My timeline of Windowses (that I have an opinion on) would be as follows:
3.1: Decent. Not exactly MacOS or OS/2 but still decent.
95: Good. Solid upgrade over 3.1.
98: Good if unexciting as an upgrade over 95 OSR2.
98 SE: Why did this even exist?
Me: Terrible. They had some good ideas but botched the execution.
2000: Great. My favorite Windows until XP overtook it with SP2.
XP: Good initially, great starting with SP2. The only Windows that technically supported custom themes via a hacked theme DLL.
Vista: Nice try but ultimately bad due to being premature.
7: Really good and actually good-looking out of the box.
8: Utter trash that demonstrated how Microsoft had lost sight of user needs. Also marks the start of the extremely ugly UI period.
8.1: A slight improvement over 8 but not enough to qualify as good.
10: Well, it’s better than 8 but that’s it. The UI is still butt ugly, Windows Update is so unreliable it might as well be malware, the configuration is scattered randomly over the place… At least it was free.
11: Possibly worse than Me. It’s a bit less ugly than 10 but that’s it on the plus side. The new features are unremarkable at best and actively harmful at worst and while the UI is less ugly it’s also ridiculously slow for what it does.
It’s not exactly a tick-tock thing with Windows. It kinda sorta looks like it if we consider 98/SE, 2000/XP, and 8/8.1 to be one Windows each but even then it’s a stretch that requires 10’s “less bad than 8” to count as “good”.
Saying Windows 11 is better looking than 10 is crazy to me, it took 10s awful settings UI and applied it across the system. But I prefer functional UI vs “fancy”.
The light mode is not an endless sea of eye-searing #FFFFFF and UI elements are no longer restricted to monocolored flat rectangles with hair outlines. Also, the UI feels somewhat more consistent. That’s something.
Mind you, “looks better than Windows 10” is not much of a hurdle to clear.
I liked 7.
My timeline of Windowses (that I have an opinion on) would be as follows:
3.1: Decent. Not exactly MacOS or OS/2 but still decent.
95: Good. Solid upgrade over 3.1.
98: Good if unexciting as an upgrade over 95 OSR2.
98 SE: Why did this even exist?
Me: Terrible. They had some good ideas but botched the execution.
2000: Great. My favorite Windows until XP overtook it with SP2.
XP: Good initially, great starting with SP2. The only Windows that technically supported custom themes via a hacked theme DLL.
Vista: Nice try but ultimately bad due to being premature.
7: Really good and actually good-looking out of the box.
8: Utter trash that demonstrated how Microsoft had lost sight of user needs. Also marks the start of the extremely ugly UI period.
8.1: A slight improvement over 8 but not enough to qualify as good.
10: Well, it’s better than 8 but that’s it. The UI is still butt ugly, Windows Update is so unreliable it might as well be malware, the configuration is scattered randomly over the place… At least it was free.
11: Possibly worse than Me. It’s a bit less ugly than 10 but that’s it on the plus side. The new features are unremarkable at best and actively harmful at worst and while the UI is less ugly it’s also ridiculously slow for what it does.
It’s not exactly a tick-tock thing with Windows. It kinda sorta looks like it if we consider 98/SE, 2000/XP, and 8/8.1 to be one Windows each but even then it’s a stretch that requires 10’s “less bad than 8” to count as “good”.
Saying Windows 11 is better looking than 10 is crazy to me, it took 10s awful settings UI and applied it across the system. But I prefer functional UI vs “fancy”.
The light mode is not an endless sea of eye-searing #FFFFFF and UI elements are no longer restricted to monocolored flat rectangles with hair outlines. Also, the UI feels somewhat more consistent. That’s something.
Mind you, “looks better than Windows 10” is not much of a hurdle to clear.