The first PC I owned came with Windows 3.0 installed, and I bought the upgrade to 3.1 shortly after it came out in early 1992. (I still have the stack of 3½" floppy disks it came on somewhere in my boxes of ancient computer hard- and software.)
I've had all the subsequent versions of Windows on my machines over the years, and I wouldn't willingly go back to any of them from Windows 10.
I'm not an MS fanboy (although I am whatever the opposite of a fanboy is when it comes to Apple), and I do have some sympathy for those who are riled by what they perceive to be bloat and spyware on Windows 10, but all I care about is that the interface works and is stable. Windows 10 achieves that with the software that I and my family want to run, even though the oldest motherboard and processor in one of our machines came out in 2008, and the three other PCs we use were ex-business machines that were bought on ebay over the last five years for around £100 each.
If you don't have an affinity for Microsoft and you have an aversion to Apple, might this suggest that you prefer Linux operating systems?
I'm fond of various Linux operating systems. Virtually all supercomputers use Linux but Microsoft and Apple continue to dominate the mainstream consumer market. Much software consequently never sees a native Linux version. While I can generally "coerce" such software to run on Linux via compatibility layers, it's usually simpler for me to either dual-boot or maintain multiple systems.
The only PC I own that I wasn't able to get Windows 10 to run on is a mid-level Dell laptop that first came out in early 2005. It would occasionally start up correctly, but most of the time it booted up to a black screen. Plugging in an external monitor showed the normal Windows interface and it worked correctly, but something weird was clearly going on at a low level. There were lots of suggestions for how to deal with this issue on trouble-shooting forums, but none of them worked for me.
After a lot of faffing about with trying to figure out how the hell to install Linux and which distribution I preferred, I installed Mint. It ran fine on the laptop, so just for the hell of it, I got an adaptor that allowed me to replace the slow and noisy IDE HDD with an SSD.
The laptop reliably boots up, and it gets to the Linux home screen in about 45 seconds, which I'm sure is at least twice as fast as it managed when it was new and running XP. It is usable, although just for fairly basic stuff since the processor is 1.3 GHz single-core, it's maxed out at 2 gigs RAM, and the maximum disk size the mainboard can handle is 120 Gb.
I keep the laptop updated just in case some weird shit comes down which means that all my family's Windows 10 machines suddenly stop working, but I don't use it regularly.
I do see the appeal of Linux for those who want to opt out of both the mainstream OS providers on principle and for those who like the flexibility of Linux because they're into messing around with computers at a low level. But the absence of native Linux versions for much software is a problem for me. I'm sure I could figure out some way of dealing with this, but I've spent a good part of my life struggling with computer software and hardware, and I'm far beyond the point of finding it fun. These days, it's just a pain, and there are more rewarding and enjoyable things I can do with my time.
Which version of Windows was the best?
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The first PC I owned came with Windows 3.0 installed, and I bought the upgrade to 3.1 shortly after it came out in early 1992. (I still have the stack of 3½" floppy disks it came on somewhere in my boxes of ancient computer hard- and software.)
I've had all the subsequent versions of Windows on my machines over the years, and I wouldn't willingly go back to any of them from Windows 10.
I'm not an MS fanboy (although I am whatever the opposite of a fanboy is when it comes to Apple), and I do have some sympathy for those who are riled by what they perceive to be bloat and spyware on Windows 10, but all I care about is that the interface works and is stable. Windows 10 achieves that with the software that I and my family want to run, even though the oldest motherboard and processor in one of our machines came out in 2008, and the three other PCs we use were ex-business machines that were bought on ebay over the last five years for around £100 each.
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Vanta_White
3 years ago
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If you don't have an affinity for Microsoft and you have an aversion to Apple, might this suggest that you prefer Linux operating systems?
I'm fond of various Linux operating systems. Virtually all supercomputers use Linux but Microsoft and Apple continue to dominate the mainstream consumer market. Much software consequently never sees a native Linux version. While I can generally "coerce" such software to run on Linux via compatibility layers, it's usually simpler for me to either dual-boot or maintain multiple systems.
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Clunk42
3 years ago
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Boojum
3 years ago
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You've just got to use a VM. Everyone using Linux should be technologically adept enough to make a VM.
The only PC I own that I wasn't able to get Windows 10 to run on is a mid-level Dell laptop that first came out in early 2005. It would occasionally start up correctly, but most of the time it booted up to a black screen. Plugging in an external monitor showed the normal Windows interface and it worked correctly, but something weird was clearly going on at a low level. There were lots of suggestions for how to deal with this issue on trouble-shooting forums, but none of them worked for me.
After a lot of faffing about with trying to figure out how the hell to install Linux and which distribution I preferred, I installed Mint. It ran fine on the laptop, so just for the hell of it, I got an adaptor that allowed me to replace the slow and noisy IDE HDD with an SSD.
The laptop reliably boots up, and it gets to the Linux home screen in about 45 seconds, which I'm sure is at least twice as fast as it managed when it was new and running XP. It is usable, although just for fairly basic stuff since the processor is 1.3 GHz single-core, it's maxed out at 2 gigs RAM, and the maximum disk size the mainboard can handle is 120 Gb.
I keep the laptop updated just in case some weird shit comes down which means that all my family's Windows 10 machines suddenly stop working, but I don't use it regularly.
I do see the appeal of Linux for those who want to opt out of both the mainstream OS providers on principle and for those who like the flexibility of Linux because they're into messing around with computers at a low level. But the absence of native Linux versions for much software is a problem for me. I'm sure I could figure out some way of dealing with this, but I've spent a good part of my life struggling with computer software and hardware, and I'm far beyond the point of finding it fun. These days, it's just a pain, and there are more rewarding and enjoyable things I can do with my time.