Funny

Yes, ‘enthusiasts’ are going Linux but they are a rounding error, hardly worth trying to capture compared to the revenue capture from the rest of the market.

Agreed, it's a rounding error.

But it won't be if OEMs get fed up and start shipping it as an option, like Valve is already doing.

Microsoft has already done some questionably 'OEM hostile' things like pushing the Surface line, shutting out some OEM bloatware in favor of thier own, pollute performance-sensitive devices like handhelds, and such, and it seems MS isn't slowing down.

Nah. XP was huge when it came out because NT was so much smoother and more stable than the Windows 9x product line: it was nearly as stable as 2000 with a more modern DE than Windows 95-ME.

But Windows 7 did everything XP did bigger and better. It’s no shocker that all the Windows-like Linux DEs look like forks of Widows 7.

Is it though? From a privacy perspective I think Windows 10 quite clearly started introducing some shady surveillance practices which were absent in earlier versions. Of course, 11 took that waaay further, but 10 was a turning point imo.

I think it's a hard case to make that 7 wasn't objectively better than XP.

Windows 10 did roll back some of the more egregious stuff from Windows 8, but still was sort of committed, sort of not. You had a platform with multiple personalities, multiple right click context menus, multiple 'control panel' with a new one being emphasized, but not actually completed, so it's an awkward mix of the platform they had suceeded with and a platform they wished it could be (combined with telemetry). Forced microsoft accounts and using the desktop as a platform to promote products and services....

Yeah I think a fair argument can be made that WIndows 7 was the ultimate execution of the general vision that started with Windows NT, and what came after was something else that also happened to have bits of that original product hanging on.

I'm not too terribly excited by any Windows in particular, but I can recognize something categorically different they wanted to do starting with 8 that remains partially executed to this day, starts to emphasize Microsoft's interests at the expense of the users, and a direction that no one really asked for.

95, 98, xp, and 7 were all great; each improved on the last. But 7 was the true peak. 10 was pretty good and unfortunately was the turning point into enshitification.

As a programmer, my world changed when Windows 95 came out, what with being 32-bit and having an extremely powerful (if difficult-to-use at first) low-level audio API, since I mainly wrote software synthesis and music composition apps. I have not given two fucks for anything that has happened since 95. Quite amazingly, that audio API has remained in existence, unchanged, all the way until today. 30 years of not having to change what I'm doing at all has been absolutely amazing. That shit even worked, without modification, for Windows CE (Compact Edition) and Windows Mobile, so I was able to make versions of my software synthesizer that ran on shitty smartphones from 2005. It worked on Windows Phone as well, albeit it quite uselessly.

Oh shit.

I didn't even notice.

First I forgot about Dre and now I forgot about windows 95. Smh my head.