Opinion - Windows Has Gone Downhill Big Time

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

jamesp33

Commendable
Dec 13, 2016
151
0
1,710
Now you can close this thread if you want, this is just my opinion. Remember Windows 95, Windows Xp and all that? You know, The legendary OSs. Yeah, Remember when Windows 95 came out? It was amazing, It added so many features that we use day to day and was fully compatible with DOS and 16-bit apps. Then after we got Windows NT 4.0 which is known for having a tones of service packs... it was stable and was meant for business. Then we had Windows 98 which added some new cool stuff like Driver model and all that but other than that, Just a refine of Windows 95. Nothing goes downhill until quite a few releases later. Now we have Windows 2000 which was fast, stable, and another business OS. Didn't stop home users using it after they saw the next release. Now for Windows ME which people hate, so is it bad? No, it didn't add a whole big list of features but the features was useful, like system restore and automatic updates. Now for Windows Xp, this OS is what some people call unstoppable.It refuses to die and combined Windows 2000 and Windows ME together making it crammed with features.
Now for Vista, this OS people hate even more than Windows ME, this OS was just too advanced for the PCs then, So people said it's "Slow" when it was their PCs fault. Vista was filled with new features, a new UI, and much more. It even added more than XP. Now here's where it goes downhill, Another refinement. Its name is Windows 7 and is classed as the best OS of all time, It wasn't really an improvement, It was just a service pack really. It added new tweaks and had more drivers due to popularity but that's it. Now here's where Microsoft doomed them self, Windows 8, This is the WORST piece of software on the planet. All it did was remove features and make the user interface terrible, WORST OS EVER. Windows 10 is good in my opinion but Aero fans disagree. So I explained the history of Windows 95 to Windows 10 but let's do a list of things that have been removed through those travels: Desktop Properties, Windows Gadgets, Windows Movie Maker, Windows DVD Maker, Advanced Appearance, Many Useful tools, Windows Media Center And I could go on for ages. The fact is that Windows just isn't as good anymore. Why? Because Microsoft just doesn't do as much as they did before. Windows Won't ever have a bigger jump than the one from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95. Windows Just doesn't feel the same, And never will.
 
well, windows me did crashed on some hardware, but it was a age when there was all kind of crappy hardware manufacturers, sis was king of chipsets, other weird manufacturers and system integrators made so much bad hardware and drivers were so bad

well, me was a sort of a vista thanks to the hardware requirements, supposedly you could run it well with a pentium mmx

iirc a pentium II or a amd k7 was what most should have, also not only 32 megs of ram, less the 2 or 4 that integrated gpus used to stole

now that you mention me, i didn't liked it, it was the beginning of lots of changes to ui and control panel

when you came from windows 98se and used it, well, you went back to 98se quickly
 
"UI changes" I don't remember anyone complaining about that. I think you just the most random small things that never really made it bad. People always gotta find little things to bash the hated OSs.
 
believe it or not?

i have seen lots of stores running old cheap pcs without windows, only running freedos, to use them to register sales, pos if you like to call them, points of sell, not the other pos 😀

if you can get the os for free, a really cheap simple pc and a really old basic cheap monitor to do this stuff, well, you have a sale there!

about ui

when windows 8 came, it was very hard for most users to find microsoft word, most tech support on site guys had to go and create a bunch links on the desktop and taskbar , also in the metro thing ui to stop people getting lost in there

if you didn't knew how to call the old control panel and had to use the new great user interface to stop printer service and remove a network printer, that was a interesting experience!
 


Until that system dies and they have no backup.
Or they have to replace it and no one knows FreeDOS
Or the Visa credit card rules dictate greater security than that OS can provide.

Oh, and there is a point of sale version for 10/8/7...
 
You talk about Windows 8 UI but we're not talking about Windows 8 are we? Also, the control panel changed with the category option but I never really recall people complaining about it. The only reason that Windows ME blue screened a lot is because people didn't make good drivers. It's not really Windows MEs fault if company's can't make good drivers is it? Windows ME was a improvement over Windows 98 Second Edition. If you want to go into DOS mode then go to Windows 98 or Windows 95. Windows ME gets too much hate, its new features were important for later builds like system restore.
 
I vote we all get BeOs to come back and let windows go away.. :)
or maybe OS2Warp, that wasn't a bad OS...
okay then lets just load MS DOS 1.2 and slap Win 1.1 on it and have a laugh ( I have the disks somewhere... I so should do it on my 10- year old lappy
 


I know you're being sarcastic but a 10-year old laptop with a floppy drive? I better hope you're being sarcastic about that too.
 
I've often wondered whether Windows would work better if the developers had the nerve to run destructive tests..

They obviously don't because users find it quite easy but maybe the people who build the OS love it so much they won't try hard enough to break it.
 


I know my 50 years old age is showing, but yeah I use a camera (whopping 4mp) that saves to floppies, don't ask, it works why would I spend 300$ on a camera to take pictures of house and cats ... and yes I use a floppy drive, you can still BUY them at Walymart... cost about 12$ for the usb 2.0 model

cheers glad I could emaducated you today :)

 
Bang up to date PSUs still have a connector for the floppy. Showing my seventy years, I thought the world had gone mad when 3½" disks came out and replaced the 5¼". It took me three years to make the change.

I don't think it's necessary to upgrade tech as soon new things hit the market. I've had digital cameras but I recently spent around the equivalent of $30, a Nikon F80 film camera. I wouldn't have wanted to spend as much as it would have cost new but it still takes fantastic quality photos though it's probably twenty years old.
 
last time i bough a floppy disc, it lasted perhaps one week and died, last box i bought, well, iirx, most never worked at all

old floppy discs seems to be a lot better quality than what was sold at the end of that era, perhaps in 2004 i couldn't find more decent floppy discs

abut the psus with floppy power connectors, those can be used for some from usb modules, those with fan controls and other stuff

some old technology was quite decent, but other, it was just crap and we used it just because there wasn't anything better or cheaper
 
First off, I thought you were talking about a in-built Floppy Drive not a USB one. I even have a USB 2.0 Floppy Drive myself but never really use it.

And secondly, Saga is right, You don't need new tech just when it hits the market, except people gotta have the latest and greatest because that's how humans have became with tech these days. A GT card can still game and I have done it before. I think new tech is growing up too fast and is not needed. Tech is just gonna get hotter and more expensive, This is why you should wait, You don't need a Geforce Titan X or a GTX 1080, you can still game with older GTX cards with high frame rates. People just want the latest tech just to most likely brag about it or to get a FPS boost that you don't really need. I just don't get people these days

 
yes, a new gtx is just for brag, very few people needs one inmediately

about floppy drives, the usb ones, usually don't work for the programs that need them, like activators for old licenses or programs searching for a floppy drive and not finding it on usb port, dos mostly iirc
 
IMO, W98se was the best MS has ever done. Outdated now, of course. And I would not be surprised if MS turns to the dark side with W10. They released it with some marketing scheme in mind. They WILL make money off it. By hook or by crook, they WILL make money off it.
If that means enslaving their users to their personal data siphon, marketing, and data mining machine, then I fear that's what they'll do.

This thread reminds me of Word Perfect. Remember v.5.1? Worked for DOS, beautiful, slim and trim, had everything I wanted for my college papers. Then they tried to go GUI in v.6. Slowed everything to a crawl, bloated it out, all but killed it. But 5.1 was incredible. 98se was the same thing. Then came 2000 - and they ruined everything.
XP sp2 was great. 7 was good too - if you knew how to keep it trim and fit. Everything since has been bloat and waste. I don't care about new, more cutesy ways to clear my desktop or bring a window in focus.
 
No, but your wife does, or girlfriend does, or mom does. Men's MySpace all looked basically the same, utilitarian. MySpace was a part time tool. Women on the other hand, blew it up with the cutesy stuff, frills, pictures, songs, poems, and more widgets than wallspace. That's who MS is targeting. They don't have to sell you on needing an OS for your pc, but they do gotta sell the women. They gotta sell the cutesy, the easy, the one click cloud for pictures, the easy access be-bop. It's almost laughable how easy it is to get a dude on a pc, toss him a game like BF1 or gta:V. The question becomes how to get the wife using the pc, wanting a bigger, better, faster pc with all the bells, whistles and gadgets. Microsoft is in partnership with everybody almost, and when MS does good and makes sales, the partners make money. Partners make no money if the wife can't see any reason to upgrade from the old reliable C2D and WinXp 2, since it still works just fine for her emails and YouTube.
 
I agree with Jdlech, Windows Vista and later were bloated, and with crap you won't even need. We could do what we needed on the old OSs too, Except we weren't bloated with crap. ON windows Xp we could go down to 20 MB of RAM and in Vista? Around 312 MB, And in windows 10 it isn't as bad with 220 MB of RAM. All we've gotten from Microsoft these past 10 years was eye candy and some other crap we don't need. The only real good thing we got was TRIM and that's it. Windows will never have an impact as huge as Windows 95, Sure it might not have been the greatest OS of them all but Microsoft actually was bothered to make a good OS instead of just shove eye candy at us. Even though it's outdated, I'd choose Windows 95 any day.
 
some of the tools offered on the default install are not necesary, yes, but others are necesary on some environmets

one new tool i remember from windows 10 is that 3d viewer

what is the purpose of that tool?

there must be some purpose for it

the games, i understand their presence, the idea of windows as a cool os, friendly with users to install games, to compete against the giant in the market, android, is clear, but yes, some tools, well

i'm sure there might be a purpose for them! even a dumb one but some purpose!
 
at the moment, i'm using windows 7, last night i was using windows 10

i find it almost identical in response time, boot times on decent hardware for windows 10 is really better, even with the special features for windows boot disabled in bios

what does help is a ssd, that soften up everything 😀
 
If it's an SSD the speed will be the same. I have to say though, Windows 10 seems to be way faster when Windows 10 and 7 are on 2 GB of RAM.

Let's be honest though, if Windows 10 had Aero, It would be better than Windows 7. Personally, I find Aero quite ugly but other people have different tastes for what UI they like most. Because more people like Aero over Metro Windows 7 stays the best. And Windows 7 and 8 spy's with an update now. Everyone will prefer Windows 10 over 7 in 2020 when Windows 7 becomes a hackers heaven. Windows 7 will face worse troubles than Windows Xp did that's for sure.
 
in general terms, aero is just some desktop effects trying to look nice and interesting as it was the case on linux on that same time with beryl and compiz desktop effects, that did that and alot more

it was just a reaction to eyecandy on linux and some of the mac eyecandy

the speed of those effects depends mostly on the gpu in use, so that is why there was minimum requirements for those effercts, it wasn't something the os did, it was a requirement form the os to the gpu to make things nicer, the os remained doing the same minus some windows drawing parts now done by the gpu
 
now that was mentioned, my best moments playing with a pc, were with windows 98se

that thing was dumb and fast, required like 64 mbs of ram to run well, i put 128 mbs of ram and worked with it for some years, nothing gave me problems apart the sudden fat32 problem that is still so common with sd cards and usb devices with it, fdisk was a bad friend most times

chkdsk is a better friend now with ntfs i think

the simple ui, well, wasn't better than the one introduced with windows 2000, just buttons, few colors and some text, right to the point

windows 10 has some of that but in tablet style, not uch wrong with it, fortunatelly when i need a real control panel, i can call with right click over the start button the real control panel on windows 8 and 10, set a network printer without it, well, after doing it the same way for decades almost, is a pita
 
I get what you're saying. At first, I found it pretty annoying but now I find it really easy to use. I really like how nearly everything is solid-color, Most people don't like that but I'm one of the people who do. And by the way, If you wanna find files open the start-menu then type in what you want and it'll find it.