.

My guess is that most people lump 8 and 8.1 together. That's how I view it.

10 with a bunch of stuff removed is what I am using now and my current second favorite, super snappy. way snappier than 11

Debloated properly, 11 is either the same as 10 or a bit better. But the catch is properly debloating.

I love Windows 7, but it's miserable if the updates are not integrated to the image of the installation media!

If you need a fully updated Win7 ISO, PM me and I'll show you where to get it. It is legal, but I don't want to run afoul of forum rules.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Windows 8.1 was my favorite, but you don't have it as an option. Windows 8.1 with the mod that made it more like Windows 7, man that OS was fast. But regular Windows 8 was hot garbage. I am not voting since you don't have 8.1 as an option.

10 with a bunch of stuff removed is what I am using now and my current second favorite, super snappy. way snappier than 11

I like 8.1, too, but I'm trying to figure out why an update seemed to have very randomly failed with an error code. It may have been the Actiontech V1000H router that I had at the time. That model seemed buggy! I used to also randomly get disconnected, with FTTH! Then that nonsense stopped occurring.
For a short time, the chance of me getting disconnected, was much higher than with VTel's ADSL2! (When VTel just upgraded me to FTTH, but I started wondering if it was a router problem)

The hardware that VTel had with their ADSL2, was very reliable. The BEC 7402TM router (from the late '00s) was very reliable. It's the Actiontech V1000H router that I questioned.

 

[blinnbanir]

I picked 7

 

[lexluthermiester]

Used to be 7, but Linux has been the best Windows so far ever since.

Sorry, can't. Just no.

 

[Vayra86]

I like 11

Runs like 10, pretty like 7.. runs mint

Hugely unpopular opinion I know..

It really does depend HOW you run 11 and what version of it...

In my quiet IoT Enterprise ignorance is bliss-Windows-space, I love it, its a bit like my happiness within this OS is inversely proportional to how many calls it makes to Microsoft HQ.

Outside of that? I fucking hate it, its slow, it constantly changes shit, CoPilot buttons are too fucking large, Microsoft can eat a dick for killing my workflows every two weeks and the NEVER ENDING FUCKING POP UPS TELLING ME WHAT I CAN DO.

No seriously. Windows in an actual enterprise environment that you can't self manage... my god what a dystopia. Its not fast either, and the, it seems, AI directed updating these days can actually get shit wrong, like installing a web outlook on demand (you have no control) while the company policy is a local and legacy outlook version. MS's policy management is so messy these days, that can actually happen, and you get a work/authentication flow started within the web outlook so now you can't access anything anymore.

Its stuff like that. Every. Fucking. Day. If I could kick Satya in the physical nuts, I would.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Again, once debloated properly, the home and pro versions of 11 run just as good or better than 10 and the same as LTSC/IoT versions of 11. LTSC/IoT is good, but it's not the only option.

 

[Vayra86]

Again, once debloated properly, the home and pro versions of 11 run just as good or better than 10 and the same as LTSC/IoT versions of 11. LTSC/IoT is good, but it's not the only option.

Yeah, so just install the LTSC then because that'll save you a ton of work AND you don't have MS nagging you with new updates undoing all that hard work again.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Yeah, so just install the LTSC then because that'll save you a ton of work AND you don't have MS nagging you with new updates undoing all that hard work again.

It's not that much work. I haven't seen any updates messing with things... yet. You have a good point though.

 

[Onasi]

It's not that much work. I haven't seen any updates messing with things... yet. You have a good point though.

Just had the 26th of June update randomly activate the Resume feature for me that has been in gradual rollout since December, apparently. I killed it easily enough via ViVe, but the fact that they have started to embed features into CBS and they require a bit more tinkering to shut down is a tad annoying.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Just had the 26th of June update randomly activate the Resume feature for me that has been in gradual rollout since December, apparently. I killed it easily enough via ViVe, but the fact that they have started to embed features into CBS and they require a bit more tinkering to shut down is a tad annoying.

Ok, so Vayra has a good point then with the LTSC/IoT versions.

Of course, I think we're meandering from topic a bit..

 

[Makalite]

Win 11 24H2 IOT is slower than a debloated latest updated 11 Pro install.

Got my wings.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Win 11 24H2 IOT is slower than a debloated latest updated 11 Pro install.

Got my wings.

Weird. I haven't done any extensive testing lately to compare. Perhaps I should do that..

 

[Vayra86]

Win 11 24H2 IOT is slower than a debloated latest updated 11 Pro install.

Got my wings.

Not sure what you used to test stuff, but a lot of it can differ per session. Also I'm sure debloat removes some services IoT might default on for. But my own experience with it... its flawless. There are no hiccups, I'm on my desktop within 12 seconds from boot, consistently, and nothing ever gets in the way of that.

I will concede though that most of the time you can get a lower result out of something like latencymon in Windows 10 than in 11. But most runs will be very close together, and 11 can also win some. An interesting bit to consider as well is that the longer your Windows install has been alive, the fewer it has to manage services along the way, as stuff is all set due to user behavior. An early install of Windows will be doing a lot of management in the background. And that's not a matter of minutes or hours. Think days to several weeks, as the OS tries to use idle time, but scheduling is not perfect. That's where most high latencymon results come from in new systems. Also: USB peripherals.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This is likely margin of error stuff.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Vista was actually my favorite. Sure, 7 was more stable, but vista's GUI design was vastly superior and still looks very pretty.

10/11 are terribly unstable by comparison. I have win7 workstations that have run for literal years without rebooting that still work fine, yet despite all the reports and complaints, 10 years on windows 10 machines exhibit unstable behavior after only 1-2 weeks of uptime, from printers not printing to web browsers not opening. 11 is no better in this regard either, and it just blatantly ignores Group Policy; hence why we've spent the last week removing CoPilot from our PCs at work. Stupid Entra Trash......

Umm as noted above when I said there is "no incentive" - "no profit in developing and maintaining 2 versions of the same program."

Since there are still millions of 32-bit Windows systems out there, and again, because many programs run just fine as 32-bit applications on both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, there will continue to be lots of 32-bit only applications.

That will likely change over time as those 32-bit HW platforms age and get retired, then replaced with 64-bit platforms - especially now that Windows 11 is 64-bit only (though still supports 32-bit - for now).

What 32 bit HW platforms? The last true 32 bit platforms sold are 20 years old now. The vast majority of those are already long gone.

32 bit software will remain because there's simply nothing wrong with it. None of that old software will be re written, and MS knows that, and knows that if they dropped 32 bit software support there would be hell to pay.

 

[lexluthermiester]

32 bit software will remain because there's simply nothing wrong with it.

Exactly. It's also very stable(when done right) and easy.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Logically, Windows 11 is best because it runs today's hardware.

Yesterdays hardware can't run todays software.
Just like yesterdays operating systems can't run todays hardware. (properly)

Was XP better than Windows 98? It's basically the same operating system. The GUI was added and made it the most famous release of all times. But there was ME, 2000, heck even for it's time W95 was huge. Vista, Windows 7. I really like Aero, that was soo nice looking. But, these operating systems don't work with my current hardware. They where favorites in those time periods. Can only be appreciated with the appropriate hardware honestly.

my two pennies enjoy