jacobian :
The "crap-good" pattern hasn't really held reliably in the Windows world. To begin with, until the end of Windows Me, they had two overlapping lines. The NT/2000 was for enterprise and servers, while 95/98/Me was for consumers. If you start XP lineage at 2000, which is the correct assumption, since XP was a dressed up Windows 2000, the XP was a mild improvement upon 2000. Actually, I thought 2K was already near perfect.
I agree with you about the good-crap pattern.. Many people seem to think that Windows started with 95 or 3.1. There are 3 main versions of Win95 alone. By the time OSR2 came out (before Win98) it made Win95... stable. Until Win2000, NT was pretty unreliable garbage. Sorry, but Linux was always more stable than that junk. Sure, NT looked like Win95 - but it was the most self-destructive OS in history IMHO.
XP is a minor improvement to 2000. It had more consumer friendly functionality built in. The UI was overhauled to be better looking (kind of Amiga is with blue and orange colors, no?) and it really needed to be improved as the new MacOS X made Windows 2000 look like old junk.
jacobian :
While I didn't use Vista in its early days, once I have seen a fully updated version with all service packs running on modern hardware, I didn't see what's the beef about Vista. Windows 7 is basically fully updated Vista and dressed up a little with "version number" changed to avoid a bad reputation of Vista. One the biggest complaints about Vista was speed. But then, it's not the first time a new OS drastically increases hardware requirements.
I don't agree with you. Even with SP2, Vista will never match the stability and performance of Windows 7.0. Yes, some things were fixed... but it was always a dog. Vista had a memory problem, the new video system would load the graphics into main memory too... so the more you multitasked the more memory was stolen. Heres a rundown on memory lane: When it came to entry level $400 PCs back then, a low-end XP was 512mb/500GB HD and a 1-2 core CPU. HP and others sold Vista versions of the same computers... even with 1GB, these computers were horribly slow. There is a SERIOUS problem when a 512mb XP system is more functional than a 2GB computer. I mother of the girl I was dating back then, needed to replace her old HP (died with Windows95). Vista was already 3~4 months old... but all she needs to do is PLAY the included card games, check email and type on a word-processor. Very minimal stuff. It came with 1GB. Those early Vistas were bad... everything you did is SLOW motion... even Win7 still retains some stupidity from Vista. For 3-4 months, she bugged me once a week with a problem. PC wouldn't wake up, wouldn't shut down. the card-game was more difficult to play than the XP version.
Solution: She paid $100 for XP-HOME OEM. I had to go through an HP tech who directed me to their semi-hidden FTP server to get the XP drivers. I gave her 1GB I had laying around. (didnt help much). I tried to unpack a 40mb ZIP file on vista before I was to kill it (the audio driver for XP). The PC reports "20 minutes to unpack"?! I aborted, murdered Vista, installed XP, unpacked the same file on the SAME computer in about 24 seconds. (This is a celeron class PC)
Here is an old video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEvD9RHlccc The Vista system is on a low-end Core2 class CPU which is faster than the Pentium 4 used on the XP system. My own PERSONAL experience was the same. For those who don't watch the video Both computers are unpacking a 17MB file into 62MB and hundreds of files. It takes Vista about 12 mins and XP does it in 17 seconds. The old lady never complained again about her computer.
Back in the earliest days of Vista, 1GB of RAM was about $200 (unlike todays 16GB for $80~120). So in order to get VISTA to run fast, you needed lots of RAM... 4GB max for 32bit... so the sweet spot was 8GB Vista 64bit. It would take a year for the price to hit $100 per GB. So figure the cost to add an additional 3GB to a bottom end work-station = $600, just to get performance similar to a 1GB XP system. Just before Win7 was released to the market, it was easy to buy a 6/8/12GB PCs everywhere. Also the UI in Vista was nothing more than a re-skinned XP, it offered no difference.
When Win7 came out... I installed on test old PCs with 512 & 1GB ram... they ran pretty good, not great. My main thinkpad computer has the same low-end Core2 as in the video. It has 2GB ram and does pretty good. Typical PCs today have 8GB because its so cheap. Otherwise, 4GB is enough for most PC users. Win7 fixed some functionality problems, modernized the taskbar to PIN programs to it and many other improvements. MS listened and was able to make Windows 7 a success! With Win8, they flushed everything down the toilet.
jacobian :
95 wasn't crap as demonstrated by a swift migration off Windows 3. In terms of GUI and ease of use it was a big step forward. ~~~ It remains to be seen what they do with Windows 9.
Windows95 was a nightmare when it was NEW. First, Windows3 was never an OS, just a launcher. There wasn't much to fail with it... but it was very horrible compared to AmigaOS and MacOS. I used Stardock to make Win3 functional.
As painful as Windows95 was, it was worth using. It was an OS. It supported long-file names. It easily allowed the user to open a DOS shell and play games without leaving the desktop. It was also... a mess. PnP was a nightmare, modems and keyboard would stop working or couldn't detect the hardware. Sheesh, the 1986 Amiga1000 HAS PnP and worked every time (I have one). With some patches, Win95 got better. Win98 was easily better... and SE was quite good and stable... I'd use it until 2004, when my PC hardware was being held back from the limitations of 98.
Also, in the 2 years of Windows95 - it was common to re-install the OS every 2~6 months because it would crap all over itself. It was just faster that way. I used GHOST to make an image file of the OS to make clean re-installs take minutes (I did it from another partition).
Windows 9.... will be an interesting thing. I hope I don't need it. Why I don't think I'll be needing Windows in the future.
1 - Games. They are now mostly for consoles... so why bother with Windows? I do quite a bit on STEAM already.
2 - Other than a few productivy programs (Quick-books, turbotax), I have little need for Windows.
3 - Linux will display pics, play music, use the web as good or better than Windows.
4 - Linux costs me nothing. No stupid keys to keep track off.. or which version of disc to keep track of, etc.
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