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Which Version Of Windows 10 Is Best

Every version of Windows, ranked from worst to best

Windows ranked

PC Gamer Ranked are our ridiculously comprehensive lists of the best, worst, and everything in-betwixt from every corner of PC gaming.

Does Bill Gates have a favorite version of Windows? If I had to judge, it would exist Windows 95—he'due south probably still really proud of the Commencement menu and enjoying the billions of dollars he made when Microsoft's stock exploded. Or maybe he's feeling contemplative almost life and but wishes we could all go dorsum to simpler times and Windows 3.1. Perchance he uses a Mac these days.

We didn't ask Bill to rattle off his favorites, only with Windows 11 upon united states of america, it felt similar the right fourth dimension to wait back at the 35 yr history of Windows and rank them all. In that location have been dark days (Games For Windows Live) and joys nosotros've all shared (that thing the cards do in Solitaire). Mostly, there'south been a lot of clicking that button that stops Windows Update from rebooting.

The Criteria

Number of entries: xiii.

What'south included: Every consumer version of Windows (and i professional version that enough normal people ended up using).

What'due south non included: Business organization-focused versions of Windows NT. Windows Server. Windows Embedded. Minor variants like Windows XP 64-bit (which sucked, by the manner). Windows Phone, patently.

red line

And now: every version of Windows, ranked from worst to best.

13. Windows 8 (2012)

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Steve Ballmer holding a Windows 8 laptop

(Image credit: Bloomberg)

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Windows 8 desktop

(Prototype credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft focuses on touch on, alienates PC users everywhere

  • We all played: The same games we were playing on Windows seven, because we kept using it
  • How we installed information technology: 8GB+ USB drive or Windows Update
  • Best screensaver: Mystify, an old classic that allow u.s.a. pretend we were using a unlike version of Windows
  • Space required: 20GB

Coming off the enormously polished, successful, and beloved Windows 7, Microsoft did the inevitable: screwed it all upwardly. Windows 8's obvious missteps brand a lot of sense in hindsight. The early on 2010s were a time of huge and rapid change for the tech industry, more often than not considering the success of smartphones and tablets (specifically, iPhones and iPads) broke everyone'due south brains. Pundits called for the death of the PC. Everything needed to have a affect screen. Microsoft looked at the enormous success of Apple's combined software and hardware businesses, specifically the App Store, and said "We want that."

And so was built-in the worst version of Windows: an Bone built for both desktops and touchscreen laptops that didn't excel on either. An Os that wanted to control (and sell) all applications through the new Microsoft Store, despite Windows' legacy as an open platform.  Microsoft tried to solve Windows 8'south most egregious UI issues with Windows 8.1 in 2013, backpedaling to bring back the taskbar Start push button. Information technology fabricated Windows 8.1 more usable, but it was notwithstanding an awkward blend of desktop and tablet interface.

The stagnant adoption reflected that. According to NetMarketshare, by bound 2015, correct before Windows 10 released, 8 and 8.1 combined had only 14% of the PC market place. Windows 10 would pass that percentage within a year.

Wes: This was Microsoft at its absolute worst, a lumbering misguided company trying to put its finger in every tech pie and managing to spoil all of them at in one case. I hated the Windows 8 user interface on PCs, but I'll requite Microsoft credit for ane affair: information technology was really pretty swell on smartphones. Windows Phone deserved meliorate!

Tyler: Wes, no. I had a friend who loved his Windows Telephone, but call up of the cost nosotros'd exist paying at present had Microsoft successfully gone down Apple'due south path. You lot desire us to live in an alternating universe where Tim Sweeney is taking Phil Spencer to court to bear witness virtually WindOS App Store policy?

Morgan: I always thought information technology was weird that the "Metro" interface was quarantined to its own zone on the Starting time menu. The best thing I can say about Windows 8 was information technology eventually became Windows viii.ane, which I had few complaints about. That was the point at which I could tell friends running into compatibility issues in Windows 7 that, don't worry, Windows 8 isn't that bad anymore.

Chris: As before long as I saw all the rectangles and squares I thought: "I am in deep trouble." I have even so never endemic a tablet.

 12. Windows Me (2000)

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N'Sync promoting their new MSN site

There are no good photographs of Windows Me on the cyberspace, so here's one of N'Sync promoting their MSN website (Image credit: Jeff Christensen/Newsmakers)

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Windows ME desktop

(Prototype credit: Microsoft)

The buggy one you never used, if y'all were lucky

  • We all played: Any games our relatives who bought a crappy Pentium Three Gateway from Wal-mart happened to own.
  • How we installed it: 1 CD-ROM
  • All-time screensaver: The one confusingly chosen Windows, which assembles a cubed 3D depiction of your electric current desktop block-past-block
  • Space required: 320MB

You know it's not a good sign when a version of Windows lasts less than a year. Windows Millennium Edition is truly a perfect name for a poorly aged of-its-time piece of software. Seriously, ME is so 2000, its installation CD was holographic. Information freeway, hither we come!!

Windows ME was meant to exist the successor to the Windows 95/98 line. It was, in the sense that it collected all the bugs and problems of those versions and combined them into one perfectly crappy operating organization. In practice it looked about the aforementioned as Windows 98, and none of the new features it introduced did much to compensate for the infamous instability. ME crashed. It crashed a lot. It made Windows 95 await stable. At least, that was the experience for a lot of people—if y'all scored the driver and hardware lottery, it may take run just every bit well every bit Windows 98.

Peradventure the gravest sin ME committed was limiting user access to DOS despite being the last Windows operating system built on elevation of DOS. Information technology ended a groundbreaking era of Windows with a whimper, but XP came in with a bang simply barely a twelvemonth after.

Morgan: I might've used this at school when I was four?

Tyler: Call back when Windows Media Histrion had that ugly UI with rounded edges, similar something out of 3D Movie Maker? That's what I associate with Windows ME. A lot of anime VCDs were watched in that thing. It as well had that amazing pare that was a dark-green face with speakers for ears and a visualizer in the brain example. Media Histrion Man finally found his soulmate a few years after when the words "Evanescence - Bring Me To Life" entered the world.

Wes: Basically all I think about ME is that a family friend had a calculator running information technology, and it reliably crashed pretty much every time I used it. This was the version of Windows for chumps, while those in the know landed on the rock solid Windows 2000 until XP came along (and got its get-go few patches).

xi. Windows Vista (2006)

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Windows Vista - The "Wow" Starts Now

(Image credit: Ramin Talaie/Corbis)

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Windows Vista

(Prototype credit: Microsoft)

Duuuuuude. Transparency!

  • We all played: Crysis, BioShock
  • How nosotros installed it: 1 DVD
  • Best screensaver: Ribbons
  • Infinite required: 20GB

These days I think people expect back on Vista with some sympathy. As Linus Tech Tips argued, Vista didn't entirely deserve its bad rap.

In that location were certainly some painful performance issues at the outset; Vista was certainly more than demanding than Windows XP, and some systems that were touted every bit being able to run Vista really couldn't… or they just could if you turned off all the graphical niceties, like the Aero transparency effects. And Vista was such a major overhaul of the Bone coming from XP, Vista needed entirely new drivers which were tiresome to get in. That meant some hardware just didn't work on Vista and many games ran far worse than they did on XP. Information technology was a terrible launch.

Oh, and the wonderful User Business relationship Control pop-ups! Yeah, anybody hated those, and no one understood why Vista was taking over your unabridged screen to warn you every time you tried to alter a setting in the control panel or launch a program.

But underneath those very glaring flaws, Vista introduced a huge slew of new features and looked cut edge compared to XP. Information technology overhauled practically every Windows system from XP. It was a big step forrad! In return for that step, you just had to put up with your games running worse, your printer not working, and pop-ups nagging you all the time. The best thing that can be said for Vista is that most of its central improvements returned practically unchanged in Windows 7 simply a few years subsequently… and everybody loved them.

Jody: I bought a laptop that came with Vista pre-installed, and it really shouldn't have. That damn Os fabricated information technology run like arse. Took forever to boot, or exercise anything really, even with all the swishy nonsense turned off. I'm still mad at Vista similar 12 years afterward.

Morgan: Like Jody, my first laptop ever came with Vista. I remember staring at the lilliputian clock widget on my desktop while I waited 15-xx seconds for Minecraft to open. I do not recommend trying to game on a bottom-of-the-line 2009 Dell laptop running Vista.

Evan: It's inseparable from the darkness and suffering of Games for Windows Live, for me. GfWL came a year later, in 2007. I'd peg it as one of the everyman points in PC gaming's history—Microsoft at its least-competent as a steward for the platform, and at its almost meddlesome. Never again.

Wes: I was somewhat obsessed with the glassy "Aero" aesthetic of Windows Vista and its glossy accept on the taskbar and Start button. It looked and so high tech at the time because, whoa, transparency! I definitely installed a Windows XP skin to mimic Vista'southward aesthetic, only I held out from actually using the Os for awhile, because it had some adequately heavy system requirements at the fourth dimension. I of my friends upgraded just to play Halo two for PC, which was exclusive to Vista. Information technology wasn't worth information technology.

Tyler: Like Wes, I was really into the look here. I'd always loved the idea of having little widgets on my desktop, fifty-fifty though I did not then and take never needed a larger clock sitting on the desktop, which I never await at. I guess I only wanted my PC to feel like a command center for, I don't know, someone of import.

10-viii. Windows one.0, two.0, iii.0 (1985, 1987, 1990)

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Windows running on an Ogivar computer

(Image credit: David Cooper/Toronto Star)

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Windows 2.0

(Prototype credit: Microsoft)

Third time's the amuse

  • We all played: DOS games! King's Quest, Ultima...
  • How we installed it: Five v.25" floppy disks (i.0)
  • Best screensaver: Flying Windows
  • Space required: 8MB

In the early days, Windows was not popular. Or particularly expert. Every bit a graphical overlay for MS-DOS, it was express in what it could really exercise; heck, in Windows i.0, the windows couldn't even overlap. The Macintosh Bone was far more robust, and Windows only saw limited use with versions ane.0 and 2.0. 2.0 was an of import milestone though: it also saw the introduction of Microsoft Give-and-take and Excel and Paint, along with some basics like a calculator, calendar, and card file (if you're nether the age of 30, let me introduce you to the rolodex).

Windows iii.0 is where things really started happening. Upwardly until that signal, PC users could do some things in Windows, simply all the same had to switch over to the DOS prompt to run many applications. Windows 3.0 (and every version up through 98) was still based on DOS and you'd still have to switch over for some programs, peculiarly to play nigh games, only it was a big footstep forward.

And Windows three.0 was a hitting, selling 10 meg copies, with a graphical interface greatly improved over Windows 2.0. You could do more than ane thing at a time thanks to smarter memory management! It had Solitaire! This was the signal where Windows crossed the threshold from being a kinda-useful improver to DOS, to being a better, easier way for most people to do things on their reckoner.

Morgan: Wait, Windows is that one-time?

Wes: Yeah, youngling, but like most other '90s kids I feel similar the OS practically didn't be until Windows iii.1. Every computer I used in my early childhood, except the school calculator lab Macs, ran Windows 3.1. Except my dad'due south really old PC we kept in the shed to occasionally play games on; that was only DOS. Shout out to Norton Commander for existence the starting time software I learned how to utilize.

7. Windows 95 (1995)

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Windows 95 customer Mikol Furneaux waves two boxes in the air

(Prototype credit: Torsten Blackwood/AFP)

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Windows 95

(Epitome credit: Microsoft)

The one where Chandler & Rachel introduce the Start Carte

  • We all played: Space Buck Pinball, FreeCell, Myst
  • How we installed it: 1 CD-ROM or 13 floppy disks
  • All-time screensaver: 3D Maze, cuz whoooaaaa
  • Space required: 55 megabytes

Was the Showtime menu the biggest advancement in computer UI subsequently the clickable icon? Windows 95 really did feel like a breakthrough spring in how nosotros used our computers, complex and new enough that it needed a lengthy video from the hottest sitcom stars around to explicate how it worked.

So much of what Microsoft introduced in Windows 95 is still key to our PCs today. We still use a start carte, taskbar, and organisation tray in by and large the same fashion; those features have proven resilient fifty-fifty to Microsoft itself trying to supersede them. Windows 95 set a precedent for compatibility that later versions of Windows would mostly follow, running on tiptop of DOS and still supporting sixteen-bit applications while being congenital for a 32-flake time to come.

And people loved it. Windows 95'due south adoption was tremendous. By mid-1999, Windows 95 however owned almost sixty% of the PC market place, which Windows 98 couldn't promise to surpass. In 1995, Microsoft made well-nigh $6 billion in acquirement. In 1997, that number grew to more than $11 billion.

Windows 95 certainly had its flaws and was prone to crashing, but that was the cost of its innovation. In influence, information technology'due south probably the most important version of Windows ever made. Yet it'south outranked hither by some of its successors considering they show how apace technology evolved from '95-2000; they but did what Windows 95 did, simply better.

Shaun: All I retrieve is my Uncle Bill beingness extremely angry about Windows 95 for some reason that was inexplicable to me at the time.

Evan: Vivid memory of seeing the Start button for the first time on a desktop in my uncle'southward basement and being afraid to push information technology. I idea information technology was some kind of ignition. (I was 10.)

Chris: I retrieve the commercial near the Kickoff button. It was a button, and they made a commercial for information technology using a Rolling Stones song about being horny. I wonder if Bill Gates knew it was a song about being horny.

Rich: The first 'modern' OS I used. Before this it was commands and tape loaders. I know Windows was 'quondam' by this point just it was new to me, and I notwithstanding remember the amazement at the idea of Windows itself.

Wes: I played Tomb Raider on Windows 95, and remember learning to hate the new Windows key on the keyboard. 1 accidental press would crash the game. Now information technology'south one of the best keys, though.

6. Windows 98 (1998)

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Windows 98 - A customer looks at a box in Japan

(Image credit: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP)

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Windows 98

(Paradigm credit: Microsoft)

Windows 95, refined and ready to surf the spider web

  • We all played: Historic period of Empires 2, Unreal Tournament
  • How nosotros installed it: 1 CD-ROM or 38 floppy disks
  • Best screensaver: 3D Pipes (we matured past the maze, you see)
  • Space required: 255MB

Past the time Windows 98 arrived, Microsoft had introduced Internet Explorer and evolved information technology to version 4.0. Back in '95 Microsoft was but getting an inkling that the internet might actually exist a affair, but it couldn't finish Internet Explorer in time to ship information technology with the initial launch of Windows 95. By 1998 it was a core part of the operating system (later the impetus for a huge antitrust lawsuit), and Windows 98 was overall amend designed for cyberspace connectivity.

Windows 98 looked pretty much the same, only introduced some important features similar the Windows Commuter Module and meliorate USB support that would go more popular in its successors. 1999's Second Edition further refined the Bone. Looking back, Windows 98 is the predecessor to Windows 10'south meatiest seasonal updates, or the tick-tock cadence of Vista-to-seven and 8-to-10. It wasn't groundbreaking, just information technology made fundamental upgrades that kept the Bone competitive and compatible with the latest hardware during times of rapid alter.

Evan: It's around this moment that the second generation of 3D games was kicking off: Tribes, Thief, Half-Life, and the original Unreal. These games were the avalanche of new ideas started by Quake just a couple of years earlier.

Andy: Windows 98 was but Windows 95 that worked properly. That may not audio similar a large deal but you'd be surprised how much people capeesh that kind of incrementalism afterwards two or three years of Win95's bullshit. Information technology was so rock-solid that when ME came along I didn't fifty-fifty think about upgrading, which in hindsight was a bullet dodged but at the time was simply a attestation to how right Windows 98 was.

The Elevation 5

5. Windows 2000 (2000)

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Windows 2000 boxes rolling off the line

(Image credit: Jeff Christensen)

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Windows 2000 desktop

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The super stable business Os savvy PC owners jumped on

  • Nosotros all played: Baldur'south Gate 2, The Sims
  • How we installed information technology: 1 CD-ROM
  • Best screensaver: It's still 3D Pipes
  • Space required: 1GB

There are a lot of versions of Windows excluded from this listing, because it doesn't brand a lot of sense to rank, say, Windows Server 2003 along with all the versions that normal people really used. But Windows 2000 is the exception, because it's the i workstation-oriented version of Windows that ended up making its way into common usage. It too marks an important inflection point in Windows history.

In 2000, Microsoft released both Windows Me (built on the 95/98 codebase) and Windows 2000, congenital on Windows NT. You could bury yourself in technical details trying to learn the differences between the two, merely the most telling detail is that when XP rolled effectually in late 2001, it was using the Windows NT kernel, marking the finish of Windows congenital on acme of MS-DOS. Windows 2000 looked a lot like Windows 95 and 98, but under the surface was a far more stable operating system packed with features that would proceed information technology relevant and usable for years.

Windows 2000 could hibernate. Windows 2000 supported a vast array of USB devices (and Firewire!) with easy plug-and-play. Information technology started with DirectX 7 support and was updated to nine.0c, which kept it relevant for gaming until 2010. Windows 2000 added the Event Viewer, a system log tool that you've hopefully never had to use, but probably honey if you lot've e'er had to diagnose a really nasty issue. It supported encryption and had a logical disk managing director, key for an era when putting hard drives in RAID was the primary way to speed up storage. Oh, and it introduced some longstanding accessibility features, including the on-screen keyboard and narrator. If it weren't for the bland artful, Windows 2000 may have gotten all of XP's dear a full year earlier.

Wes: Honestly, I didn't get the love for XP when it came out, considering it but looked like a processed-colored version of the professional Windows we'd been using at home for a good while. XP won out in the long run, of course, simply was initially a flake buggy. I'k not sure I ever saw Windows 2000 crash.

Evan: Did your dad wear suspenders and/or piece of work every bit an engineer? He may have owned Windows NT or 2000.

4. Windows 10 (2015)

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Windows 10 reveal

(Image credit: Microsoft)

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Windows 10 desktop

(Epitome credit: Microsoft)

Stock-still what was broke, didn't suspension much else

  • We all played: The Witcher 3, Stardew Valley
  • How we installed it: 8GB+ USB drive
  • Best screensaver: RIP screensavers :(
  • Space required: 20GB

It's been a skilful run, Windows ten. You've certainly made a few blunders over the years. Remember how all your privacy settings were opt-out at launch, which made people actually mad? That wasn't cool. Call up how you tried to force voice assistant Cortana into the operating system and install process, even though information technology sure seemed like nobody wanted it? Yeah, that was annoying. And you know, you still have some menus that haven't inverse since, like, 2005. You're definitely non as consistent every bit you lot could be. Only for the most role, it's been a pleasance working with you.

That'due south largely considering you lot simply piece of work well. You're fast, and your interface is by and large pretty clean, and you accept a Start menu. We all capeesh that. The way we can tint your window coloring and employ information technology consistently beyond the whole UI is a really nice touch. Those lock screen photographs are actually a care for when we login every mean solar day. And you've washed a good job of adapting to the high resolution display era, with scaling that generally works without too much fuss. Y'all tried some things that didn't work here and there—and your Microsoft Store is still total crap—merely you managed not to screw upward the most important things. Thanks for that.

Chris: Equally with every version of Windows I have just most reached the point where information technology seems pretty much okay and nothing seems confusing. So naturally we're about to go yanked into Windows 11 where once again I will neglect to sympathise what changed and why and how to make it cease doing the thing that annoys me the nigh. Salut!

Morgan: I actually like Windows ten. With that out of the mode, holy crap why are there three different versions of every settings menu? Exercise you lot wanna mess with sound? Well yous can't just go to the clean, Windows eight-lookin' console menu. You take to fissure into the proper Sounds screen that looks direct out of XP. Is it called "ten" because there are 10 other Windows versions still operating underneath it all?

Rich: Windows 10 is the all-time Windows always, as long as you can google "How to turn off unnecessary Windows 10 features."

3. Windows 3.1 (1992)

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Windows 3.1 ad

(Paradigm credit: Software Spectrum)

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Windows 3.1

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Canyon.mid

  • We all played: MINESWEEPER AND SOLITAIRE, BABY
  • How nosotros installed it: Six 3.5" floppy disks or seven five.25" floppy disks
  • Best screensaver: Starfield simulation
  • Space required: 8MB

Windows 3.0 was the showtime version of Microsoft's OS to detect breakout success, and was a big improvement over its predecessors. Today an update like Windows 3.one would just be a seasonal patch for Windows 10 rather than a noteworthy standalone release, merely in the early on '90s it got its own box of floppy disks and established itself as the definitive version of Windows until 1995. I'chiliad non sure I've always heard someone say "Windows three.0" out loud, merely everyone who grew upwards using PCs in the '90s put their hands on Windows iii.1 at some point. Windows 3.0 was a success, but 3.one solidified Windows' place as the operating system for IBM PCs. 3.1 sold more than than 3 million copies in simply 6 weeks.

Macintosh was all the same the prestigious competition, just during the Windows 3.1 era IBM PCs apace got much cheaper, making them affordable enough for the family computer to become commonplace. 3.1 was a nice refinement to 3.0'southward interface, but it included a few key new features, like TrueType font back up, enabling desktop publishing, and multimedia support so you could play midi and other music files without special software. It's the about important evolutionary step in Windows history. Also it had a color scheme called Hot Dog Stand.

Wes: I of my almost vivid memories of Windows 3.1 was using the Arches wallpaper because it reminded me of Prince of Persia, which I played over and over. It'due south funny how much our tastes in user interfaces have changed since then. At the fourth dimension everyone I knew would exit tons of windows open on their desktop, displaying every icon they needed to admission all at one time. Eventually we shifted to the commencement carte du jour and minimal taskbar icons to keep the desktop pristine. Looking dorsum, I really love how playful the icon blueprint was.

Chris: I didn't own a PC at the fourth dimension and I didn't employ one at work simply during my dejeuner I'd sit down at a co-worker's desk-bound and try out different Windows themes and change her mouse cursor and things similar that. I realize now that must accept been amazingly abrasive for her. Sorry, Sherrie.

ii. Windows XP (2001)

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Bill Gates holds a copy of Windows XP in Time Square

(Prototype credit: Jeff Christensen/WireImage)

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Windows XP

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Bliss

  • We all played: Warcraft 3, Half-Life two
  • How we installed it: 1 CD-ROM
  • Best screensaver: Custom The Matrix screensaver, obvs
  • Infinite required: 1.5GB

At that place'south probably no version of Windows that evokes more warm, fuzzy feelings than XP. Everybody used information technology—information technology sold something like 500 million copies by the fourth dimension Microsoft stopped supporting it in 2014. Information technology made Windows feel personal, with individual user profiles and that assuming blue and green theme that yous could reskin if you wanted to. For millions of people, XP was as well probable the gateway to the internet in a blossoming online era. AIM, MSN Messenger, Limewire, Winamp and Myspace are all key pieces of the XP era, fifty-fifty though nearly of them weren't actually tied to the Os.

Antitrust lawsuits meant Microsoft had to carve out some of its software instead of including it in XP, but XP notwithstanding had a wealth of packed-in software that enabled the boilerplate computer user to exercise whatever they wanted. Windows Film Maker and Windows Media Player were great for the time. Yous could burn down CDs and DVDs straight from the file explorer. Service Packs introduced the idea of meaty downloadable updates for Windows that made the Bone even better, fixing bugs and adding new features similar USB 2.0 support and wi-fi security modes. This extended Windows XP's life for years and years (probably far longer than Microsoft really wanted), making it almost certainly the version of Windows about people used for the longest span of time. XP was stable. XP was cozy. Information technology was the best version of Windows ever made… until 2009.

Morgan: XP is 20 years old, and I was notwithstanding using it at an old job as recently as 2019. If you're around my historic period, it's probably what you see in your head when you think "reckoner."

Rich: I prefer Windows 10 but Windows XP is something I used from tardily loftier school for decades. It was but 'there' more any Windows earlier or since, it almost felt like this was how computers would always exist and, mayhap I'm just delusional and onetime, just it genuinely felt fast. I don't think Windows x has the zippiness or purity of XP, fifty-fifty though ten'south at present the standard.

Tyler: My early on 2000s Windows XP Task Manager would've included some combination of AIM, ICQ, Winamp, a MUD client, Net Explorer (open to forum full of bad anime drawings), someone else's copy of Photoshop 5.5, and malware. Proficient times.

Wes: Shout-out to anyone who learned past watching TechTV circa 2004 that you could actually customize the Windows XP boot screen. Riveting television receiver.

i. Windows 7 (2009)

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Windows 7 boxes on a shelf

(Image credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

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Windows 7 desktop

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft gets everything correct

  • Nosotros all played: Skyrim, Minecraft, Portal ii
  • How we installed it: 4+GB USB bulldoze (or one DVD)
  • Best screensaver: Blackness screen (we got boring)
  • Space required: 20 gigabytes

The Once and Hereafter Rex of Windows—the 1 that rescued us from Vista's obnoxious user account controls and let usa live freely in a shiny glass paradise. Information technology was fast. It was stable. It did everything Windows needed to practise and made the Bone prettier and easier to utilize without messing with years of congenital-up feel. Aero still looks slick a decade later, fifty-fifty if gimmicky design has moved to modern shading, and themes allow you lot apply a consistent look to the whole Bone based on your desktop.

So many little tweaks enhanced quondam Windows features. Pinning items to the taskbar gave you dainty, easily clickable icons; stacking browser and file explorer windows into a single icon helped keep things organized. Jumplists provided quick access to features within those programs. Thumbnail previews let you mouse over to see a window without even clicking. Libraries fabricated information technology easier to group files together in Windows Explorer so you weren't as beholden to the quondam "My Documents" folder setup. And snapping windows to the sides of screens? Maybe the best productivity change Microsoft's made in the concluding 20 years.

Some of what fabricated Windows 7 keen was kind of already there in Vista, but Microsoft cleared out to crud so information technology could smooth through. Merely pressing the Windows key and typing made launching any program a breeze, and added keyboard shortcuts for features similar window snapping made it fifty-fifty more than efficient. If Windows ten (or Windows eleven) had simply been Windows 7, unchanged except for under-the-hood performance improvements and updates for modern hardware, would anyone take really minded? Give us a version of this OS tweaked for modern hardware and security and so on, and we could utilize it forever.

Morgan: Ahhh, 7. Now that'due south a lucky little number I can become behind.

Wes: It feels a bit silly to feel nostalgic for Windows, but here I am feeling information technology. I accept all sorts of babyhood and teenage memories attached to Windows XP and Windows iii.1, just my nostalgia for Windows 7 is unlike. Information technology's for a time when Windows felt truly modern and had everything figured out, but Microsoft hadn't gotten overeager stuffing information technology with any'southward trendy in the tech world (lookin' at you lot, Cortana). Windows 7 had great tools like window snapping, keyboard shortcuts, a clean UI, regular online updates, with none of the bullshit nosotros expect these days. There was no Microsoft store. There weren't invasive, integrated ad tracking profiles to turn off.

These were only happy years of me using my computer and not having much to complain about. And god, I played so much League of Legends.

Windows: What to read next

Feeling nostalgic about Windows now, or looking for the deets on Windows 11? We take more stories about Windows new and old.

  • Hear classic Windows midis reborn as astonishing rock songs
  • Windows 11: Everything we know
  • Play around with this Windows ane.0 emulator
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  • The best Windows wallpapers, ranked

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than ten years, showtime at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the take chances to comprehend emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really condign a problem), he's probably playing a 20-yr-onetime Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza past volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Which Version Of Windows 10 Is Best,

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/best-windows-versions/

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