Evolution of Windows

I thought 10 was a decent OS once debloated, used it for a while.

Back to Linux now though.

Other than it rebloating itself

I miss windows millennium, which would be a hammer made of a turd.

At least you can despyware 10...

Why should you need to? That's my beef with it. It means they don't respect you enough to give you something good in the first place and hope 99% won't bother.

The plain old basic hammer probably should have been Windows 2000, and then a big playskool plastic stuff slapped on for XP, but ultimately pretty much exactly the same.

I use arch BTW. But I liked XP and 7.

Windows peaked at 7, I only moved to Windows 10 when Windows 7 lost support

Windows peaked at DOS. It was small, inoffensive, and easily killed.
That's mostly due to your age. Older people say it peaked at XP, younger people are saying it peaked at 10. Truth is, they're all kinda the same shit.
- Is it though? From a privacy perspective I think Windows 10 quite clearly started introducing some shady surveillance practices which were absent in earlier versions. Of course, 11 took that waaay further, but 10 was a turning point imo.
- I think it's a hard case to make that 7 wasn't objectively better than XP.
  Windows 10 did roll back some of the more egregious stuff from Windows 8, but still was sort of committed, sort of not. You had a platform with multiple personalities, multiple right click context menus, multiple 'control panel' with a new one being emphasized, but not actually completed, so it's an awkward mix of the platform they had suceeded with and a platform they wished it could be (combined with telemetry). Forced microsoft accounts and using the desktop as a platform to promote products and services....
  Yeah I think a fair argument can be made that WIndows 7 was the ultimate execution of the general vision that started with Windows NT, and what came after was something else that also happened to have bits of that original product hanging on.
  I'm not too terribly excited by any Windows in particular, but I can recognize something categorically different they wanted to do starting with 8 that remains partially executed to this day, starts to emphasize Microsoft's interests at the expense of the users, and a direction that no one really asked for.
- 95, 98, xp, and 7 were all great; each improved on the last. But 7 was the true peak. 10 was pretty good and unfortunately was the turning point into enshitification.
Oh how I wish we could just go back to W7 :(
- I agree. This is why I think literally all software should be FLOSS. People should be able to use a platform as long as they like on their own hardware.
- As a programmer, my world changed when Windows 95 came out, what with being 32-bit and having an extremely powerful (if difficult-to-use at first) low-level audio API, since I mainly wrote software synthesis and music composition apps. I have not given two fucks for anything that has happened since 95. Quite amazingly, that audio API has remained in existence, unchanged, all the way until today. 30 years of not having to change what I'm doing at all has been absolutely amazing. That shit even worked, without modification, for Windows CE (Compact Edition) and Windows Mobile, so I was able to make versions of my software synthesizer that ran on shitty smartphones from 2005. It worked on Windows Phone as well, albeit it quite uselessly.
- In a way you can. Install ZorinOS or Linux Mint. Add WINE, and you can set wine to "emulate" an version of Windows. I was using it to run some old engineering program and WinAmp
- I've got Windows installed on a separate drive in case I wanna play Forza Horizon 5 (which I stupidly bought on Microsoft store because stepdad had an Xbox at the time and it was nice to be able to play on that as well when I was visiting - now even he moved to PS5). I haven't booted it in over half a year despite missing the game at times. If it was Windows 7, I'd probably boot every now and then.
  At this point I've forgotten if I have Windows 10 or 11. Chances are I did some enterprise version of one of them to get longer support, as I did the OS install like 8 or 9 months ago.
Nah, best (or more accurately: least crappy) Windows version was Windows 2000. Everything got bloated and too consumery after that.

Eh, I’d consider sliding the window a little differently. Command prompt only OS’s like DOS or maybe even BASIC as the “rock.” Windows was more like a Model T car. Make W11 a Pinto or something.

It's really incredible how Microsoft is trying to drive people away, by:

Polluting what works.
Never actually finishing revamps in progress.
Pushing so much crap even normal users are conditioned to click Microsoft 'features' away as spam.

They don't have to do anything! They could just freeze Windows 11 and gut development beyond security/api/hardware fixes, and rake in business "stuck on win32" dollars for eternity. But no, they are trying their absolute best to push folks to Android/iOS and open a window for stuff like the steam deck.

I bet we aren't far from OEMs even getting sick of it, as shipping (admittedly, trashy self made) linux distros.

They aren't trying to drive people away, they just have learned there's nothing they can do that will substantially scare people away. So time to pivot to trying to milk that captive userbase for all they are worth. People who are leaving are leaving for mobile class devices and they learned in Windows 8/Windows Phone 7 that they have no idea how to tap into that market segment anyway.
Yes, 'enthusiasts' are going Linux but they are a rounding error, hardly worth trying to capture compared to the revenue capture from the rest of the market. Particularly since the enthusiast market tends to be a bigger pain in terms of being picky users who complain and simultaneously unlikely to just say 'yes I'd like that service you just popped up in the notifications for only $5/month'.
- Yes, ‘enthusiasts’ are going Linux but they are a rounding error, hardly worth trying to capture compared to the revenue capture from the rest of the market.
  Agreed, it's a rounding error.
  But it won't be if OEMs get fed up and start shipping it as an option, like Valve is already doing.
  Microsoft has already done some questionably 'OEM hostile' things like pushing the Surface line, shutting out some OEM bloatware in favor of thier own, pollute performance-sensitive devices like handhelds, and such, and it seems MS isn't slowing down.
In Late Stage Capitalism, companies have realized they can maximize their profits by making their product worse. Especially when they have a (near) monopoly.
- Unless you are strictly talking next quarter's immediate profits/stock price, this is just bad for Microsoft. They are sabotaging their already anticompetitive golden goose.
  Late Stage Capitalism dictates they'd try to keep their lock-in, but this is more executive dysfunction.
My god, imagine a world where all software is produced by OEMs.
If they ever stop making updates, then Wine will catch up and you won't actually need Windows anymore.
- They could keep on developing updates to DirectX and whatever frameworks/libraries CAD software and the like might need. Keep the UI as is, but as 3rd party developers use the new APIs, Wine needs to adapt continuously.
- Yeah. But the barrier of installing linux makes that a kind of non-concern now, they can only change so much without breaking Win32.
  It'd be hilarious if Windows shrinks and Wine/Proton become the de facto dev target on linux (which is honestly where things are headed now).

I remember when we were a Unix shop (BSD & Linux) sharing space with guys writing code for some kind of printing software (for professional printing shops that did complex format conversions) that apparently absolutely had to be on Windows (because, unclear reasons, nobody would buy a non Windows printing management box, or something).

Anyway, they were writing for one of the early versions of NT, maybe 2000, not sure, and were pulling their hairs out the whole time we were with them.

A classic I remember was "the system will just decide that our driver (pretty much the only thing running) isn't that important, and dump it's priority to the shitter. Once it's there, it's dead in the water and we can't get it active again without physical intervention. We've been talking to Microsoft for weeks to get around this."

I suppose this has been more or less addressed by Microsoft nowadays, but, of course, this kind of thing hasn't been an issue in unixland, like ever. Because it's a system that fucking makes sense. And about the versions of Windows, I stopped using their stuff in the DOS days, so it's not like I even have an opinion.

(and yes, they did have a couple very high end developers, on top of the regular grunts)

I actually really liked NT around 2000. I think it was NT 4.0? We used it for a typing class I took at the local college. That was just as an end user for one single program, but I remember liking it a lot.
Was CUPS around back then? I assume that was a trillion times easier to manage than whatever Microsoft had concocted.

They know we liked Win7. They'll never go back, they'll just keep making it worse for us and more profitable for them.

That's why I switched to Linux Mint a year ago. I feel sorry for people who can't switch for whatever reason.

I did a switch last week and i feel like my life became just a little bit more bearable because THERE IS NO FUCKING BLOAT. Win11 actively makes you feel bad using a computer.

You forgot windows me.

I know it would throw off the whole 9 square thing but if you (or the person that created this) decide to add it then might I recommend a hammer smashing itself into pieces?

Was there any big difference between 95, 98, SE and ME, though? IIRC they were just the yearly rebrandings of Microsoft, there was no major difference between 95 and ME I can recall.
And windows 95.
- Oh shit.
  I didn't even notice.
  First I forgot about Dre and now I forgot about windows 95. Smh my head.
Isn’t that what the entire thing is balanced precariously on top of? So it’s not absent from the meme, it’s lurking in the background, ever-present.
- Windows actually migrated to the NT kernel when XP launched - AFAIK, ME was a dead end.

Windows 95, ME, NT, and 2000 erasure.

And 3.11 for Workgroups.

nobody talks about 2000 bc 2000 was solid as fuck and there was nothing to complain about

95 is the stick, ME is the stick up someone’s butt

2k is what xp as shown as, xp was nt but prettier.
- Yep, 2k should be the normal hammer and XP should be a hammer with rounded edges and a gradient.
NT is stuck
I'd make Win95 the stick but with the rock being one-sided. It was a pretty good system for its time, and Windows 98 built upon that.

This is why I am on linux.

What about Windows ME? - the best version of classic windows.

Windows ME was one of those squeaky toy hammers.
- Or a jack-in-the-box. You crank the lever hoping it'll work this time around, and BLAM: BSOD.
It's just a bottle of whiskey
- "Peak" performance

Windows 12+...

But Windows 10 11 is going to be the last version of Windows!
What if Microsoft makes a Windows 12 mobile platform? And since Google is now pushing Android into close source, Microsoft suddenly becomes a big player in around 2028 for mobile phones.
- They tried going tablet/mobile-first with 8. I don't know if they want to try again so soon. But I mean it's Microsoft.
  Hell, maybe they'll use their experience with WSL to get Android apps working on Windows, solve the problem they had with Windows Phone. Fuck I miss Windows Phone. I never had one, but it looked so cool with the squares. Unlike desktop Windows, where it looked like shit.

Windows 98 still had DOS built in right? I kind of have an itch to install it in a vm or something.

Nope, they were DOS with a graphical shell on top.
And Windows ME, though they made odd efforts to try to hide this shameful fact.
yeah both windows 95 and 98 were just built on top of dos
- Yea, I can never forget this logo

Where the fuck is Windows 2000 Advanced Server? The shiniest turd of them all

Excuse me say what? 2000 was a huge leap forward for reliability, uptime and Active Directory, blew the doors off every version before it, home and commercial.
- Was it still Windows? I did say shiniest.

Why skip 95 and put a blank in for 9. Windows 95/98 are the reason why there is no windows 9. Far too many lazy programmers make software and drivers that abbreviated to windows9 because there were two versions. Still nice try, I guess.

Because the omission is notable and funny, even if they had their reasons
- I've noticed a trend that as I understand more, some things become more funny but most things become less funny. I think it's because counterintuitiveness is funny but when understanding increases, the exposed complexity becomes more intuitive.

Win ME is the 98 image but the rock is on the smaller branch

When they combined CE, ME and NT now that was a solid product.
- ME was crap, NT was a workhorse (as long as you didn't try to install new stuff too often) and CE... was a wird alien no one know exactly what to do with it (almost had the potential but Microsoft blew it as usual). Win2K was a fine rather stable beast.
- I think about that joke all the time, good ol' CEMENT
Win ME worked fine. I’m pretty sure I applied the XP theme and never noticed a difference.
- ME was crashing by the phases of the moon or if you hit the keyboard too fast.
  Had ME on my home computer. I could had installed 98 but thought ME was newer than 98 so must be better (wrong). But nothing was lost when crashed, you reboot and could start over in no time.

There were four versions that were useful for their time. Accurate.

I think Win10 started like that, but with time parts fell off until you were left with something shaped like a hammer.

Windows 9 looks nice, I'll take that one

Most of windows products get increasingly worse over time. Security updates aside, I've never understood why the didn't just stop updating things to save themselves the money and save us the hassle.

Windows 8 was actually great after the initial issues at launch.

8.1 addressed my issues.

Accurate, because not one of them has the hammer facing down.

What about NT?

Or my personal favorite, Win2K?
- Probably a hammer with nails sticking out of the handle.
It's a stone hammer, but fully locked in place and chipped into a somewhat flat head.

And it doesn't show on the pictures, but it was always made of rubber.

Telemetry started way, way earlier then Win 10.

Not nearly to the extent that we have now.
- The slowly boiling pot.
  I've never used Windows as my main machine, but even before WINE/Proton were as mature as they are now, I never did personal or important work on my Windows installation. It might seem silly to care that Windows was sending back system specs in Win98(or earlier?), but it did it without asking or even informing. It was just such a huge sign of disrespect to the end user and Microsoft has only doubled down on that disrespect for the end user.

Do y'all never tire of this circle jerk? I mean how many posts per day about hating windows 11 and the inevitable end of microsoft does lemmy need?

People have been hating windows since 3.1. it's not going to stop today
- That's fine, but it's always the same meme over and over again. Can we not find new ways to hate windows? Ideally ones that are actually funny?
I've been shitting on Windows since the start of this meme. So no.
- What was even the alternative at the start of this meme? There was macos being mediocre and bsd...being for bsd people. Linux wasn't around yet for real.
Do you never tire of commenting on the circle-jerk? You could just... skip it, ya know?
- Well I moved from having no account and seeing this stuff pop up all the time to making an account...so no, I haven't yet tired of it. But it's only been a day so let's see.

Wait win 11 is a beyblade?

Wait win 11 is a beyblade?
...a beyblade that spies on you.
- NSAblade?