| Windows 7 was the first version that gave me stability that made Linux feel like less of a must-have / only option. Windows 11 largely gives me no problems and has worked perfectly fine with the hardware I've thrown at it, with no effort on my part. WSL is definitely a bonus. The same just has not been true of Linux for me during the same time period with the same pieces of hardware. I still happen to run NixOS on my laptop (the most recent of 6 distros, and Windows, I've tried over the past couple of years). It's not been entirely trouble-free but (thanks to the Arch wiki, mostly), it's in a decent state now. And you are right about the hostile anti-features, though, and that promises to only get worse. My windows PC has been relegated to games and will likely get whatever first stable, headache free SteamOS+NVIDIA incarnation turns up. I've got no more affection for Windows than for Linux. There are just cases where the former has given me fewer headaches than the latter. |
On the Windows side NT 3.5 was rock solid with limited software selection, 4 was decent, XP was fine for me behind a firewall but not everyone was so lucky on the security angle. No one liked Vista but I don't remember it being due to crashing.