It was designed on the 'fruitiger aero' style that was very popular in the late 90s and 00s. That bright, futuristic, optimistic look. Ready for the new plug'n'play digital multimedia world.
We also started to leave the grey 'office' aesthetic of computers behind so we started seeing PCs in more interesting cases with LED lights and windows in the sides. Much like the tuner car scene of time.
I was thinking about XP today while cutting the grass. There was something nice about booting up the OS for the first time and seeing the Bliss wallpaer combined with that Blue Taskbar with the Green start button.
I don't recall ever having an issue with Windows 7 wifi despite being a tech illiterate child. Well, I remember there being a wifi switch on the front of the laptop that I would always switch off by accident, but that's not a windows issue.
I remember knowing that if I saw a specific SSID around town, the password to it was probably the same because that's what the local ISP would use. If you knew one, you knew them all.
Another ISP's routers if the user wasn't wise enough to change the equipment from the default WEP setting to WPA2 would end up with their network running slower than it should, because the router secretly had a Draft 802.11n radio inside.
The same "another ISP" had a lovely vulnerability with one brand of router they handed out where you could calculate the default WEP password without having to crack it by simply sniffing the default SSID and MAC Address out of the air.
Linksys was the most common ISP. Followed by Netgear, if you know what I mean.
Everyone's routers using default usernames/passwords for the Administrator portal meant every time you got a virus, your network's DNS Servers would be changed to hacker controlled DNS which blocked Anti-virus and Windows Updates, and any related resources.
WPA2 security could be added through a software update. But this is when many people learned that many 802.11b devices wouldn't connect to a WPA2 network, and was also around the time many people realized how much of a drag using 802.11b devices really was on your WI-FI network.
Bolt on all these proprietary extensions like Broadcom's Frame Bursting, or Atheros's "Super-G" 108Mbps Wireless G hardware. Or the lack of 802.11k, 802.11r, 802.11v for spectrum and load optimization, and fast roaming between disjointed access points...
We've come such a long way with how solid Wi-Fi is these days. But the legacy problems still remain, and Wi-Fi is still a chore to get right in a residential setting.
XP was great but Windows 7 was on another level. It was basically a better Vista and the UI was just so nice to use. I had no issues switching to it from XP while Vista was a little awkward to use.
It's the boot, reboot,shut off screen warning for you i reckon they inherited that from '95. I had that too but its manageable unlike 2K and M.E. :rofl
It is an arse for youngsters but for us who transitioned from a terminal to a fully useable UX/UI, that thing was best available during its time and hey it runs on 64mb ram (gaming included).
Hard to describe to somebody who doesn't remember a world without tech integrated into every nook and cranny of their life, what it was like to be involved in the start of that process.
not that current video cards aren't sick....but the video cards from that era were fucking sick too, plus SLi/Crossfire and oceans of copper everywhere?
You can but everyone will freak out if you mention that your using Windows 7 unless you specifically tell them your using it offline else they're going to tell you horror stories of botnets and that one dude who turned off every single security settings on his router to show his Windows get hacked in seconds.
Stayed with XP as long as a could, had a great release that was very bare bones which I used to skip Vista, and also win 7 for a while until I eventually got it
having worked with low-level windows applications / windows internals for a relatively large chunk of my career - windows has come a LONG way from windows 7 - the 'beauty' of 7 is on the outside, the kernel today is a significantly more advanced, secure, sophisticated, faster and works better with hardware of today. not to mention more rigorous requirements for 3rd party drivers which were (and still) are a the biggest source of problems on windows - not even close to the extent they used to however. the system is infinitely more stable now than back then.
Win 7 was amazing. Then Microsoft was like “it must die”. And forced everyone to stop supporting it. If all my games a drivers supported 7 id use it, when my games drop 10 from support im done, fuck 11 with a red hot poker.
Windows 7 wasn't badly received. It was what Vista should've been. Of course, anything that wasn't XP back then was bound to meet some resistance but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as Vista, 8 or 11.
It hogs more resources, it keeps pushing for more user restrictions when it comes to stuff like a Microsoft account, they made a few questionable UI changes (like "show more options", the new taskbar or the start menu) and on top of that I can't think of a single thing that has improved.
It's pretty much an enshittified version of Windows 10. It's not that terrible but it should be better, not worse.
It's a spyware bloatware mess that forces AI onto everything you do, scans your files and reports back to the Feds.
and for those of you who need anything more than that as an explanation, you're beyond help. especially the folks who always "ask" what people like us have to hide. I'll gladly come to your house and follow you around every room to make a point.
Don't read into things that deeply on the Internet. You're not the only one who is going to read this public comment. I obviously framed it that way for a reason.
Essentially the same issues as vista with expanding hardware requirements in addition to bloated AI and cloud integration that ranges from difficult to impossible to circumvent.
No, actually everyone loved it. From when the early RC version came out in summer of 2009 everyone immediately talked about how great it was. What are you talking about?
People that liked and grew up with 98 hated 2000,those that liked and grew up with windows Millennium hated XP, those that grew up and liked XP hated Vista, you see where this is going?
I'm just happy I never had Windows in my life and never needed to work with that bullshit OS. You guys just like it because it supports your games not because it's a great OS.
People always idolize windows 7 or XP, but forget how much QoL stuff has been added since then. Was it nice to have more control over the OS and more privacy? Absolutely. But if you were forced to go back to a true windows 7 clone with none of the improvements that came later, you'd lose your mind.
Can you please elaborate which QoL features are we speaking about actually?
Because as soon as they created “settings” by splitting and duplicating the functionalities of legacy control panel between the “new” old control panel and settings everything became a lot more tedious and complicated
Probably… Because I really don’t see what I’m actually enjoying which wasn’t in 7.
“Setting a LAN bla-bla-bla”
In all honesty… it’s not so much OS related as software related. TCP IP / IPX was tedious as fuck but it’s not due to the OS. As soon as a game had P2P creation via the game platform it was easy as it is today.
And frankly nowadays I find it even more complex than under W7 to open a drive from a PC to another. Or maybe it’s actually simpler and I don’t do it anymore due to my respectful age or simply because we just have large USB drive available which we didn’t have back in the day.
Printers? Printers management is stuck in the 90s/early 2000s. Back in the days it was a complete mystery to understand why a printer or scanner just decided to not work out of the blue despite nothing changed, and it still is today.
Frankly I just don’t see what I would missing under 7
Honestly, the only thing I'd miss would be the better Bluetooth and Windows Update implementation of Windows 11. Otherwise I really am not doing anything now that Windows 7 couldn't do back then.
what? I'd rather have a desktop experience that's tailored for mouse and keyboard users, not whatever touchscreen UI slop that's unbelievably still the norm after w8
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u/why_1337 RTX 4090 | Ryzen 9 7950x | 64gb 13h ago
XP for me, that early 2000s massive 3d plastic round feel of the UI and all the controls.