On Wed, 22 Sep 2021 at 10:03:06, RabidHussar <rabid@huss.ar> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
>On 2021-09-22 8:59 a.m., J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Sep 2021 at 16:57:21, Ken Blake <ken@invalidemail.com>
> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
> []
>
>> I almost always think each new version of Windows is better than
>> its predecessor. The one flagrant counterexample, as far as I'm
>> concerned, is version 7 to 8.
>
>
> I vaguely favour the alternating principle (every _second_ one was
> good) - though each had _something_ worthwhile to add (and you
> sometimes have to consider minor variants to make it work):
>
> (I never used 1 and 2. Hardware probably wasn't up to it anyway.)
> 3. - usable
>
>I liked it but didn't see the point of the software at the time. Much
>of the good stuff was in DOS.

Indeed.

> 3.1 (and 3.11) - good for their time
>
>It allowed you to get onto the Internet so it was definitely good. It

Actually, I used the internet more under DOS (with a variant of the -
ITIW - KA9Q suite) in those days, only firing up W3.1 if I wanted to use
a web page. (I. e., email, FTP, etc. was fine - I think I even used Lynx
sometimes. Was still on dialup.)

>doesn't multitask well for some but I'm a "one application at a time"

I was too, then. (Well, DOS encouraged that!)

>type of guy anyway so I didn't see the issues, even on my very outdated
>hardware at the time.
> 95 - first with the modern GUI; fair (poor at USB)
>
>It was pretty good, especially with the Plus pack. However, the winnuke

I never felt tempted to get the Plus! pack!

>crap people used all the time showcased how vulnerable it was
>security-wise.
> 98 - fixed some of 95, but unfinished in some ways
>I found it awful.

I don't remember enough about it.
>
> 98SE - good (towards the end, let down by USB, though there was the
> - third-party - universal USB driver)
>My go-to OS until Windows 2000 came out.

I stayed with it a long time.

> Me ("Millennium edition") - not _much_ liked, though it has its
> adherents; arguably first not something running on top of DOS
> (though that's partly true of the '9xs)
>
>Garbage in every way. Stability was clearly not the developers' concern
>at this point in time.

Seemed rushed, and not to offer anything much beyond 98SE. And some
things removed IIRR.

> XP - good, in general; certainly affectionately liked looking back
>You forgot 2000 which was stellar in every possible way. XP was an
>improvement on something that was already very excellent.

I did indeed forget 2000. Though I think it was still part of the NT
sequence, rather than the "home" sequence. Though some overlap, I think
of the NT sequence as mainly NTFS-based, with the home sequence based on
FAT (and variants). Came together in XP (which could run on FAT, but by
default didn't).

[I preferred FAT, but Everything - the Voidtools utility - doesn't work
anything like as well on FAT; I think that was the clincher, as I find
Everything very useful.]
>
> Vista - good in theory (sort of an early 7), but that's really come
> to light with hindsight: at release it wasn't much liked, not least
> because user access control was rather vicious
>
>I didn't see the issue, to be honest. I was part of the  beta-testing
>process and found bugs to report on a daily basis. When they froze the
>code and released it to the public, I couldn't believe it: clearly,
>what I was running was nowhere near ready for the public. However, what
>the public DID get wasn't that bad as long as your hardware wasn't
>already outdated. Some features have since disappeared such as the
>animated wallpaper but it wasn't as bad as people say. Most people

I think you're in the minority - perhaps being an "insider". My main
experience with Vista was helping an old chap who'd been given a Vista
laptop, which was as slow as molasses; I don't think it actually didn't
work, but wait times were bad, to the extent that I more than once
thought of paving it and installing XP. Reading what _others_ were
saying, I think the pain of the UIC _was_ great.

>don't realize that 7 is basically just a re-released version of Vista.

I've read it said as "Vista was an early 7" [as I said above] (-:

> 7 - mostly liked, after initial resistance to any new variant
>It was little more than an optimized version of Vista whose performance
>was close enough to XP that people didn't mind upgrading. I think that
>people are probably still holding onto it to this day since none of the
>newer stuff responds as quickly.

Hmm.
>
> 8 - mostly hated, mainly for the "tiles" interface (which was only
> the default)
>It was the same as 7 except for the absence of the Start button (you
>had to go to the lower-left corner instead). I understand what they
>tried to do with the tiles but a Start menu would have been better.

It sort of coincided with the explosion in 'phones; tiles are a lot less
useful if you don't have a touch screen, which most even laptops didn't
(certainly not machines with separate monitors). Actually, I'm not aware
large touch screens are that common, even now.

> 8.1 - fixed some of the worst aspects of 8, but still not very
> popular
>Same as 8 except that the Start button re-appeared. I couldn't see any
>other improvements, personally.

I'll admit I have minimal experience of the 8s, so based on what I've
read others saying. (Brief plays with it in shops - remember shops!? -
it seemed more alien than anything before, and to some extent since.)
>
> 10 - now entering the same phase as 7, i. e. nostalgia beginning.
> Some - probably many on the 10 'group - like it a lot; some dislike
> the (without jumping through hoops) unblockable updates aspect.
> Arguably, 10 is actually several iterations; 10 21H1 is quite a lot
> different from the original 10, though the overall is much the same.
>
>Not bad but some of its issues are hard to ignore, notably how
>Bluetooth ceases to function for no good reason every so often, same as

How much of that is just your (or a few like you) experience, though? (I
haven't much experience of using it.)

>the wireless. The continued confusion between the new Settings panel
>and the old Control Panel drag it down as well.

Agreed, the confusion is bad - with two and a half ways of getting to
things: Settings, and the two ways the Control Panel can be sorted.
(Plus Device Manager as a third way for some things.)

> 11 - ?
>
> That's initially the "consumer" ones: the business area also had
> NT3.51 (Windows 3.1 UI, roughly, but more robust - but rather
> stark), then NT4 ('9x/XP interface; generally considered better, but
> needed more powerful hardware - many companies used 3.51 and 4 in
> parallel as the 3.51 machines still had a lot of life left in them).

Then 2000.

> The two streams more or less merged at XP - though there were
> variants of all versions aimed more at home (often called Home) and
> business (often called Pro) from then on (as well as other versions
> - sometimes a very minimal version aimed at the least hardware
> capable of running the version at all, sometimes a version aimed at
> schools, sometimes a top level version {sometimes called Ultimate}).
> [I haven't heard any mention of variants of 11, but I'd be surprised
> if there aren't.]
>
> There, that should provoke lots of arguments (-: [Though that
> wasn't/isn't my intention.]
>
>I find 11 to be quite good so far, especially since the Bluetooth and
>wireless issues are mostly resolved. There is a lag in getting to the
>context menu but it doesn't ruin the overall experience. It's clearly
>better than 10, in my opinion, even in the beta stages.

Your "clearly" is perhaps different from some. I've not used it at all,
but from what I've seen on here, most of those who've tried it seem to
give the impression that "there's nothing* wrong with it, but I don't
see that much that's a game-changer improvement either". (*other than
teething troubles.) The fact that the installer - or tester - demands
certain things (hardware) that the OS itself doesn't actually need to
run (so far) is a bit of a con, though; whether - since that fact has
leaked out - M$ relax those requirements, or actually implement
something that really needs them (which would be seen by some as being
done in a fit of pique [others will see it as a good security measure -
the TPS module thing - or just a good clear-out of old hardware - the
generations thing]), we'll just have to see.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I hope you dream a pig.