It hasn't been steadily downhill. There was a plunge downwards with Windows 8, then 8.1 recovered a little and 10 more, before Windows 11 undid the gains.
It was light enough to not be a bother on even used hardware.
It was exceedingly stable and didnt need regular reformat and reinstalls like all previous windows OS's.
Didnt need to be constantly rebooted every time you exited a big task like previous Windows.
and you were able to do pretty much anything on it easily and without much fuss.
and, outside of like driver installs, the OS pretty much stayed out of your way.
It was brilliant. It was the best.
It was the peak of the curve. 3.11/95/98/ME/NT/XP all built up to 7, and 8/10/11 are all falling further and further away from 7.
The only reason to get rid of windows 7 is that there was no further way to monetize it since it had pretty good market saturation. If it wasnt for that Win7 would probably be the default OS for another 10+ years.
XP was a whopping 29% at EOL which is impressive to me that 7 is only 3%. But it makes sense that 10 has such a large market share since it was free and ran on (almost) everything that ran 7.
I think a large part of it is how most of the machines that could run 7 can run everything after 7 (maybe just need more RAM), but many many MANY machines running XP couldn’t move forward because the CPU or the integrated graphics just couldn’t take it.
OK guys, time to upgrade to Redhat 6 from 1999. I bet it'll be great! It has Kernel 2.2, and I'm hearing good things about the upgrade to ipchains from ipfwadm!
They told me Windows 10 was the last Windows and I intend to make them fulfill that promise. And when I fail to make them fulfill their promise, I will keep it for myself.
/sigh at this point i feel like “that guy” but M$ didnt say 10 would be the last Microsoft, a specific employee said it in a specific situation, that in context was pretty obviously “latest” and not “final”.
The internet just took that one line and ran with it, as they are known to do.
Win10 is the last windows. Defang it and put it in a VM. Still a better UI than the competition although KDE plasma is getting close, dolphin is very nice
I feel Microsoft is in for a huge surprise when they end support for all versions of Windows except one that requires you to throw out your old hardware. At the same time, Linux is better than it’s ever been and is almost, if not just as easy to use as Windows. Not to mention, most work is done from a browser these days.
I'm going to say there's a 10% chance Windows 11 gets BIOS support (or rather drops UEFI requirement) and drops TPM/SecureBoot requirement in the next three years. I think that's more likely than extending Windows 10 longer.
Windows 7 still has a similar market share to desktop Linux. I suspect that some of those users are holdouts, rejecting the Cortana nonsense but too stubborn or lazy to switch. But I'd also wager that, in the longer term, a decent portion of that 3% ends up on Linux.
But I’d also wager that, in the longer term, a decent portion of that 3% ends up on Linux.
Or they just continue to use their out of date OS. XP still has a 0.6% market share, and I have no idea what remotely modern software works on XP. Browsing the modern web will be a pain with the new encryption standards.
There's a lot of systems that still uses it, cause it does its work and would be a pain to change. Of course they should avoid any contact with the net.
Windows has been alternating between good and crap for decades. ME, crap. XP, good. Vista, crap. 7, good. 8/8.1, crap. 10, good…ish. 11, steaming feces. 12 will probably be at least half decent.
I've had the opposite experience - 10 sucked, but I have no complaints about 11... Though it might make a difference that my experience with 10 was after my old (win7 vintage) laptop took the free update, while my 11 experience is based on a new laptop that came with it preinstalled...
Lately I've been using OpenSUSE GNU/Linux and so far I've been relatively happy with. The installation process is simple and concise, and the system is rock-solid and easy to use.
I have Leap on my homelab and Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop for >5 years now. It's been awesome, and it's my favorite so far from >15 years of Linux.
Glad you're enjoying it! Next step: get unreasonably obsessed with chameleons.
Maybe I should try OpenSUSE first when I'll switch my gaming desktop back to Linux. My first Linux experience was with SuSE 6.2 and that was very positive. Good to hear people are still happy about it.
I have an old ASUS laptop with a 670M on Windows 7, any prayer the jump to Linux for drivers will be smooth? 🤞
I have an i914900KF desktop on windows 11 (I have to use it) and loathe the OS lol. Definitely wish there were programs for chopping down Windows 11 spyware crap.
Then why did I read online that it was insecure as hell to stay in Windows 8.1? (I was setting up an old lap for a mom's friend, with 4 painful GBs of RAM).
Also, doesn't Windows 10 support supposedly end next year?
I think I am not getting the kind of support that Windows provides.
Microsoft offers a long-term support version of Windows called LTSC that's stripped down, only receives security updates, and is supported for 10 years from its release.
It's only officially available to business clients, but with a little yar har fiddeldy dee, you too can experience extended support!
but with a little yar har fiddeldy dee, you too can experience extended support!
I figured, but I didn't read anything about that when I was on the massgrave site the other day, so that is why I just thought all older Windows versions are gone for good.
It will come in handy for my Windows 10 Pro version that I have installed in my Mac though.