I would say with the release of windows 8.
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Being old enough to remember Windows not being common, it’s always been a mixed bag. It was interesting to see the transition from windows being a thing you sometimes invoked from the commandline to being the thing into which the computer booted. Gamers and others of course had opinions on all those system resources getting used when they weren’t even needed.
'98 was stable after some big patches for the most part. XP was really the move to make after that. I used to work tech support and had to learn and support all of the various flavors before XP. I’ve used XP onward moving as support gets dropped for the previous one, though one of my PCs runs only linux. If davinci would kindly be stable on linux, I would probably switch, maybe keeping windows around for any games I might really want to play.
Yep. Fair points all, and I am from the first group: the ones who recall having to type out the code for games in the back of gaming monthlies on pre-Weyland chunky keebs and a green screen. 🤘🏼😅
7 was still tolerable. Went to 10 after that and didn’t like it, but needed it for gaming.
MS started making bonehead decisions with windows ME, which was an unmitigated disaster. but at least they made some mostly functional and relatively stable OS’s after that. but since forcing win11 on everyone and then the constant AI bullshit, it’s been nothing but a constant stream of bullshit from them with no end in sight.
they way overestimated the “loyalty” of decades-long users they’ve been pissing off for years and years. i switched to linux in 2025 after using MS since the 90s, starting with the OG MS-DOS command line
fuck microsoft, fuck windows, and fuck AI
Everything after Windows NT - after that was when it became more important to be a marketing platform than an actual operating system.
XP was when
xp’s new start menu was bad, at least they still had the old menu as an option until vista. but in 7 they removed that amd forced another menu. and in 8 replaced menu with a screen…
the pre-xp ‘classic’ menu was nice because you could customize everything
I feel like it’s probably around Windows 8 too, they started tacking on MS store, Xbox, and other stuff nobody wanted. Vista and 7 has also added various telemetry bits, unstable updates, that sort.
Windows 10 was definitely when that accelerated though, forced MS account, sooooo much bloat, etc. And Windows 11 is a disaster for everyone (except the shareholders and data brokers)
Hot take, but: shortly after Gates nicked it. ☝🏼
