I've used most versions of Windows since 3.11 I didn't bother going backwards because as far as I'm concerned, before 3.11, it was better to use DOS. Since then I've used 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and of course 11.

About the only one I "missed" was NT, and I'm not unhappy about that. My notes are: 3.11 was basically just an application running on DOS, which was fine, but it's not really improving much. Few applications supported Windows at that point, so there was little reason to have/use it. 95 was hot garbage at launch, and did not improve much over time, however it was such a drastic change from DOS/3.11 that it was the best we could have hoped for at the time. 98 was forgettable, very little improvement over 95; at least until 98 SE came out, adding USB support, which changed a lot of things. ME was fine for the most part, they put to much emphasis on making it look better without making significant improvements beyond that; however, ME was fine and stable after a few service packs.

XP was the favorite for most, I saw it as Windows 2000 with makeup. That said, the biggest improvement here was the change over to the NT kernel, something we still use today. Windows 2000 was a favorite of mine, it was visually simpler than ME/XP, but all the functionality you needed was there. It was fairly barebones but that allowed for Windows to take a back seat to whatever you were actually using the computer for.

Vista was hated, but not because it was actually bad. The problem with Vista was that the system requirements to run Windows shot up significantly with Aero. At the same time, Microsoft introduced driver updates for security, so many older devices, built for XP, that were more or less abandoned, never got drivers that met the security constraints added in Vista. Vista also launched around the netbook era, when "a computer for every child" was a thing. The hardware was trending towards less powerful, cheaper chips, while Vista was requiring much more from the hardware, creating a perfect storm of people buying Celeron systems pre-installed with Vista and having a very bad time. Anyone using a Core/Core2/first gen Core I* chip had a lot fewer problems.

When Windows 7 launched, most people had abandoned Celeron as a product, and most hardware manufacturers were distributing drivers with the extra security needed for Vista (which was also required for 7), so everything went smoothly and 7 became the next favorite. I don't have any complaints with 7, and I would be happy to keep using Windows 7 if it wasn't for the fact that it's abandonware.

Windows 8 was a solution looking for a problem. This was the era of Android honeycomb, the odd version of Android made exclusively for tablets. Microsoft seemed to think it was a good idea to do the same, however, sales of tablet windows systems are fairly paltry overall, so forcing everyone into a tablet optimized interface proved to be a bad idea, they "fixed" it with 8.1, and nobody cared. I had purchased a Microsoft surface pro 3 at the time, which was pre-installed with Windows 8, and I found that it was fine, but it was both a lackluster tablet, and a fairly bad laptop, it was an inbetween hybrid that was (again) a solution looking for a problem. Despite having one of the "more powerful" pro 3 units (I think I had the second from the top SKU, core i5), it frequently overheated, making it uncomfortable to use as a tablet, and due to thermal throttling, it was not performant as a laptop. It was a nice idea, executed poorly, solving a problem that nobody had.

10, in my opinion, is the gold standard. At least, until they started loading windows up with spyware. Any tracking, advertising ID garbage, or similar, was basically the worst part of Windows 10, and everything else was essentially a return to form and function for many things. To me it was like an evolution of Windows 2000. Not many frills, and windows mostly fades into the background so you can focus on what you're trying to accomplish.

11 is trying to overhaul your experience, and doing so badly. Control panel, apps, and even your right-click menu is being done differently... They're pushing you to do it the "new" Microsoft way, and so far, I haven't met anyone that prefers anything that way.

IMO, 11 is a lot of Microsoft shoving terrible options in your face by default and whispering in your ear "you know you like it like that"

No, we don't. Fuck off with your bullshit, fuck "new" teams, fuck "new" Outlook, fuck everything you're slapping a "new" label on. We don't want this.

Windows 11 is the best advertisement for Linux and Mac products so far.