[kwanbix]

It delivered a terrible user experience. The interface was ugly, with a messy mix of old and new UI elements, ugly icons, and constant UAC interruptions. On top of that, the minimum RAM requirements were wrong, so it was often sold on underpowered PCs, which made everything painfully slow.

[buran77]

Everything you said was perfectly applicable (and then some!) to Windows XP, Windows 7, or Windows 10 at launch or across their lifecycle. Let me shake all those hearsay based revelations you think you had.

Windows XP's GUI was considered a circus and childish [1] and the OS had a huge number of compatibility and security issues before SP3. The messy mix of elements is still being cleaned up 15 years later in Windows 11 and you can still find bits from every other version scattered around [2]. UAC was just the same in Windows 7.

Hardware requirements for XP were astronomical compared to previous versions. Realistic RAM requirements [3] for XP were 6-8 times higher than Win 98/SE (16-24MB) and 4 times those of Windows 2000 (32MB). For CPU, Windows 98 ran on 66MHz 486 while XP crawled on Pentium 233MHz as a bare minimum. Windows 98 used ~200MB of disk space while XP needed 1.5GB.

Windows 7 again more than quadrupled all those requirements to 1/2GB or RAM, 1GHz CPU, and 16-20GB disk space.

But yeah, you keep hanging on to those stories you heard about Vista (and don't get me wrong, it wasn't good, but you have no idea why or how every other edition stacked up).

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/12itfx...

[2] https://github.com/Lentern/windows-11-inconsistencies

[3] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/...

[kwanbix]

I’ve been using Windows since version 3.0, so I know what I’m talking about.

Vista peaked at around 25% market share and then declined. The lowest peak of any major Windows release. Compare that with Windows XP at 88%, Windows 7 at 61%, or Windows 10 at 82%. Why do you think that is? Because Vista was great and people just didn’t understand it?

Windows XP was already perfectly usable by SP1, not SP3. The UI was childish looking, but you could easily make it look and behave like Windows 2000 very easily.

Vista, on the other hand, was bad at launch and never really recovered. I very clearly remember going to friends’ and family members’ homes to upgrade them from Vista to Windows 7, and the difference was night and day.

[buran77]

> so I know what I’m talking about

Your arguments don't show it and if you have to tell me you know what you're talking about, you don't. It's tiresome to keep shooting down your cherry picked arguments.

> Vista peaked at around 25% market share and then declined.

Then IE was the absolute best browser of all times with its 95+% peak. And Windows Phone which was considered at the time a very good mobile OS barely reached low single digit usage. If you don't know how to put context around a number you'll keep having this kind of "revelation".

You're also comparing the usage of an OS which was rebranded after 2.5 years, with the peak reached years later by OSes that kept their name for longer. After 2.5-3 years XP had ~40% and Win7 ~45%, better but far from the peak numbers you wave. If MS kept the Vista name Win7 might as well have been Vista SP2/3, and people would have upgraded just like they always did. But between the bad image and antitrust lawsuits based on promises MS made linked to the Vista name, they rebranded.

When XP was launched users had no accessible modern OS alternative, XP only had to compete with its own shortfalls. When Vista was launched it had to compete not only with an established and mature XP with already 75% of the market but soon after also with the expectation of the hyped successor. Windows 7 also had to compete with an even more mature and polished XP which is why it never reached the same peaks as XP or 10. Only Windows 10 had a shot at similar heights because by then XP was outdated and retired... And because MS forced people to upgrade against their will, which I'm sure you also remembered when you were typing the numbers.

> Windows XP was already perfectly usable by SP1, not SP3

And less then usable until then, which is anyway a low bar. You were complaining of the interface, the messy mix of old and new UI elements, minimum requirements, these were never fixed. XP's security was a dumpster fire and was partially fixed much later. Plain XP was not good, most of the target Win9x users had no chance of upgrading without buying beefy new computers, GUI was seen as ugly and inconsistent, compatibility was poor (that old HW that only had W9x drivers?), security was theater. Exactly what you complained about Vista. Usable, but still bad.

Just like XP, Vista became usable with SP1, and subsequently even good with "SP Win7".

You remember Vista against a mature XP, some cherry picked moments in time. And if your earlier comments tell me anything, you don't remember early XP at all. You remember fondly Windows 10 from yesterday, not Windows 10 from 2015 when everyone was shooting at it for the "built in keylogger spying on you", forced updates, advertising in the desktop, ugly interface made for touchscreens, etc. Reached 80% usage anyway, which you'll present as proof that people loved all that in some future conversation when you'll brag that you were using computers since transistors were made of wood.

[kwanbix]

All Windows OSes improve with time, so that point is moot.

> You're also comparing the usage of an OS which was rebranded after 2.5 years, with the peak reached years later by OSes that kept their name for longer. After 2.5-3 years XP had ~40% and Win7 ~45%, better but far from the peak numbers you wave. If MS kept the Vista name Win7 might as well have been Vista SP2/3, and people would have upgraded just like they always did. But between the bad image and antitrust lawsuits based on promises MS made linked to the Vista name, they rebranded.

With that line of reasoning, it's very hard to have a productive discussion. By that logic, one could just as well say that Windows 10 is simply "Windows Vista SP15".

If Vista had really been as successful and great as you claim, why didn't Microsoft just keep iterating on it? Why didn't they continue releasing service packs instead of effectively replacing it? If it was "great", that would have been the obvious path.

And again, the numbers support my argument, not yours. Vista remains the least adopted and least liked Windows version by market share. By far.

[buran77]

Stop going around in circles kwanbix, you made your arguments for Vista being "trash", I showed you (with links and numbers) they apply to OSes regarded as the best ever. Unless you plan to address that directly you're just trying and failing to save face. Trust me you're not saving face by insisting on "revelations" you learned from hearsay, in a forum where most people have vastly more experience than you.

> By that logic, one could just as well say that Windows 10 is simply "Windows Vista SP15".

It was an important but small incremental refinement on Vista [0], nothing like the transition between any other two major Windows editions (maybe 8.1 to 10, also to launder the branding). They even kept the Vista name here and there [1]. Tech outlets called it:

>> Windows 7 was ultimately just a more polished and refined version of Windows Vista — with lots of great new features, but with the same core [2]

That sounds a lot like an SP. Don't even wonder how/why MS just happened to have a fully baked OS in their pocket a mere couple of years after launching Vista?

> If Vista had really been as successful and great as you claim

Reading comprehension failure on your part. I said "Vista was far from trash" (tell me you think "not trash"=="great") and "all of your arguments applied to almost every other Windows edition". Both of these are true.

> why didn't Microsoft just keep iterating on it?

More reading comprehension failure. Literally explained in my previous comment that the Vista brand was tarnished, it was easier and safer to just change it. And just as important, MS made commitments about which old hardware the Vista OS would run on but didn't in reality. This brought class action lawsuits. Changing the name stopped future lawsuits related to those promises.

> the numbers support my argument, not yours

What numbers? Your stats comparing OSes at very different point in their lifecycle? Or the kernel version numbers between Vista and 7? And how is XP having more peak market share than Vista makes Vista "trash"? Let me show you how to lie with numbers and not say anything, kwanbix style.

>> Windows XP is trash because it only peaked at 250M users while Windows 11 already has 1bn [3].

>> Windows 10 is trash because Windows 11 grew unforced to 1bn users even faster than the "forced upgrade" Windows 10 [3].

>> Windows 11 is trash because it only reached 55% market share compared to 82% for Windows 10.

>> Every other Windows is trash because Windows 10 peaked at 1.5bn users, more that any other.

Enough educating you, it's a failing of mine to think everyone can be helped. Have fun with the numbers and try not to bluescreen reading them.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24589162

[1] https://dotancohen.com/eng/windows_7_vista.html

[2] https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/40-years-of-wi...

[3] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/windows-11-has-hit-1...

[kwanbix]

25% adoption.

The second worst Windows adoption share ever, just 4 points above Windows 8.

That is the only number you need to see.

It was uterlly complete trash.

Windows 10: ~80%

Windows XP: ~76%

Windows 11: ~55%

Windows 7: ~47%

Windows Vista: ~25%

Windows 8.x: ~21 %

Enough educating you.