FAVOURITE WINDOWS OS VERSION?

[Bucket]

Windows 2000 was one of the better OSs I've ever used. WinXP was 2000 with small security features that weren't worth the ridiculous bloat and eye candy. Win98SE is great for DOS gaming. There's nothing I did on Win7 that doesn't also work with Win10 (although I do have a machine dedicated to 32-bit for the older apps I use).

[PsychEyeball]

Windows 7 has to have been my favorite OS in general. Sure, it was Vista 2.0 but everything worked fine and sometimes, that's all one wants. Doing things in it was easy as all hell.

 

Windows XP probably was my favorite OS feature and presentation-wise back in the time but it loses out on the fact that it was the first OS I used which dropped DOS, thus making many of my favorite games no longer work back in the time. Good thing that good DOS emulation is finally a thing nowadays.

 

Windows 10 is okay. I just don't like the bloat of completely needless features that slow down your machine or collects your data to send to Microsoft. I can totally do without that. It's just not the awful thing many decry it as. You want awful? Go with Vista or ME.

[Bucket]

Microsoft has made it more inconvenient to turn off all the data collection nonsense but you can still turn most of it off. At the end of the day, I spend about the same amount of time tweaking a fresh install as I always did.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

On 5/1/2022 at 3:44 AM, raymoohawk said:

ever since i switched to linux everything is pain and bad

Which Distro do you use or used to use?

On 5/1/2022 at 5:35 AM, Frost-Core said:

waht i have a smooth linux experience aside from software rendering.

Me too, even the first time I booted Ubuntu from a live usb, I literally experimented with the OS for like half an hour and decided to install it because of how easy it was to use

[raymoohawk]

NUUUUUU LINUX IS BIG BAD!!!!

 

tbh i suspect my hardware is just too crappy

[Doomkid]

To address your question from earlier raymoohawk, the people who tend to love Linux the most seem to be very technically-minded people.

 

For example, my friend Mr. Crispy swears by Linux, and after getting some help from him I admit I love it too, although it is still hard as fuck to use for me to this very day. The version we use on Doomshack is a somewhat outdated Slackware, and interfacing with it really does bring me back to the days of exiting to DOS to get certain programs to run, although it is of course far more feature-rich and functional than DOS was. It's worth it for the sheer level of efficiency/"lack of bloat" that you just can't get from other OSes.

 

I know it's not a direct answer, but all this is to say: I'd wager computer scientists love Linux on average, because of their big brains and whatnot. :)

[pcorf]

7 and XP. 10 is okay.

[Lippeth]

My household didn't have a computer until I was a teen, but I have the best memories switching from 98 to ME, and playing with all its bloated media playing madness, though I did miss 98, and have good yet short memories of 95 as well when visiting friends or relatives. My first digital audio workstation was on ME, recording sounds through one of those plastic desktop chat mics, chopping them to bits and throwing in every effect available. I skipped XP and Vista and used Mac OS X until Windows 7. Even now on Windows 10 I use Open Shell to make the start menu look and feel like 98, and another program to play the ME startup and shutdown music. It's just pleasant.

 

This thread resurrection has gotten me to reinstall VM VirtualBox as a way to checkout some Linux distros, and to relive old memories with win9x. Thanks thread! So far Ubuntu reminds me a lot of macOS, it even uses the same sudo command in the terminal. Mouse wheel scrolling through files feels awkward but that might be due to the hypervisor. I've also been using MSYS2 on Windows 10 to build Chocolate and Crispy Doom, which made me want to give Arch Linux a try, but the instructions look very involved and I may have to save that for a rainy day.

 

Also, I wasn't expecting win98 to be as nostalgic as it is, that jungle theme really took me back.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Lippeth

[Solmyr]

I like 7 the most out of all Windows OS i had experienced; 3.11, 95, 98, ME, XP, 7, and 10. 

 

But for nostalgia sake, i preffer the looks, and sounds of Windows 98.

[raymoohawk]

57 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

To address your question from earlier raymoohawk, the people who tend to love Linux the most seem to be very technically-minded people.

 

For example, my friend Mr. Crispy swears by Linux, and after getting some help from him I admit I love it too, although it is still hard as fuck to use for me to this very day. The version we use on Doomshack is a somewhat outdated Slackware, and interfacing with it really does bring me back to the days of exiting to DOS to get certain programs to run, although it is of course far more feature-rich and functional than DOS was. It's worth it for the sheer level of efficiency/"lack of bloat" that you just can't get from other OSes.

 

I know it's not a direct answer, but all this is to say: I'd wager computer scientists love Linux on average, because of their big brains and whatnot. :)

haha yeah, i am the furthest from a technical minded person, so it's probably a me problem. i stubbornly tried to start with debian. later switched to linux mint, wich i think is the easiest? i have frequent crashes, but that might be due to aging hardware

[Frost-Core]

7 hours ago, raymoohawk said:

NUUUUUU LINUX IS BIG BAD!!!!

 

tbh i suspect my hardware is just too crappy

try something like lubuntu. its very good for old hardware. or antiX if lubuntu did not work out.

[Alex S.]

I have a few; Windows 3.1 is what I grew up on. 95 and 98 were amazing. My first "new in box" computer ran Windows Me so that one is pretty nostalgic to me. XP was a big step and I loved the interface design. Vista is a release I heavily beta-tested so that's another big nostalgia one to me. Lastly, Windows 10 was released on my birthday in 2015 so that's kinda cool too. 

[Alex S.]

2 hours ago, Frost-Core said:

try something like lubuntu. its very good for old hardware. or antiX if lubuntu did not work out.

I second this. I have a coworker who runs LXDE on CentOS 7.9 and his dual-core potato relic from the past handles it just fine. If your hardware is especially ancient then the less-graphically-intense window managers will keep the memory pressure and CPU load down enough to leave resources for actually running some programs. Cheers :)

[LexiMax]

 

Windows 2000 was the perfect distillation of classic Windows.  It had the classic grey look to it, paired with UI elements that actually fit it.  Everything else after 2000 seems like it has a split personality between whatever UI it wanted to push this cycle and previous generations, but 2000 actually felt unified.  Plus, unlike 98 and Me it was built on NT, so shit didn't just crash all the time for dumb reasons.

 

7 was decent too, but not enough for me to stick with it when I got a new PC in 2013 with 8 on it.  8.1 is hella underrated, and I actually preferred it to 10 until it got a few feature updates.  Also since we're on the subject, my favorite version of Linux is Fedora.  Lives closest to GNOME upstream without inserting a bunch of unstable BS into it like Ubuntu does or reinventing wheels like other distros do.

Edited May 3, 2022 by AlexMax

[PsychEyeball]

6 hours ago, Lippeth said:

Also, I wasn't expecting win98 to be as nostalgic as it is, that jungle theme really took me back.

I still stand today by Win98's travel theme. Probably because of how goofy the startup sound was. 

 

 

[ZombiemanMastermind]

aesthetic and design wise i love XP the most, use wise idk

[Lippeth]

@PsychEyeball That always cracked me up, It's like they didn't think it was necessary to use the whole file of someone saying "All Aboard!" and just cut off the beginning to save space.

 

I don't remember if it was 98 or ME, but I downloaded a theme that was mostly Grateful Dead but had a chessboard wallpaper probably evoking Jefferson Airplane. I used that more than anything but I can't find it now. I think the mouse cursor was a joint and it would burn and smoke when you clicked on something.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Lippeth

[Doomkid]

21 hours ago, PsychEyeball said:

I still stand today by Win98's travel theme. Probably because of how goofy the startup sound was. 

 

 

God damn, this made me laugh SO hard!

[Gibbon]

Gotta be Windows 95.  You got a nice GUI and DOS, for a 9 year old me, it was great!

[vyruss]

No Windows 3.11 for Workgroups? :(

[Mystic 256]

Windows XP because that's what I had back when I was a kid

[BigBoy91]

I miss being able to restart in DOS mode simply for nostalgic reasons. I'm gonna go with Windows XP. Best of both worlds.

[raymoohawk]

On 5/3/2022 at 12:12 PM, Alex S. said:

I second this. I have a coworker who runs LXDE on CentOS 7.9 and his dual-core potato relic from the past handles it just fine. If your hardware is especially ancient then the less-graphically-intense window managers will keep the memory pressure and CPU load down enough to leave resources for actually running some programs. Cheers :)

i might try that, thanks for the tip :) another weird issue i've had is with printers. linux mint prints one page and then refuses to print. it just shows a notification claiming it already printed

[Alex S.]

36 minutes ago, raymoohawk said:

i might try that, thanks for the tip :) another weird issue i've had is with printers. linux mint prints one page and then refuses to print. it just shows a notification claiming it already printed

Printing in Linux can get weird. 

[Deleted Account]

I've used Windows 10 for 6 years, and I think it's pretty good. Windows 7 was the only other one I used frequently, but that was back in 2015 anyways :P

[Apprentice]

Windows 2000 !!

 

It was faster then Windows 98, no matter which hardware I used back then and it just ran better with only 64 MB RAM then what Windows XP could do with 256 MB RAM. The "decline" came with Windows XP and further, altough I have to say that Windows 7 was the better version of the bunch . . .

[TenenteZashu]

Windows XP does hold a special place in my heart, for example I still remember playing some of those crappy games that came with cereals in like 2005 or 2006 and the obligatory messing around on paint but Windows 7 is the one I grew up with and I made the most memories with, for example being scared shitless by this stock wallpaper

 

[ducon]

On 5/5/2022 at 12:31 AM, Alex S. said:

Printing in Linux can get weird. 

Er, I find that it’s a mess to print in Windows, especially Windows 10 that is not able to recognize a page in landscape.

My wife is struggling with the official Windows 10 toolbox, I’m never struggling with mine.

[Alex S.]

8 hours ago, ducon said:

Er, I find that it’s a mess to print in Windows, especially Windows 10 that is not able to recognize a page in landscape.

My wife is struggling with the official Windows 10 toolbox, I’m never struggling with mine.

See, that's interesting ... I have the opposite experience. It may be because I use only network printers though. I know some people who have experienced some issues with USB-based local printers under Windows. Interesting to share experiences but ultimately I'm a big believer in "use what works best for you". 

 

Also, don't worry; I will never defend any platform as "above" or "better than" another simply because I use DOS/Windows, Mac OS, and GNU/Linux all on a daily basis and could never dream of it being different. 

[ducon]

I also use network printers.