Windows 11 leak reveals new UI, Start menu, and more (UPDATE - added source for Windows 10 retirement date)

Yep. And you're right, it wasn't enough to make up for actual RAM.
But that's not what ReadyBoost was for. It was a disk cache. Plug in a fast thumb drive on a laptop, run (say) Doom, it takes 45 seconds to get to the title screen. Now quit, run it again, and it takes 18 seconds.
 
Yes that's my point. OEMs would combine system RAM with a Ready Boost thumb drive and call it "memory" in order to skirt Vista's minimum requirements, resulting in bad user experiences.
Oh, gotcha. I thought you were saying the OEMs were faking it to look like RAM to the OS.

OEMs--including Intel--played all kinds of sleazy games with Vista. Intel, specifically, with their not-really-ready-for Vista integrated graphics, was really bad.
 
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sadsteve said:
Forced ecosystem? Not sure what you mean since I've yet to buy an App from the Microsoft store. All of my applications are available directly from the producers. Firefox, Thunderbird, jEdit, Affinity Photo, VueScan, SageTV, Libre Office, g++, etc. Except for Affinity Photo, it's all available on Windows AND on Linux.

I don't want to be promoted to use or sign up for a Microsoft account whenever I install or create an account.

I don't want Cortana.

I don't want Microsoft suite of software.

I don't want any of the features of my operating system to reside in the cloud (like parental controls which used to be built in locally in Win7, but now require two cloud accounts to use)

I don't want Microsoft's pre-installed browser.

I don't want Microsoft's pre-installed OneDrive

I don't want X-Box integration, especially not on a work machine. That is just embarrassing.

I don't want their TV and Movies system nor Groove Audio service.

I don't want phone style apps like camera, clock, calendar, etc.

I don't want various keyloggers or telemetry to be sent anywhere. I don't want it to contact any other system on the LAn or WAN without me explicitly telling it to. If I plug it into a network there should not be a single packet coming in or leaving the machine unless I manually and intentionally initiate it. (Or intentionally set up my own automation)

I don't want a pre-installed Microsoft store.

I don't want News and Interests popping up on my menu bar one day without asking for it.

The list goes on and on and on.

I feel like I am playing whack-a-mole to get rid of Microsoft garbage I don't want on a regular basis and it is very frustrating.

For crying out loud, at least let me say "no to everything" in a convenient way that sticks across 6 month updates.

I want just the operating system. I may CHOOSE to install other Microsoft software (like the Office Suite) but that should be a choice. Ideally no other software or applications should be installed by default, and they DEFINITELY should be able to be removed, and not just hidden, but the binaries gone from my system so that they don't reinstall themselves when anyone creates an account.

Some of these things can be removed with registry and other tweaks, but these are unreliable and some can't be removed at all.

This is the ecosystem I don't want that is getting forced on me.
 
Vista had it's issues, mainly the thrashing of hard drives, but overall it was a good OS. It was the last time MS actually made significant changes to the underlying OS, since then it's mostly been UI updates.

This "thrashing" of the hard drives was completely overblown. I loved the fact that I could start using the computer immediately upon login, just because of superfetch.
 
sta had it's issues, mainly the thrashing of hard drives, but overall it was a good OS. It was the last time MS actually made significant changes to the underlying OS, since then it's mostly been UI updates.

Vista was great. It had a rocky launch in large part due to hardware vendors throwing a hissy fit and ignoring the new upcoming driver model instead wishfully thinking they could just continue to use their old drivers forever and ever without updating them.

If you had decent drivers for all your hardware (which admittedly was a little rare at launch) Vista was great even from gold release, and it only got better with each service pack and tbe platform update.

It just got a bad reputation because of shitty drivers at launch, and it stuck around to the point where Microsoft just decided to reskin it and call it Windows 7 to shut up all the uneducated users who just kept aping the "vista sux" line.

I don't recall there being a thrashing problem, but it was probably caused by bit having enough RAM. People love to complain whenever they have to upgrade their hardware, but if the requirements are the same in two successive releases 5 years apart, you probably aren't moving forward.
 
Let me spell this out to you microsoft:
N - O - B - O - D - Y wants touchscreen tailored UI on a desktop OS, Nobody. Have you learned nothing from 8?
I know this is likely for laptop/tablet users, but have you ever tried finding a nice touchscreen for your desktop? There's like 4 models total that are over 22" and not intended for POS. I figured it would be a fun niche thing to have for a monitor as part of a music workstation, but anything that is not actually in your hand or your lap is going to result in awkwardly reaching forward like you're ordering at McDonald's (and it's probably 1080p and not particularly responsive).

That said, I have a touchscreen on my work laptop and rarely ever use it there either, although it can be handy in a pinch.
 
A ton of people, especially probably on this forum, would collectively lose their shit if this happened. It would be hilarious to see the heads exploding, sure, but not worth having to wade through page after page of adults crying.

I'd hate that.

Can't install with physical media. Can't install downloaded apps. Can't make a simple program and run it on your own PC. Can't install anything offline. It just puts a lot of limitations on things (basically a really closed iOS style OS).

More secure, more stable? I'd say yes, if Microsoft had a reputation of keeping the store clean and clear of insecure and unstable and trash applications.

Just way too many downsides compared to any upside.

Guess you can call that heads exploding, adults crying... But, good on you for keeping a closed mind and already calling those that disagree with you the bad guy. My ex-wife used to do that...
 
Also, I thought Apple had a patent on rectangles with rounded corners... 🤣

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For me Wine hardly works, which is a problem for someone who plans to run Linux in place of Windows. I only have one PC that runs Windows 10 and the introduction to Windows 11 may be a good reason to make the switch to Linux. But Wine is the biggest problem by far and lots of games still don't work correctly. Photoshop still has menus that render glitched. I don't plan to migrate to Windows 11 unless it's free, and I have a feeling that Windows 11 is going to introduce something that will fuck with people to extract money. Microsoft is due for making a big mistake.
Photoshop and MS Office aren't going to work, most likely ever - They're Microsoft and Apple's cash cows, both packages lock people into their ecosystem. If Photoshop was released under Ubuntu tomorrow (bearing in mind that official Adobe slides have shown their CC to work under Ubuntu), a great many people in the creative industry would likely switch to Linux (flame suit on).

Apart from that, ~75% of all games work quite easily via Steam and are installed no differently to Windows, with additional titles from other online platforms working under Lutris - Which is, once again, fairly easy to use.

IMO, this is damn impressive, especially considering the only real roadblocks are usually a result of client side overzealous DRM and anticheat. Effectively Linux is Win32 compatible.

I refuse to spend the stupid money Adobe expects for Photoshop, so I never developed muscle memory for it and learned to work around any lack of features under GIMP. The same goes for MS Office while Microsoft slowly increases subscription prices over time, I use Libre Office and don't have an issue.
 
You know people on forums like this are not MS target audience. They don't care about what we think or want. There are 1000 user to 1 of us that don't mind and even appreciate these features. We are a dying breed. Kids these days think they some tech gurus but in reality are morons. They can't code. They can't build a computer or do anything.
 
Honestly, Proton works great. I would say at least 75% to 80% of games work no problem. Maybe you have to add some parameters or tweak things, but generally it works out of box.

Right now I am playing this really obscure game (G-String) that has glitches on Linux, so I tried streaming from my other computer. It worked, but the compression was so bad it looked like a VHS tape. So I have to boot back into Win 10 for that. Not the end of the world.

I'm on the $10/month plan for Photoshop and I consider that a reasonable price. They really should release for Linux (how hard would that really be?) but I can skate by on the alternatives. I admit GIMP is a crappy substitute for Photoshop, but there are other apps like Krita that I would consider proper for some tasks.

Libre Office I would consider better than MS Office, the font rendering is far superior. Yeah, it is not great for converting to and from MS Office, but if you are working alone or with other people with similar systems, it is fine. And other apps I use, like Blender and Godot work perfect on Linux.
 
Honestly, Proton works great. I would say at least 75% to 80% of games work no problem. Maybe you have to add some parameters or tweak things, but generally it works out of box.

Right now I am playing this really obscure game (G-String) that has glitches on Linux, so I tried streaming from my other computer. It worked, but the compression was so bad it looked like a VHS tape. So I have to boot back into Win 10 for that. Not the end of the world.

I'm on the $10/month plan for Photoshop and I consider that a reasonable price. They really should release for Linux (how hard would that really be?) but I can skate by on the alternatives. I admit GIMP is a crappy substitute for Photoshop, but there are other apps like Krita that I would consider proper for some tasks.

Libre Office I would consider better than MS Office, the font rendering is far superior. Yeah, it is not great for converting to and from MS Office, but if you are working alone or with other people with similar systems, it is fine. And other apps I use, like Blender and Godot work perfect on Linux.

I always found Gimp adequate compared to Photoshop. It does everything the Photoshop I remember doing, but that said, I haven't used Photoshop proper since version 5 or 6 in the 90's. I have been told Photoshop may have changed since then.

That said, I can't justify a subscription model for Photoshop. At $10 per month, it would wind up being between $5 and $10 every time I used it for something that I couldn't just do with Gimp.

Their subscription scheme is profoundly stupid, and I'll never sign up for it.
 
Their subscription scheme is profoundly stupid, and I'll never sign up for it.
It's not stupid if you're the one collecting the money. And I expect most subs are from companies footing the bill, just the cost of doing business.

I used to work freelance for a while, and you can claim a lot of stuff on your taxes, including computer purchases, software licenses, etc. So it works out if you are making a living doing stuff on the computer.
 
I liked Vista and never had any issues with it. I never had any issues with 8 or 8.1 either. 10 has been the most problematic version of Windows I've used since moving to NT. The weird divide between the legacy parts of the OS (control panel and such) vs. the settings menu ensures that nothing is easy to find/access, too.
When Vista came out I was playing WoW The Burning Crusade and I would constantly switch back and forth between Windows XP and Vista because the frame rates were too low on Vista. It was a driver problem at the time but that's why people avoided Vista.
Games may run, but they usually do so at much lower framerates, which is a real problem when the fastest GPU on the market is only barely getting you 60fps at 4k in new titles.
This is no longer an issue with things like DXVK and VKD3D-Proton which make all games run on Vulkan. Sometimes running faster. I even have the option to use Gallium-Nine which gives linux native DX9. The problem is the move to Vulkan has made it harder to run Windows games on older hardware that doesn't support Vulkan. What once used to run just fine now runs really slow because no Vulkan support. Gallium-Nine helps with older hardware but you need an AMD GPU and older Intels don't use Gallium and Nvidia has proprietary hardware. I use an AMD GPU so this is not a problem for me. Even still older cards like a Radeon 5000 and 6000 series are not going to run DX11 games fast, if at all because of a lack of Vulkan. Here's hoping for Gallium-Eleven.
Because of this I have been dual booting for two decades. I keep windows more or less 100% for games, and do everything else in Linux. It also has the side benefit of being able to dedicate the OS to just games so there isn't a bunch of other junk rubbing in the background.
I have dozens of computers and they all run Linux Mint with the exception of my main PC as it runs Windows just for games. I'm waiting for the moment when my other Linux PC's don't have a problem running new games that I may make the switch on my main PC.
Other than games, pretty much the only think keeping me from going Linux full time is a fully functional MS Office Package and Exchange compatible email/calendar client like Outlook. That and maybe MiniTab. Does GoToMeeting have a Linux client? I've center even tried.
I have no need for MS Office as Google Docs and Libre Office works for me. I don't use GoToMeeting but they do have Linux client. Zoom and Discord have Linux clients as well and they seem to work just fine for me.

Apart from that, ~75% of all games work quite easily via Steam and are installed no differently to Windows, with additional titles from other online platforms working under Lutris - Which is, once again, fairly easy to use.
Steam games work just fine but games outside of Steam are often a problem. Lutris hasn't been great for me either.
I refuse to spend the stupid money Adobe expects for Photoshop, so I never developed muscle memory for it and learned to work around any lack of features under GIMP. The same goes for MS Office while Microsoft slowly increases subscription prices over time, I use Libre Office and don't have an issue.
I found Krita to be pretty good, but it's annoying when you remember how Photoshop works and others haven't copied. Probably for legal reasons I guess?
 
I'd say it beats the leaked view of Windows 11, which looks like a weird mix of stiff, boring old Windows with a Microsoft marketing exec's idea of what copying Apple should look like.

I know the aesthetics in macOS aren't to everyone's tastes, but hating the position of the corner buttons? C'mon, you know you'd get used to it! Now, getting used to the idea that closing the last window doesn't necessarily mean closing the app, that's another matter...
I actually like the old bubbly style of os x more than the new super boring flat style that everyone is using these days. The left buttons always annoyed me but mac os I used the most was 8 and 9 which I had cloned into sawfish wm in my linux desktop I used for several years. I always thought the scrolling arrows right next to each other was way more convenient than at the end of the scroll bar too lol. These days mac os ui is designed for ipad then made "ok" for desktop use imo. I also miss having a bajillion keyboard and mouse shortcuts to everything from linux which is one reason I'll always hate windows and mac, everything you can do with 1 button or key there takes multiple on mac/windows.

I think the mac top menu is still worse than the start bar being on the left lol.
Crap, in my book, Windows 8.1 with its standard start menu was a winner. After using it for a few days, it was just second nature and got me to everything that I used faster than before but those reasons that you mentioned you liked 8.1 always gets lost on a lot of people.
I never really gave a shit about the start menu so to me windows 8/8.1 is just windows 7 with a new name. I still use it at work since it's still approved lol.
You can move the start button to the left. It's just default in the center. More customization that I like. It's still an early build, so it'll have a lot of updates to make it better. I have it installed on a VM and it works just fine. It's Windows 10 but prettier. Don't know why it's such a big leap that it's a new version, though... Nothing really fundamentally different that I can see. Maybe they're holding back on some things that are under the hood and they'll be added later, I don't know.

Some say XP was the best. Remember all the complaints and stuff about the Tonka theme... The new versions always suck until the next one comes along, then the previous one was "just fine" (and in some cases, almost perfect.... Windows 7 was excellent).
The media center and zune themes were solid on xp, that's what I ran on mine until I switched off of it.

I'm thinking about switching back to linux and having a 2nd gaming pc setup.
 
I'm thinking about switching back to linux and having a 2nd gaming pc setup.

With nvidia cards now allowing pass through I would consider running linux on IGPU and passing through the GPU to a windows VM for gaming.
 
I understand why the Windows button and icons are centered. If you're on ultra wide monitors it might be preferred. Should be simple to put it in the corner though. Right click on task bar, left or center. But knowing Microsoft they might not give such a simple option.
 
In some ways Windows changes have followed the same trajectory as reality television: It was fun to hate on in earlier days (WIn8 & Metro), but has now reached the level of a guy banging a pot on his head with a wooden spoon. Rounded corners, Xbox Game Mode+++, who cares?

In fairness, Win10's technical underpinnings are actually good, especially when stripped down to bare essentials with a third party tool - but its existential problem remains: it's a platform that is tolerated by people more than it's wanted, and absentee-fathered by a CEO that talks about Windows with the exact smile of someone who on christmas morning has just opened a present he already owns. For many people Windows is little more than a host organism for the games handcuffed to the platform. Everything else can be done on any other platform.

Alas, make all the changes, make no changes, it doesn't matter. They will never provide more meaningful changes like a true telemetry off switch or bikini wallpapers, so IMO no other change they make really matters.

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Things could change. For example, if the SteamPal is a hit and (I assume) will be running Linux. Maybe gamers will see how far things have come.
 
Honestly, Windows users on Linux would do the same thing.

You Google a problem and find a StackOverflow comment with a bunch of console commands, that you just paste in blindly. Or adding PPAs for a random desktop theme, etc. that can destroy your security.

And you can also just run executables you download from the web or random *.deb packages. It's only as secure as you make it, it's still easy to make mistakes.

Complete nonsense. Linux has had root privilege separation for decades now, and to paste in "random dangerous commands", you either have to sudo or su into the root account, or enter your account password if you have administrative privileges. There's plenty of warning that what you may be about to do could screw up your system. And on newer Linux distributions like Fedora 33/34, you get a dialog box warning when pasting potentially dangerous copied from a web browser. There's only so much an OS can do to protect the user from themselves, and Linux goes above and beyond for that. The same can't be said about Windows. Microsoft didn't even take security seriously until Windows Vista, and even there it had problems.

As for random packages you download from the web, why are you doing that to begin with? The majority of the applications you'd use on Linux are available from official software repositories maintained by the distribution authors. And the stuff that isn't, like non-free licensed applications are usually available from secondary repositories that are run by some of the same people and the community as a whole. Everything that ends up on any of those repos is usually tested pretty extensively by tens of thousands of people around the world and malicious code is weeded out quick, if it's even introduced at all. Sure some stuff slips by, but no system is perfect.

Few things ever need to be "side loaded" in Linux, and it's usually down to drivers or obscure programs. But that's no different than trying to get drivers on Windows, where you sometimes have to delve into the back alleys of the internet because of idiot hardware vendors deleting their entire back catalog of drivers (Intel and HP are two big ones) and providing no legitimate alternative. But drivers for Linux are less of a problem these days, so that leaves you with obscure programs.

cybereality said:
Also, back to Windows, since the security changes made on Vista, it is now much harder to get infected. Yes, you still have to be careful, but it's not like the XP days where you would get a virus every other week.

On Win 10, if you don't visit shady websites, keep your system updated, and run a good anti-virus, you won't get infected. I can't even remember the last virus I got, it was so many years ago.

Sheesh, a virus every other week on XP? Were you like exposing it directly to the internet and going to every nasty warez and porn site you could find? Viruses and malware certainly were a problem on XP, but nowhere near that bad. The level you describe is like Windows 9x.

The only difference between XP and 10 is who is installing said malware. Windows 10 is itself by all definitions malware. It's chock full of keyloggers, telemetry spyware and automatically downloads stuff on to your box without your consent. Windows 10 updates may as well be full blown virus infestations themselves, since you basically have to play Russian roulette for every update. I have to recover bricked Windows 10 machines on a regular basis from failed updates, that were bricked so badly in some cases that all that could be done is recover whatever data was possible and flatten it to reinstall Windows 10.
 
Sheesh, a virus every other week on XP? Were you like exposing it directly to the internet and going to every nasty warez and porn site you could find? Viruses and malware certainly were a problem on XP, but nowhere near that bad. The level you describe is like Windows 9x.
Cyberreality is being hyperbolic, but XP was... bad.

I was doing ISP tech support for much of XP's original lifecycle, and when malware like Blaster hit, there was a huge wave of calls from people with infected XP systems. Malware in general was a concern until Microsoft finally clamped down with software updates.
 
With nvidia cards now allowing pass through I would consider running linux on IGPU and passing through the GPU to a windows VM for gaming.
Unfortunately sharing only works on quadro cards, I'd rather not use two cables since my monitor only has 2 inputs due to gsync and I run my receiver into the hdmi so it's 4k 30hz.
 
This isn't a new version of windows really, just some bells and whistles and a UI / UX update which may or may not be better. Calling it Windows 11 is purely for marketing.
 
Cyberreality is being hyperbolic, but XP was... bad.

I was doing ISP tech support for much of XP's original lifecycle, and when malware like Blaster hit, there was a huge wave of calls from people with infected XP systems. Malware in general was a concern until Microsoft finally clamped down with software updates.
XP wasn't bad at all and was probably Microsofts best OS ever. It's just that XP lasted far too long and Microsoft was trying to push people onto Vista and Windows 7 to the point where Microsoft started to intentionally ignore security fixes on XP. Also, Microsoft was ill prepared for the popularity of XP and the amount of attention it would bring in terms of virus's and malware. XP is bad by today's standards but back in the early 2000's is was amazing.
 
I take it that none of Adobe CC works in Linux, or is it just Photoshop?
 
Great, so MS is tailoring the os to .01% of the user base.
I'm sorry, but a laptop for me will always be a compromise that I reluctantly use when I don't have access to my desktop. Optimizing anything for that is ludicrous. I'm not going to use a bucket when I have indoor plumbing.

One size fits all, really just means it doesn't really fit anyone well. What on earth is MS thinking? They couldn't make a mobile specific OS stick, so why would a mobile OS marketed as a desktop OS replacement work for them? Because they give no choice? There is always a choice, even if they don't like it.

I don't know what you are talking about. Laptops are somewhere around 66% - 70% of all pc sales... Touch screens are awesome on laptops once you get used to them. I cannot even tell you how many times I have had to clean my macbook pro screen because my instinct had switched to using the screen on a laptop. It really is just better once you get used to it.
 
I don't want to be promoted to use or sign up for a Microsoft account whenever I install or create an account.

I don't want Cortana.

I don't want Microsoft suite of software.

I don't want any of the features of my operating system to reside in the cloud (like parental controls which used to be built in locally in Win7, but now require two cloud accounts to use)

I don't want Microsoft's pre-installed browser.

I don't want Microsoft's pre-installed OneDrive

I don't want X-Box integration, especially not on a work machine. That is just embarrassing.

I don't want their TV and Movies system nor Groove Audio service.

I don't want phone style apps like camera, clock, calendar, etc.

I don't want various keyloggers or telemetry to be sent anywhere. I don't want it to contact any other system on the LAn or WAN without me explicitly telling it to. If I plug it into a network there should not be a single packet coming in or leaving the machine unless I manually and intentionally initiate it. (Or intentionally set up my own automation)

I don't want a pre-installed Microsoft store.

I don't want News and Interests popping up on my menu bar one day without asking for it.

The list goes on and on and on.

I feel like I am playing whack-a-mole to get rid of Microsoft garbage I don't want on a regular basis and it is very frustrating.

For crying out loud, at least let me say "no to everything" in a convenient way that sticks across 6 month updates.

I want just the operating system. I may CHOOSE to install other Microsoft software (like the Office Suite) but that should be a choice. Ideally no other software or applications should be installed by default, and they DEFINITELY should be able to be removed, and not just hidden, but the binaries gone from my system so that they don't reinstall themselves when anyone creates an account.

Some of these things can be removed with registry and other tweaks, but these are unreliable and some can't be removed at all.

This is the ecosystem I don't want that is getting forced on me.
 

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XP wasn't bad at all and was probably Microsofts best OS ever. It's just that XP lasted far too long and Microsoft was trying to push people onto Vista and Windows 7 to the point where Microsoft started to intentionally ignore security fixes on XP. Also, Microsoft was ill prepared for the popularity of XP and the amount of attention it would bring in terms of virus's and malware. XP is bad by today's standards but back in the early 2000's is was amazing.
Yeah, XP was great at first. Especially compared to what we had before. Plus DX9 was really quite an upgrade with the advent of shaders (DX8 did have shaders, but they were very limited).

But XP lasted too long and the security was not great. Obviously I was not getting a virus every week, but it seemed that way. It wasn't until Vista that MS took security somewhat seriously.
 
XP wasn't bad at all and was probably Microsofts best OS ever. It's just that XP lasted far too long and Microsoft was trying to push people onto Vista and Windows 7 to the point where Microsoft started to intentionally ignore security fixes on XP. Also, Microsoft was ill prepared for the popularity of XP and the amount of attention it would bring in terms of virus's and malware. XP is bad by today's standards but back in the early 2000's is was amazing.
Yeah, XP was great at first. Especially compared to what we had before. Plus DX9 was really quite an upgrade with the advent of shaders (DX8 did have shaders, but they were very limited).

But XP lasted too long and the security was not great. Obviously I was not getting a virus every week, but it seemed that way. It wasn't until Vista that MS took security somewhat seriously.

XP Was a huge leap forward.

Essentially we got the protected virtual memory previously only used in NT releases in a consumer OS. It sucked a tiny bit of performance out of the equation, but essentially it made bluescreens caused by non-driver software a thing of the past. Programs could still crash themselves, but they could no longer trample on memory belonging to other programs or the operating system itself, which made it immensely more stable than its consumer predecessors.


Vista was another huge leap forward.

I know it was really popular to hate on it at the time, but UAC finally brought Unix style user management and control to Windows, and was huge for increasing the overall security of the operating system. It was a little rough at first though, as programs designed for XP and earlier often tried to write in places they were no longer allowed, causing UAC to constantly ask for Admin priveleges, but once 3rd party software was updated to place data in the proper user folder locations, it worked very well.

Honestly, Microsofts three biggest releases in recent memory - IMHO - were:

- Windows 95 - Brought true 32bit pre-emptive multitasking and DirectX
- Windows XP - Brought Virtualized Protected Memory
- Windows Vista - Brought UAC
 
Looks a Chrome & Mac OS illegitimate love child..

I wanna go back to Windows 2000.
 
XP Was a huge leap forward.

Essentially we got the protected virtual memory previously only used in NT releases in a consumer OS. It sucked a tiny bit of performance out of the equation, but essentially it made bluescreens caused by non-driver software a thing of the past. Programs could still crash themselves, but they could no longer trample on memory belonging to other programs or the operating system itself, which made it immensely more stable than its consumer predecessors.


Vista was another huge leap forward.

I know it was really popular to hate on it at the time, but UAC finally brought Unix style user management and control to Windows, and was huge for increasing the overall security of the operating system. It was a little rough at first though, as programs designed for XP and earlier often tried to write in places they were no longer allowed, causing UAC to constantly ask for Admin priveleges, but once 3rd party software was updated to place data in the proper user folder locations, it worked very well.

Honestly, Microsofts three biggest releases in recent memory - IMHO - were:

- Windows 95 - Brought true 32bit pre-emptive multitasking and DirectX
- Windows XP - Brought Virtualized Protected Memory
- Windows Vista - Brought UAC
Vista was shit!

Fuck UAC!
 
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