"Alfred Molon" wrote

| I'm using 8.1 here. It has a horrible reputation, but with the classic
| shell it works perfectly smoothly without any problems.
|
| Before I was using Vista, another of those supposedly terrible OSs.
| Worked fine for me as well. I skipped Win 7.

I think a lot of the lemon version reputation is
somewhat arbitrary and supported discreetly
by Microsoft. Sacrificing an older version to sell
a new one works for them. It's the only
company I know with a marketing strategy of:
"You should buy our newest product because
the last one was junk and is no longer safe."

ME, Vista, 8.... They stop mentioning the alleged
lemons while a lot of people are still using them.

ME was almost identical to 98. The former was a
lemon while the latter was the best ever.

Vista is pretty much the same thing as 7. But
with 7 the hardware had a chance to catch up.
Vista was also rushed out. They wasted several years
trying to make a .Net version of Windows --
something like Metro. But in 2005, 4 years after XP,
they had to give up that plan ("Longhorn") and
start over cold. Their own explanation was that it
was simply too bloated to run on any existing hardware.
..Net, after all, was a superfluous, Java-esque wrapper
on top of Windows itself. It was simply too much junk
to float.

At that poont they were already 1 year over schedule
to release a new version, so they rushed out something-
or-other in 2 years.
On top of that was the Intel scandal. MS wanted
all the OEMs to have hardware ready for Aero by
the time Vista came out. Then Intel told them they
needed to dump a very large number of 915 chipsets,
which couldn't handle the load of Aero. So at the
last minute there was Vista Basic. A whole category
of Vista to run on computers with 915 chipsets or
similar that were not actually capable of handling
the unprecedented bloat of Vista. No Aero on Vista
Basic. People were very confused. Why did I buy a new
computer if I'm not getting the new techno-kitsch?
Without those clever transparent windows, what's
the point? Most people buy a computer by looks,
after all.

I haven't used 10 to speak of. Like 10-4.call above,
I'd expect to be paid if I'm going to waste my time
using spyware that changes itself willy nilly, without
warning. And so far, to my surprise, Mr. Ballmer has
not sent me a check. Nor has Mr. Nadella. Apparently
they still think they're going to be able to spread Win10
by giving it away for free. But I suspect 8/10 is
similar to Vista/7. 10 provides a bit of straightening up.
Most notably, Metro is not in-your-face. That doesn't
really matter to you using Classic Shell, but most people
use the product as it comes installed. For them 8 and
10 will be very different animals.

When it comes down to it, aside from the gradually
increasing bloat and restrictions, and now adware/
spyware with Win10, there's not a whole lot of
difference in general. The whole point is that the OS
is supposed to be a platform for software. Most
software will run on most versions, because MS
maintains good compatibility. If your software runs then
your version is adequate. I can write a program
today that will run on every running Windows version
without needing any extra files installed. The only
really notable change in the past 15 years has been
the gradual shift to 64-bit. And even that only applies
to resource-intensive software. You need 7+ for
Photoshop. You need 64-bit for very demanding work
like video editing. What else? Not much. I'm running
PSP, Firefox, Libre Office, etc on XP. Almost all software
still supports XP. But all that really matters is whether
the software you want/need will run on your computer.

There was a time when I would have updated just
to be on top of things. But new updates has not
necessarily meant better software for a long time.
Developers got addicted to a steady schedule of
updates and new features, never able to admit when
a product was actually finished.

The chatter about older versions being unsafe is
also, for the most part, only chatter. Malware rarely
attacks through Windows. It attacks through software
like browsers, Java, Flash, etc. Or it attacks via
unsafe network functionality like DCOM, RPC, etc.
Someone allowing filesharing or remote desktop, or
allowing script, ads and Flash, in the very latest
version of Win10, is far more vulnerable than a cautious
person running Vista, XP, or 98. And of course, no one's
targetting those systems anymore, anyway. But the
lapdog media never fails to market for Microsoft by
trying to scare everyone into thinking that the last
Windows version became dangerous on the day the
new version came out.