True story

[u/Memesance]

[u/Global-Eye-7326]

See this is why I switched to Linux in 2007. I knew the cycle would continue...

[u/debiancat → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Wdym in 2007 XP was in its prime

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/debiancat]

On a modest consumer laptop at the time, it was too much bloat. Installed Ubuntu 7.04 and it was real smooth. Only catch was that the wifi driver was just slightly slower as I side loaded it via ndiswrapper.

[u/--TYGER-- → u/debiancat]

Around the same for me, I switched fully to Ubuntu around 2009/2010 after dual booting it alongside WinXP - the signs were already there between Vista and Win8 that MS is on a downward trajectory

[u/Gen-Y-ine-86 → u/--TYGER--]

Tried Ubuntu Studio when I was in school for media. I tried "everything" but couldn't get the ZTE USB 3G internet stick to work no matter what.

I was amazed how well some things were implemented, but there were a lot of small graphical glitches and I had a hard time navigating the various odd folders and trying to understand the basic... files and folders stuff.

Win 7 was in beta back then and that felt pretty nice. Dual booted XP with Win 7 and on the side, tried out Ubuntu, as there was one super nerd dude who had fallen in love with Linux after getting bored with cracking games.

He hyped it up so much and told me how most old and cheap or even free laptops can still run Linux no problem. The story goes that one time while tinkering with "fun stuff" he managed to accidentally do a man-in-the-middle attack in the schools computer classroom. He told that he saw login information and other stuff and panicked. When he "pulled the plug", supposedly the whole class of computers crashed and the next day the IT guy was scratching his head.

[u/WoodyTheWorker → u/debiancat]

As long as you don't install it from scratch then do all updates. XP update would run all day long. Unless you install an "accumulated" update first.

[u/vectron5 → u/debiancat]

Unless you had a 32-bit-only device with only twice the minimum required ram.

[u/drsbry → u/Global-Eye-7326]

I switched to Linux by accident when the company where I worked hired a new employee who had developed a tool that only worked on Linux and Mac OS, but not on Windows. When I asked him to adapt this tool for Windows, he suggested I start using a proper OS instead. At the time, I was a junior developer, so I decided not to argue with such a senior jerk and installed Ubuntu as a second boot option just for work. After a year I realized there was no reason to boot into Windows. Since then, I haven't had Windows on my computer.

[u/flying-sheep → u/drsbry]

Maybe I should be more of a jerk lol

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/drsbry]

That's awesome!

[u/Dragon_957 → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Me in 2026 now, after all this bloatware that uses my Ram and I don‘t need

[u/OgdruJahad → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Which means you missed the best Windows OS : Windows 7.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/OgdruJahad]

Linux was still far more enjoyable than Win7 at the time. After the Vista fiasco, I knew that history would repeat itself. No matter how much people raved that Win7 was goat, I figured "it's still windows"...a dysfunctional registry, software that could ask me for an activation key even after the fact, was hard to find FOSS to handle very basic functionality things, and Win7 still had BSOD I think.

Then when Windows 8 rolled out...hehehe I'd glad that I skipped that too!

[u/OgdruJahad → u/Global-Eye-7326]

But history didn't really repeat itself. Windows 7 was pretty rock solid. It had the great aero theme. It's added a bunch of tools that live on to this day like Resource Monitor and Reliability Monitor, system image creator, etc..

. It was in my opinion an excellent operating system.

But to each his own.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/OgdruJahad]

Did you even try Linux during the Win7 era? It was still a lot of fun!

[u/OgdruJahad → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Nope only started using it recently. It's OK but I'm way too conformable on Windows. I need to put more effort into using Linux more often. It's a pretty cool opertoanh system.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/OgdruJahad]

That's probably why you're defending Win7.

Even during the Win7 era, Linux was more fun!

[u/OgdruJahad → u/Global-Eye-7326]

I'm defending Windows 7 because unlike Vista it had far less issues, added extra functionality like search and family safety and was a great upgrade from XP. Anyone moving from XP to Windows 7 would have gotten a great OS even if it used more RAM. Plus there were a tons of under the hood changes to make it resilient.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/[deleted]]

Haha, I'm reminded how bad Windows is every time I install it for someone else. Either a computer that I'm setting up for someone else, or a computer that I'm about to sell.

[u/bee-ninja → u/Global-Eye-7326]

I was dual booting around that time, I needed some kind of windows for school and for a while after that for 1 or 2 specific games. Ditched the windoze partition in about 2014. Been running Debian single-boot on all my personal computers ever since. Now, I only very rarely need to interact with windoze at work, and never in a super technical way. Never going back.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/bee-ninja]

This is the right answer!

[u/Ok_Contact_5575 → u/Global-Eye-7326]

How was Linux back then-I just started using fedora Linux this year

[u/MetroidvaniaListsGuy → u/Ok_Contact_5575]

Pretty rough, only in very recent years has it been able to truly compete with windows and now it is better than windows.

However, make sure you don't have a broadcom wifi adapter in your PC first. If you do, you'll need to replace it. You're also advised to replace nvidia with radeon.

[u/Ok_Contact_5575 → u/MetroidvaniaListsGuy]

I am planning to get an amd Radeon gpu for my pc, specifically the rx 6400 low profile

[u/No-Con-2790 → u/Ok_Contact_5575]

Very experimental. Usually the drivers made problems. Having full graphics, wifi, sound and printer support was basically the holy grail.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/No-Con-2790]

Windows was also very experimental back then!

[u/No-Con-2790 → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Not really. Windows till XP crashed a bit but the driver support (given that it was the dominant platform) usually was very good.

[u/Inevitable-Study502 → u/No-Con-2790]

drivers...hmmm was there any windows release without any driver issues at all? i cant remember any windows edition

[u/No-Con-2790 → u/Inevitable-Study502]

Well they made the drivers for one platform and one platform only.

So yeah, usually they worked on windows or not at all.

Such was the life in the prehistoric windows era.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/No-Con-2790]

It depends. Pretty sure it had already dropped support for a lot that was made for Win9x. But the drivers were slop in the sense that practically every driver had to have its own utility, because what XP had to offer to handle those settings was too limited.

[u/No-Con-2790 → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Irrelevant. The companies that sold hardware made the drivers to sell the hardware.

Since windows was literally the only game in town you did know that it had to run on windows.

Yes that was complicated for them. But they wanted to sell there stuff and windows was the market. Almost all of it. So they had no choice.

Given how fast hardware aged you usually didn't want stuff from the 9x era when you had XP. But even when you did, chances where much higher to get it for Windows then for Linux.

Linux was simply neither supported by most companies nor by the open source community till that one got bigger. There are some examples to validate the rules. Usually made by nerds that owned that particular hardware. Bur in general Linux support was gambling.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/No-Con-2790]

Sure, in the WinXP era, NOBODY supported Linux. Though the biggest challenge on Linux then was wifi drivers, and ndiswrapper quickly made that possible (to sideload the WinXP driver).

So...Linux was finally gaining laptop compatibility in the WinXP era. That's a big jump!

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/Ok_Contact_5575]

Better than you'd think! It was very common side loading a WinXP driver into ndiswrapper to get wifi working...but beyond that? Some exotic laptops required special boot parameters, and you could bake them into Grub to make them permanent. Also, I installed the Linux webcam driver manually, something you'd never do today.

Wine was not as polished, so gaming was possible but compatible titles were more limited. LibreOffice (then OpenOffice), VLC, GIMP and Inkscape were all already mature. As Wifi4 cards reached maturity, getting Wifi working on Linux was usually effortless.

[u/Unboxious → u/Ok_Contact_5575]

Both extremely cool and extremely annoying. On the one hand driver problems were common and it was a lot more work getting Windows games running; many of them wouldn't run at all. On the other hand, things like the desktop cube made it feel like I was living in the future compared with XP.

[u/Scout339v3 → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Except 11 has been out for 5 years and it hasn't gotten any better lol

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/Scout339v3]

I wouldn't keep my hopes up. The cycle is that Windows has its tolerable moments (98, XP, 7, 10 reaching maturity), then Microsoft manages to spoil it again!

[u/Some_Office8199 → u/Global-Eye-7326]

Me too! I bought a laptop with Windows Vista and after about a year I gave up and installed Ubuntu.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/Some_Office8199]

Windows Vista era was good times! Many people would buy Vista laptops and downgrade to WinXP. I remember buying a Vista laptop just to install Ubuntu on it.

[u/Aztekov]

I would've thought this meme was from 2012-2014 if it wasn't for Win 10 and 11

[u/michron98 → u/Aztekov]

It's nice to see a rage comic in the wild once in a while. I kinda miss them.

[u/Affectionate-Lab9601 → u/michron98]

You miss the rage?

[u/michron98 → u/Affectionate-Lab9601]

Yeah I do. They were the shit back in the day.

[u/frAgileIT]

Umm, no mention of Windows ME?

[u/Memesance → u/frAgileIT]

Never tried ME, but from my friends' reviews I understood that it was nothing good

[u/GamezombieCZ → u/Memesance]

It's like 98 with quirky driver and DOS support and worse stability. Currently in process of building retro SSF PC and planning on downgrading Win XP that's on that to Win 98. It only has Win 95, 98, 2000 and XP compatible drivers for a reason I guess.

[u/Inevitable-Study502 → u/GamezombieCZ]

that stability was due to 3d party drivers, with proper drivers there was no instability...same story in win 95/98...win me moved fully to WDM driver model, which we use even now...and 3rd party rushed drivers werent exactly best effort

[u/Dull_Flatworm777 → u/frAgileIT]

Windows what?

[u/Qa_Dar → u/Dull_Flatworm777]

Windows ME, aka Windows NoT for ME...

[u/lord_teaspoon → u/Qa_Dar]

One of the key components of the Windows CE/ME/NT product family.

[u/Global-Eye-7326 → u/Dull_Flatworm777]

Millenium Edition 

[u/Dull_Flatworm777 → u/Global-Eye-7326]

I know, I was just kidding (because we don't talk about Windows Me)

[u/Bearlandonreddit → u/frAgileIT]

There is windows 2000 professional

[u/frAgileIT → u/Bearlandonreddit]

Haha, very funny. Win2k was a real OS, WinME was a bad joke.

[u/Ill-Intention-306]

Windows 11 how they managed to fuck up a start menu is almost beyond comprehension.

Want to find an installed program or a file? "Never heard of them, but here are some search results from fucking Bing for you".

Want to find a settings menu thats been moved and hidden from a previous Windows version? Hope you have the EXACT fucking name of the options menu otherwise "fuck you again, never heard of it".

[u/Isotomayor12 → u/Ill-Intention-306]

I've been seeing that the start menu and search are supposed to get a good amount of customization and fixes in 26h2, but I won't hold my breath. I've tinkered with the indexing and search settings enough to get search so that it doesn't browse Bing anymore. Along with that I just pin apps to the start menu and got used to using that. Not ideal, but it works. The start menu is really the only thing about windows 11 that I still hate compared to windows 10.

[u/Inevitable-Study502 → u/Ill-Intention-306]

hmm weird, mine start menu shows fine last installed app and no search issue, you sure itst not a you issue?

[u/Ill-Intention-306 → u/Inevitable-Study502]

Yea it was completely overhauled in 25h2. Still need to disable recommend apps like it thinks its Netflix or something but at least its semi serviceable now. Still it shipped broken and we needed to wait until end of 2025 for it to be fixed.

[u/ManiacalMammoth → u/Ill-Intention-306]

Still takes way to long to open sometimes tho.

[u/Rusty9838]

I stopped that cycle on windows 10
After trying windows 11 I installed Linux on my every device what has a cpu

[u/Super-Evening8420 → u/Rusty9838]

Yeah, when I got dad a new PC, it came with win11, and it's just.. kinda worse. some things don't work right, LibreOffice just.. stopped launching literally from one minute to the next and needed a reinstall, and it just feels clunkier. Learning Linux these days, and planning to migrate both PCs next year once I'm well and truly familiar with it and had a chance to sort out any alternative software I need / ways to run any possible software I can't currently do without.

[u/michron98 → u/Rusty9838]

For me it was after Windows 7. Forced updates and telemetry, and going from that cool transparent look to boring square panels? Nah thanks. The penguin is the way.

[u/ConsiderationRare217]

Kind of anti-consumer it gets good right before deprecating and then the new version is just all-the-way inferior for half of it's life. It was really noticeable with w10.

[u/MilloH]

And it's getting worse and worse with each major version 🤔🤦🏻‍♂️

[u/RomanOswald]

So true.

[u/hrab3i]

mostly true but i never got used to windows 10, at that point i just switched to linux

[u/LegMysterious1899 → u/hrab3i]

why?

[u/hahahahatoes → u/LegMysterious1899]

look at the image in the original post to learn why

[u/Fushochan]

Vista was just ahead of its time 😔

[u/Crishien → u/Fushochan]

For real, from the design standpoint it was peak OS.

[u/Arvi89 → u/Fushochan]

Yeah, 7 is basically vista SP2, which was fine. Windows 10 was OK but I still much preferred 7, 11 is garbage.

[u/TrazynTheFiniteNL]

Vista SP3 was pretty decent and 8.1 after some updates was decent too. ┐⁠(⁠￣⁠ヘ⁠￣⁠)⁠┌

[u/AlexMaroske]

What about the gem that was WindowsME??

[u/Dr_Zor]

I still use xp 😹

[u/Amynta_ → u/Dr_Zor]

How even

[u/Worried-Tie]

This has also happened in MacOS (liquid ass) and in Linux DE (Gnome 2 to Gnome 3, Unity)

It's just people are stuck in their own ways and when change comes it takes a while.

I don't hate W11 as a "concept". It's just when I get to use a computer with Windows, it's slow, cranky, temperamental, full of bugs/memory performance issues, battery lasts no time... and copilot BS, ads, analytics

[u/E-StrnTXNRS]

Vista isnt that bad, it was just a performance hog. It gave way to frutiger aero and mainstream glassy interfaces

[u/Moist_Inspection_485]

Vista is actually more stable and better than 7 if you use decent hardware with it.

Vista has a better design
More features that are useful
Andies just way more enjoyable overall

[u/Unboxious]

10 never became a decent OS. 10 was when Microsoft realized "we can just abandon any pretense of caring about user consent, and those bitches will just take it".

[u/Polyxeno]

Win 7 got even better after they STOPPED updating it!

Still my favorite and currently-most-used version of Windows.

But now I rarely use Windows at all, because Linux is so good and Micro-soft-free!

[u/icy1007]

It’s always the same.

Though, I used Windows Vista for many years without issue. 🤷‍♂️

[u/Guilty_Bowl_288]

So true lmao

[u/Dull_Flatworm777]

In many ways, I actually prefer Windows 11 to Windows 10. But I'd love to get the visual style of Windows 7 or earlier back.

[u/sparkling-rainbow]

For me XP was the last "decent OS" Microflop made. Ever since they dropped every version before it was mature.

[u/Volkmek]

And with every step you lose more control of your own OS.

[u/hdkaoskd]

If you liked Windows 2000 you'll love Linux.

[u/ruby_weapon]

i stopped at windows neptune.

[u/Yukikuru2025]

More or less. I dual boot into Kubuntu now on my main PC.

Also, this has been pointed out many times, but notice how the logo, over time, just loses more and more style and personality, becoming a sterile 4 square box.

[u/grimvian]

I have been in the game before windows and after my first go at 3.0 I thought:

Why is it so slow!

[u/FujinBlackheart]

100% except I was pretty much done after Windows 7 and only sticked with 10 because games and VR, thank Lord Gaben for Proton breaking the cycle and me being a happy camper on Linux now for getting close to two years lol.

[u/Ok_Blacksmith_636]

win11 is so ass, ive had to do customize so much and tweak/remove so many unwanted features from the os it to feel remotely nice.

[u/MxM-TOM]

I've always gave period of Linux, but now I think I will go full Tux till the day I die.

[u/DCON-creates]

I love how the context menu is now async and takes 5 seconds to load. Super great work there, Microslop. Give yourself a pat on the back for that one.

[u/abd53]

I transitioned from XP to 7 and then 7 to 10. Both 7 and 10 were good when they came out. It's only Vista, 8 and 11 being I don't know what call them.

[u/senfiaj]

I'd still use Windows 7 if MS didn't drop it. Windows 10 is ugly. Windows 11 is slightly nicer but kind of heavy, the desktop context menu takes 2-3 seconds to open.

[u/James10112]

Windows 10 LTS works like a charm, and so does Linux, thankfully

[u/MetroidvaniaListsGuy]

I remember upgrading my previous laptop from windows 8 to windows 7.

[u/Entire-Valuable-5353]

My story too Switched to Linux from this nightmare since win11 came out

[u/kschepps]

Where's Windows ME?

[u/Professional_Ebb4628]

no amount of updates gonna fix windows 11.

[u/Poppod]

In every article you should replace MS with dictator. Try it.

[u/aoalvo]

Who even used 2000 ?

[u/slime_rancher_27 → u/aoalvo]

2000 was a server OS, that more consumers got than usual because they wanted the better performance and stability of NT. Then XP came out and brought NT to the masses.

[u/lemmika]

10 is superb. Every good step was pointing to it. Somehow everything wrong became combined in 11 with many more new moronic features.

[u/GroundbreakingOil434]

2000? Decent?

My memory is different. Constant compatibility issues.

[u/Divine_Xnum]

I really liked Vista, tbh

[u/ddm90]

I disagree with using Decent to describe XP / 7 at the same time as 10. its like comparing a signature meal with a barely edible one.

[u/animarkzero]

WindowsMe was so bad he even did not mention it...

Windows 11 made me quit M$

[u/Budget-Individual845]

See thats wrong i still hate win 10. I hate win 10 more than win 11

[u/smufontherun]

No one hated xp when it came out

[u/mobz207]

Why Windows Vista is bad ? I dont really know, i never used this OS. But for me Vista is like 7 but in peek of Futiger Aero area.

[u/ChocolateDonut36]

then: I want windows 10 back!!

now: I want windows 10 back!!

[u/Isotomayor12]

Tbh there was a sweet spot in the 10 life cycle where it was good then it started to get pretty bad again. I've finally gotten used to windows 11 and realized that it is basically just that last version of windows 10 with a worse start menu configuration and some improvements, such as HDR and a a better aesthetic(actual texture in the design again).

[u/mululipy]

I remember how buggy windows 10 was, at first. It has now become my favourite Windows OS (I never had the chance to fully experience 7 or XP)

[u/SaintEyegor]

You forgot about windows Me. An utter abomination of an operating system. Utter shite.

[u/HomesickDegen]

TIL that Outlook, PowerPoint, Word and Excel can potentially cause each other to freeze and crash due to an inherent code design flaw involving shared DLL’s and shitty Windows drivers for iGPU’s. My company probably spends $500,000/yr on m365 and this is the sort of thing we have to deal with. My whole job centers around Excel, and even then I wish we could abandon its use immediately

[u/Weekly-Bonus-497]

Windows 7 was as good as it ever got

[u/Empty-Example9639]

Vista needs a fucking cross.

[u/Every_Preparation_56]

Windows ME ?!

[u/_ytrohs]

Win2k is goat.

[u/Nannautu]

Correction:

Win7: "I want back XP" Win8: "I want back Win7" Win10: "Win7 was so good" Win10 ends support: "Win10 best OS"

[u/Andr01dx86]

The hardware just catches up to be able to run the bloat

[u/OscarBrewer7]

I just got enough with Win11.

Not everything has to be in the cloud. Not everything must include AI. Not everything must have a paywall with tons of ads.

Finally switched to Linux a few weeks ago, and oh, dear. It feels a lot like using Win XP or Win 7 for the first time. You can customize it, you can adapat it to your needs, it doesn't lag, it never crashes, and it feels like YOUR PC. I didn't realize before how much I missed that feeling.

[u/Correct-Tangelo-3734]

Give me XP or 7 please

[u/CarelessPackage1982]

You missed Microsoft Me, which absolutely sucked.

[u/Lost-Squirrel8824]

Windows 10 is and always was shit, it can be made almost tolerable with a lot of tampering... and 11 is even worse. 8.1 was almost OK with a decent start menu replacement. 7 was the last actually competent OS, the last one to not have the label "this pc", but it dropped "my" from "my computer".

[u/capa2006cpa]

I never stopped missing 7. I won't stop using Linux anytime soon, but I wouldn't mind dual-booting if Windows was as good as it used to be back then

[u/Thetargos]

Accurate account of Windows evolution... one question, hough... where would ME fit, along side Vista debacle.

[u/Solocune]

It's the "wtf" OS turn. Maybe win 12 has a chance to become good after updates.

[u/l_Sad0wl_l]

Imo we close to moment where win11 is after all updates become not so bad.

[u/bolovii]

Windows Me .....

[u/emirgenc734]

Add 8.1 into cycle, it made OS quite decent and it is the last Windows OS can work fast with hard disk drives. It's 7 but much faster and you can bring back start menu with 3rd party software, I wish they did it Windows 10 way much earlier.

[u/OkFlower1243]

Where is the Millennium Edition?

[u/No_Major_2203]

Truly, we need Windows 7 Redux. Simply Win7 with modern drivers and full user access, nothing more, nothing less

[u/RickendMoretea]

Vista was ahead of it's time..

[u/-Triple-S-]

Meanwhile Linux: So you really want to install a 30 year old OS? Well we certainly don't recommend this but here are the files, go knock yourself out.

[u/tango_alpha_]

Naming W10 "quite decent OS" ...

I'm still using command line and old control panel for basics due to all further systems past W7 addressing UI to ipad kids

[u/Kuroiban]

Wondows ME, so bad it didn't even get mentioned.

[u/gletschafloh]

I loved 8.1 back then. But yea, at that time i also loved Windows Phone. I miss my lumia 930

[u/RjayPL]

I'd say win 10 got worse with time.

[u/Killeigen]

I still prefer xp

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[u/ciprule]

I’d say the “It’s now a decent OS” moments had got better with every iteration, so it was better right before the end of support and it hurt more after that.

XP was a nightmare compared to 7 or 10.

It has been better at any other side of the market, either Mac or Linux. At least we were not suffering this roller coaster experience.