FAVOURITE WINDOWS OS VERSION?

[HorrorMovieRei]

Windows peaked at XP. Windows 7 is alright too, which is what I use right now.

[nxGangrel]

Windows 7.  It's simple and gets the job done. Windows XP is like a basic version of 7 and W 8 is just 7 with extra useless crap.

[chungy]

It peaked at Windows 2000. That was the last version that felt clean, fast and responsive, and didn't have a terrible UI theme by default. It's been downhill ever since.

 

Windows XP was the version that convinced me to dump it permanently.

[CARRiON]

I've used damn near every MS OS and I wouldn't call any of them my favorite. DOS and Win9x were a PAIN in the ass, XP was decent but looked awful, Vista was absolute garbage, Win7 was decent, Win 8 was garbage, Win 10 is mostly decent.

 

If Linux had 100% game compatibility, I'd have switched looooooong ago.

[Lila Feuer]

While I consider XP nostalgic for the time I used it I did like 7 quite a lot and it convinced me to upgrade. 8/8.1 however was lame and broke stuff for no reason which ended up working properly again on 10 which is pretty much the next best thing to 7, minus a few things.

98 was just a nightmare.

[Megalyth]

15 minutes ago, CARRiON said:

DOS and Win9x were a PAIN in the ass, XP was decent but looked awful

They were a lot of the time, especially Windows 3.1. I liked DOS a lot at the time though, we had this cool front-end called 3D Menu for easy access to games. I don't miss fighting with conventional memory and TSRs though.

 

I found XP to be one of the most solid versions, but the default theme looked like it came straight out of Sesame Street. The very first thing I always did after a reformat was change the theme to the standard Windows grey.

[xttl]

Windows 10 has some great new stuff, for example the console finally works on the same level that xterm worked in the 1980s or so. You can finally resize the window freely using the mouse and ANSI control code support has been improved a lot. The Linux binary compatibility layer (WSL, or "Bash on Windows" which is a really stupid marketing name for it) already works well even though it's still officially in beta. I haven't done my own precise measurements but I think it might also be slightly better with regards to battery life compared to running Windows 7 on the same laptop. It would make sense because mobile is what they're concentrating on now much more than desktops.

 

Too bad about all the UI downgrades since Windows 7 (well depending on whom you ask, they've been downgrading the UI since XP, 2k or NT4 :) but there have been upgrades on this front too (there's this handy menu for keyboarders you get by pressing Win+X that was added in 8 or 8.1 for example). And really fuck the forced updates (though you can avoid them by disabling Windows Update service completely, at least for now...), Windows store junk, Cortana, telemetry (maybe sending some diagnostic information back to MS isn't that bad after all but you should still be able to opt out of it) and advertisement junk, and MS cloud tie-in junk. At least you can disable pretty much all of this if you can get the Enterprise or Education version somehow (like through work or school). Enterprise users can even get LTSB releases that are supported for 10 years and only receive critical security updates during that time, and don't include Cortana, UWP apps or Windows store related junk at all. Unfortunately MS has now decided that newer hardware will not be supported on old LTSB releases (and they won't be releasing these every year or even every other year, previous was 2016 LTSB and next will likely be 2019 LTSB) either similar to how they killed support for new CPUs under Win7 and 8.1.

 

So I'm probably still going to dump Windows completely at some point because it's not like I really need to get to play the latest AAA game releases on the first week or even year they're out anymore. Maybe I got old or something?

Edited July 7, 2017 by xttl

[Agentbromsnor]

7 hours ago, YukiRaven said:

I still miss Windows 98 SE.  Yeah it crashed more often and had holes like a sieve, but it felt "right", wasn't overly bloated, and still had proper DOS.

 

Windows XP comes in second.

You actually summed up my exact feelings regarding Windows. Windows 98 SE is the perfect Windows to me, and I'm still running it on my old Pentium 3 machine. It's not perfect by any means, but no OS really ever is. I love the classic desktop theme of 98; everything is clear and readable, and all the buttons actually LOOK like buttons! Unlike say, Windows 10 where you need to hover your mouse over words just to see what is a button and what isn't. I know that might sound like I'm nitpicking in regards to Windows 10, but a clear interface is very important to me and those little annoyances can stack up over time, especially when you're doing important / time-restricted work on your PC.

I guess I can mention that even though Windows 3.11 kinda sucks, it holds a special nostalgic place in my heart for being so "new" at the time (for me anyway). The same also goes for Windows 95. Windows 98's start-up tune is very memorable, but I actually like Windows 95's better. There's just something about it that is very uplifting.

[Agentbromsnor]

2 hours ago, bzzrak said:

Will I get stoned to death if I say the V word?

No. I actually used Vista for the longest time and never had many issues with it at all. This whole trend of mindlessly hating Windows Vista is quite ridiculous if you ask me, and I have yet to meet a Windows user who completely hates Vista and can actually justify that hate.

[savagegrant]

XP for me. I was sad the day that Windows stopped supporting it and I was 'forced' onto Windows 7 (which would be my second favourite, I guess.)

 

My first Windows OS was Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (yep, I'm old.) :P

 

[Teivman]

I would go with Windows xp, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

[silentzorah]

DOS.  It's like an RPG text adventure every time you boot.

[GarrettChan]

I vote for DOS, but I can't decide between DOS and Win98. Win 7 is kind of nice, but still, old things have special charm.

[qdash]

Win XP, of course.

[vita]

.

Edited August 14, 2018 by 38_ViTa_38

[Memfis]

XP was pure gold. I only moved from it a few months ago.

[CARRiON]

9 hours ago, Agentbromsnor said:

No. I actually used Vista for the longest time and never had many issues with it at all. This whole trend of mindlessly hating Windows Vista is quite ridiculous if you ask me, and I have yet to meet a Windows user who completely hates Vista and can actually justify that hate.

Alright.

 

For starters, it's the slowest most picky OS I think I've ever used. Even with 3GB of RAM, a dual core processor and a GT 9800 at the time, it still ran like dog shit. I had to turn off Windows Indexing because it just bogged it down even more, and it would constantly hard lock for minutes at a time if I tried to multi-task. I kept it updated and it still gave me shit constantly. GPU drivers for it were a nightmare, often times I'd get weird artifacting no matter what driver I tried, when I tried the card on another computer using XP it worked fine. I tried a 9600 I was given and it did the same thing on Vista. Just completely fucked. I even formatted a few times before I finally said fuck it and went back to XP. I even gave it one more chance shortly before 7 came out and it was a giant waste of my time. Upgraded to 7 and holy shit, what a massive improvement. Fast, responsive, no driver issues, everything just worked right out of the box.

 

The hate isn't mindless, Vista had legit issues for a lot of people. Maybe not everyone, but a good majority. All my friends at the time but one hated it for similar reasons, and when my mom bought a new computer that had Vista on it, even she complained about how slow it would act. I eventually took it off and installed 7 for her. I would rather be forced to use DOS or Win9x for the rest of my life then ever have to deal with Vista ever again. A really aggravating OS.

[Agentbromsnor]

51 minutes ago, CARRiON said:

Alright.

 

For starters, it's the slowest most picky OS I think I've ever used. Even with 3GB of RAM, a dual core processor and a GT 9800 at the time, it still ran like dog shit. I had to turn off Windows Indexing because it just bogged it down even more, and it would constantly hard lock for minutes at a time if I tried to multi-task. I kept it updated and it still gave me shit constantly. GPU drivers for it were a nightmare, often times I'd get weird artifacting no matter what driver I tried, when I tried the card on another computer using XP it worked fine. I tried a 9600 I was given and it did the same thing on Vista. Just completely fucked. I even formatted a few times before I finally said fuck it and went back to XP. I even gave it one more chance shortly before 7 came out and it was a giant waste of my time. Upgraded to 7 and holy shit, what a massive improvement. Fast, responsive, no driver issues, everything just worked right out of the box.

 

The hate isn't mindless, Vista had legit issues for a lot of people. Maybe not everyone, but a good majority. All my friends at the time but one hated it for similar reasons, and when my mom bought a new computer that had Vista on it, even she complained about how slow it would act. I eventually took it off and installed 7 for her. I would rather be forced to use DOS or Win9x for the rest of my life then ever have to deal with Vista ever again. A really aggravating OS.

I've been running Vista flawlessly on a Pentium 4 with just 1 GB of RAM. The problem seems to be your system, not the operating system.
It helps to keep in mind that most modern versions of Windows blow when they're not patched up with a service pack.
Windows 7 has almost the same memory footprint that Windows Vista has, so I don't get why you (and others) think that it's somehow more faster. In reality, they're both based on the same technology and the performance difference is negligible. Windows 7 is more or less to Vista what Windows 98 SE was to Windows 98. Placebo effect at its finest, I suppose.

Driver incompatibility is another thing that is not exclusive to Vista, and happens frequently when Microsoft releases a new version of Windows. It can take a while before all the drivers are up to date again, and this is again something that has never been an issue to me, and I've been using Vista ever since it launched.
I'm not sure if you've been keeping up to date in regards to Windows 10, but 10 is arguably a lot worse when it comes to compatibility.

[antares031]

Windows 7 is the best, Windows ME was the worst.

 

Just a random fact, I'm still running Windows XP for one of my partitions, just because of compatibility issues with several programs.

[Guest DILDOMASTER666]

Honestly I never had issues with Windows Me, I thought it was fine. Would have voted for it if I did not have slightly more fond nostalgic memories on Win95

[CARRiON]

1 hour ago, Agentbromsnor said:

Driver incompatibility is another thing that is not exclusive to Vista, and happens frequently when Microsoft releases a new version of Windows. It can take a while before all the drivers are up to date again, and this is again something that has never been an issue to me, and I've been using Vista ever since it launched.
I'm not sure if you've been keeping up to date in regards to Windows 10, but 10 is arguably a lot worse when it comes to compatibility.

My copy of Vista had the latest service pack and updates, and this went on for a while. The fact that Vista doesn't play nice with the majority of PC setups is proof enough for me that it's an extremely crap OS. The system I had at the time worked fine with XP and 7, yet Vista threw a fit every single time. And it's not a placebo effect, because I timed the damn things. Windows 7 performed faster, sometimes by a whole minute or two.

 

As far as Windows 10 compatibility, I've had zero issues running any games I could run on 7. As a matter a fact Manhunt and Bully have been the only ones to perform worse. Manhunt has weird sound issues, and Bully doesn't seem to want to run on 10. Everything else works fine either out of the box, or with a little tweaking. PC Gaming Wiki is a good hook up for fan patches and getting stubborn games working, and I only usually need it for late 90's - early 00's games.

[Swine & Roses]

I'll go for XP. Windows 7 was very nice, too.

Unfortunately, I'm using Windows 10 now and I hate it so much. What an utter piece of trash.

[Pencil of Doom]

Windows 7, it's reliable, will give an honorable mention to XP due to older programs and stuff.

Newer Windows OS can go fuck themselves, same goes for Microshit with thier stupid updates.

 

[Mr. Freeze]

As a Windows user for 20+ years: none

 

B)

[Agentbromsnor]

4 hours ago, CARRiON said:

My copy of Vista had the latest service pack and updates, and this went on for a while. The fact that Vista doesn't play nice with the majority of PC setups is proof enough for me that it's an extremely crap OS. The system I had at the time worked fine with XP and 7, yet Vista threw a fit every single time. And it's not a placebo effect, because I timed the damn things. Windows 7 performed faster, sometimes by a whole minute or two.

 

As far as Windows 10 compatibility, I've had zero issues running any games I could run on 7. As a matter a fact Manhunt and Bully have been the only ones to perform worse. Manhunt has weird sound issues, and Bully doesn't seem to want to run on 10. Everything else works fine either out of the box, or with a little tweaking. PC Gaming Wiki is a good hook up for fan patches and getting stubborn games working, and I only usually need it for late 90's - early 00's games.

Are you kidding me? There's a reason why I haven't upgraded to Windows 10, and it's because its the most incompatible version of Windows I've ever used. Forget using your old software on it; 10 is the worst example of this modern "upgrade or die" mentality in software development. Simply awful. Windows 10 is the reason I'm switching to Lubuntu as soon as support for Windows 7 expires. I know that Windows 10 is going to be "the way to go" for modern PC games because of the latest version of DirectX, but both DirectX and Microsoft can go eat a dick for all I care.

Like I said before: I've been using Windows Vista since its launch without issues (yes, also on multiple setups), so I'm sticking with my theory that your system was simply not properly setup to run the OS. If I can make it run on a Pentium 4 with just one gigabyte of RAM without much hassle, there's no excuse why it shouldn't work on similar or better hardware.

A source: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/2886/windows_7_vs_vista_cpu_memory_performance_comparison/index2.html

As you can see, the differences are negligible.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Agentbromsnor

[Bauul]

Windows 7 for me.  It just feels nice to use - all the modern features I've come to rely on (Windows Snap is a personal favorite) but isn't bogged down by extra gumf.  I'm no power-user though, that's for sure.  Absolutely hated Windows 8/8.1 though, what a pile of garbage that was.

 

I don't mind Windows 10, I've got one of those Start Menu programs that changes the Start Menu back to the Windows 7 design and that's kind of enough for me.  I find its slightly schizophrenic personality between the old design and the new rather grating (who needs two Control Panels?) and the endless updates piss me off, but generally it seems to work ok, and it's damn fast to boot up.

 

4 hours ago, DILDOMASTER666 said:

Honestly I never had issues with Windows Me, I t

Completely agree.  I had Windows Me on a PC around 2000 or so for a few years, and it ran fine.  In fact it introduced some good features, like System Restore.  It wasn't until a few years ago that I discovered everyone else disliked it.

 

[Kontra Kommando]

Windows 95

 

I have found memories of my old shitty laptop, playing Civ II.

[AdirBlaz]

I've only ever used XP and 7. Out of the two, I'd say I prefer 7. Doesn't last as long, but it works better with more stuff from what I've found.

[Deleted_Account]

Love these streams.

 

 

[Halfblind]

WHAAT? I can't vote for 2. If I could I would have Windows 7, Windows XP, Linux and SteamOS? on the same PC. That would be great, that way I can play everything!!!