First of all, excuse my bad typing, typing in a really awkward position, will try and do my best. Moderators / admins if you think this is in wrong forum feel free to move it.

just interested to ask what is your favourite version of Windows and why? obviously there have been many versions of Windows released over the past 25 or so years and different people have different opinions on each version Microsoft has released. You could choose the version you have the best memories of, the one which worked best for you, the one you remember best etc...

At the moment my favourite is windows 7, probably followed by Vista. Never really had any problems with vista on my pcs, it ran well and did the job. I probably remember XP best, having used it for the majority of my life (only young still!), and maybe if i think back far enough, I can remember windows 98. XP served me very well, but now i think almost 10 years from its original launch date, it's a bit outdated, and i much prefer Vista's and 7's UI to XP's. As for Windows 98, i dont remember it that well, so i cant really pass any opinions on it. Seem to remember it being rather unstable at times and hanging on shutdowns. I'm not sure about the new Windows 8 concept which was unveiled at the beginning of this month and the new 'tiles' UI but we'll have to wait and see what happens. I think it looks too much like phone 7 and will possibly 'scare' users when they see it. Probably will end up getting it and installing it anyway.

One other thing you could say is your least favourite version of windows. What was your least favourite and why? i know i'm going to be hated for this, because I see a lot of people on here are close to Windows 2000, but I really didn't like it. Somewhat slow to start-up and rather clunky and ugly-looking once inside the OS. Now it's obsolete and unsafe IMO.

So that's my view, what's your's? what is your favourite version of Windows. vote in the poll!! You can choose 2 operating systems in case you cant choose between two versions.

I have used everything from DOS 3.3 to the newest Windows and nothing affected me like Win2k did.

I've used Windows since the late 1980s. Early editions were very workable but lacked ability for everyday use, for example ADSL. Windows XP was tolerable but too childish for my liking. Win 7 does what it says on the tin. It can be slow to fulfill certain functions such as display devices and printers but is acceptable.

Windows 2000. I got it early from a MS booth at a conference while I was in high school. Rock solid stablity, and still had the classic interface. It generally booted up and then got out of the way. I didn't realize how much I liked 2000 until XP came out, with its configuration options hidden behind stupid wizards and lots of little things out of place. Too much crap came installed by default with XP when there were better options available...the cd burner, MSN messenger, the firewall, scanner wizard, MS passport integration. I also hated the bubbly XP theme (a blatant ripoff of an IceWM theme at the time), and to this day do not understand why they didn't keep the more professional looking Watercolor theme.

For many years, Windows 2000 + Services for UNIX was the perfect desktop, and I ran that well after XP had become established.

I chose windows 2000, since it seemed like the largest revolution, especially with the old laptop I was using at the time - xp didi not run well on it, and 2000 brought the advantages of xp with windows 98's speed. After that, it is vista (believe it or not), but 7 is slowly growing on me.

This. I still keep Windows 2000 kicking on a VM. SmoothText, KDW, and Firefox FTW!

I really like the Windows Vista interface, but never really tried it. The only OSs I have ever used personally are Windows XP and Windows 7. But I have tried a few Linux Distros (off topic) I just reinstalled Windows 98 SE on a really old computer. Only 64MB of RAM, 4GB hard drive.

Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard - it is very fast, installation has low disk space usage and does not have all these annoying options (themes, blurry fonts, window animations etc.) enabled by default. It is my primary OS (from MSDN) for software development in virtual machines. Its update, Windows Server 2008 needs much more system resources so it is not that good option as a "professional" workstation OS but when I need IIS 7.5 for a project, there is no other option.

As for host system, I don't care Currently still use XP and could live with W7 as long as I manage to turn off all the blurry unreadable fonts.

Each Windows version has its charm. I've used 3.11, 98SE, XP, Vista and 7 on my personal computers, and have some limited experience with NT4 and 2000 on college/work machines.

My two favorites are Windows 7 which is Vista++, with some nice extra features, and DOS, because, well, it's a whole another ballgame.

OS/2!

Forgot about OS/2... joint IBM and Microsoft effort.

Just because Microsoft was involved in OS/2 does not make it a Windows version. So, OS/2 can't be your favorite Windows version GomJabbar.

So far I have not chosen a favorite, because I'm not sure I even have one. I've used 3.11, 95, 98SE, ME, 2000 Pro, XP Pro and Home, Vista and Seven. They are all a little different, and each successive version is better in most ways than the one before it, but each has it's own pluses and minuses too.

I've had the longest run with XP, so does that make it my favorite? Not really. I used 98SE for a long time too, long after MS stopped supporting it, because it seemed more secure than any NT based release, and was more customizable, worked better on my older hardware like the 600X, but eventually new software just would not work, not even with KernelEX. So I moved on to Linux. Does that make 98SE my favorite? I dunno...

Edit: I forgot that Win95 is my longest running Windows OS! I bought an HP desktop that had Win95 installed back in about 1998, and I used that as my primary machine for years. In fact, it is still running W95 to this very day as my voice mail / fax machine. Because I have never found a better software package for that application than the one that came installed. But 95 is certainly not my favorite, because of it's limitations with USB.

Just our of curiosity, what didn't work with KernelEX?

P.S. The ONE thing that even keeps windows on my machine is "Empire Earth - The Art of Conquest", old game, but my son and I play it OFTEN ... I have tried it on almost every new release of WINE, but still a no go

Umm...I think it was the web browsers I was trying to use. Maybe when Firefox had moved from version 3.x to 4.0, and tried Chrome about the same time. Probably fixed in later versions of KernelEx, but I have not gone back to try them.

Windows 2000 here.

The only MS OS release ever (in my opinion) which was entirely usable when initially released.

Still running on my "work" T20. Fabulous even with its numerous limitations in today's day and age.

I will agree with you here that most versions of Windows tend to be a half-finished job when they are released to the shelves, and it usually takes all manner of numerous updates and service packs to get them right (especially with Vista), but I think Windows 7 was very good out of the box. It was faster, more usable, and crucially more stable than Vista when it was initially released.

Windows 2000 and Vista.

Win 2k for its solidity and small size,and Vista because i have it on my two main laptops,........and i'm just used to it.

A friend of mine just called me from a campground, was trying to check email on the web, couldn't connect to the hotspot. Everyone else was connected fine. Vista is the problem, everyone else are on (downgraded) XP... I laughed

Luckily they had a Ubuntu Live CD in the laptop bag, booted to it, connected, e-mail checked... good enough till they get home. That machine will be getting at the very least a 2nd partition that dual boots Linux.

XP for me. Simple, does what I need without all the fancy frills that I don't need. Have been having weird problems lately when trying read large files or folders under Windows 7, I'm pretty sure it's just that it's trying to access too much information in the files.

I don't need Windows to tell me the bitrate, sample rate, stereo settings and all the ID tag information. I can think for myself believe it or not. That's part of the reason I prefer the older OS's, they leave more thinking up to the user. I'm in control, not the computer.

XP will do that, but only if you like... switch to View-->Details, then you can select which columns you want, this applies to any type of media file, or even normal files if you just want to sort by something that windows doesn't offer in default context menus

Where is NT 3.51 Workstation in the list ?????

Had it running on a Dell laptop..... threw the backup CD out perhaps 6 months ago.

I used it a long time - until XP came out and then I upgraded to Win 2000. Only when SP2 (or was it SP3) came out for XP did I migrate but initially I kept the desktop looking like Win2000.

I chose Windows 7 and XP. Windows 7 is currently my favorite version. It is leaps and bounds better that any other OS microsoft has put out in my opinion. Have never had 7 crash once on me (and I run it on my home computer and my office computer). I can leave it running for days without performance hits at all.

Another 2000 here. I'd probably still be using it as my primary OS if it was supported by the latest hardware and software. (I understand a lot of new stuff will work with third-party hacks but it's just not worth the trouble; XP is a good-enough replacement.)

XP SP3 although I'm getting used to 7 rather nicely.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

I have a fair amount of experience with pretty much everything since 3.0, including the basic home-marketed stuff, workstation stuff, and server stuff.

I find myself hating Windows 7 and 2008 R2 a surprisingly small amount... but the one I look back upon with the most fond memories is NT4. With SP6a and the last update rollup, I remember it being blazing fast and rock stable.

I have a "Katmai" PIII 600MHz in a 440BX board with 512MB of PC100 SDRAM somewhere in the garage--I remember that machine being a real screamer with NT4... next machine was a 1GHz Coppermine on a 815EP board maxed with 512MB of PC133 SDRAM running 2000 or XP which sucked compared to the Katmai box running NT4. I also recall having NT4 on a DEC Celebris GL5133ST with 128MB of EDO DRAM with a Seagate Barracuda SCSI drive and that being fairly usable as well... that DEC now is a toy for running OPENSTEP for MACH 4.2, which is rather fun. And of course, my first ThinkPad -- a 760ED with 80MB of RAM! That thing was a BEAST for its time running NT4. Hmm, OPENSTEP should work on that machine as well... wonder if it still works... is supposedly what Steve Jobs used while into his return to Apple! Ran mainly 2000 on the 600X, probably due to driver/software support...

Of course I still have XP SP3 all over the place in my client base, and while I used it for a long time, I never really bonded with it. We've got pretty much everything moved off of Server 2003/R2 which makes me happy.

While I have a fair amount of Server 2008 in the client base, we have almost NO Vista out there... and admittedly I've only installed it about 5 times and worked on it maybe another 15...!

I seem to recall Win95 OSR2 wasn't too bad, nor was 98SE... but neither could hold a candle to the stability of NT.

I've really enjoyed MacOS since 10.3, and had some stonking fast Gentoo Linux builds going several years back...

Personally NT4 wasn't my favourite, when I tested it a year or two ago in VMware I found it really unstable, but there we go.

Wow I'm amazed that I posted this thread up in June last year and still people are posting on it

XP is great because it has had such a long life time and virtually never crashed. I hate Vista because it is just too slow. 7 is great but I just started working with it so we shall see. 3.1 / 3.11 / 95 / 98 were all very unstable. NT 3.51 / 4 were server based so I never really work with them. Never really worked with 2000 as it did not support gaming too well.

As long as you run it on a capable computer and install the latest updates including SP2, Vista is as fast as 7. What machine(s) did you test Vista on, and what incarnation of Vista? Lots of people who hate Vista have only tried the beta versions, and they did it on ancient technologies such as Pentium 4 and Pentium M.

IMO, to run Vista well, the CPU should have a PassMark benchmark score of at least 1,500 (see http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php), and the RAM should be at least 2GB. I once had a Dell Precision M90 with 2.0GHz Core2Duo T7200, which has a benchmark of only 1150. Vista actually ran quite well but it did feel a tad sluggish. That's how I came up with the 1,500 minimum. Right now I am running Vista Business with SP2 on my HP dc7900, Dell Precision 390, and both Dell OptiPlex 760 and could not be happier.

As you know, I'm no Vista hater, it's actually quite a nice OS once it's been updated to patched, but you've got to remember that Vista was launched in 2006, right, and back in those days the Core 2 Duo CPUs were very new and very expensive, most machines were still using the single-core Pentium 4 CPUs (or the AMD equivalent, I'd imagine the Athlon 64s), and most users were only on 512MB RAM or maybe 1GB, 2GB was quite a lot back then! So really, when Vista came out it really was too demanding and you needed a powerful PC to run it, however, now you can run it smoothly on pretty much any machine made after 2007, but why would you when you can use Windows 7 which is better?


I beta tested Vista back in the day, and I remember it being all right, mind you I was only a small kid back then and I probably just liked the fancy effects (my Dad got me Vista beta), but as I said above, the reason why people were using "ancient" technologies was because that's all they had available to test it on! In 2006, Pentium 4s were not "ancient", admittedly some of the older P4s (Willamette I think?) were old yes, but the later generation P4s, some of which supported HT, were not ancient, they were current generation CPUs!

I prefer Vista over 7, and I voted for Vista in this poll. For example, I like its Start menu more than Win 7's, and Vista has more text messages that can be dismissed by hitting the spacebar or Enter key whereas 7 almost always requires one to click the mouse (which is slower). In general, Vista's User Interface just looks and feels nicer. Furthermore, Win 7's automatically resizing a window whenever the mouse touches the edge of the screen drives me nuts. Yes, I know this feature can be disabled, but that's a hassle nonetheless.



Well, I totally agree with you. I don't mind people criticizing Vista, as long as they do it in the past tense. My previous post objected to the statement quoted below, which was written in the present tense:



BTW, today someone gave me a Vista Business COA sticker for free, so I put it on my Dell Dimension 9150 and I just upgraded it from XP Pro to Vista Business. I am surprised by how snappy it is! These are this computer's specs:

3.20GHz Pentium D (with a PassMark score of only 892!)
3GB PC2-5300 667MHz RAM (with 2x1GB and 2x512MB, i.e. dual channel mode)
80GB SATA HDD (7200rpm, 8MB buffer, 3.0Gbs)

It now has all the latest Vista updates, Microsoft Office 2010, and Avast Antivirus. Even though it is noticeably slower than Vista on my much faster machines, it is certainly acceptable. It runs kind of like the Dell Precision M90 laptop I mentioned earlier (2GHz Core2 Duo + 2GB RAM).