I’ve been a Windows user for many years, as I suspect many of you have also been, and I’m going to share my thoughts regarding Windows operating systems leading up to Windows 10. I decided to not go back any further than Windows XP as, in my opinion, XP marked the beginning of the modern operating system era. As well as for the sake of brevity. You may find my views are contrary to the general consensus, but that’s fine. These are purely my own opinions and experiences, so please feel free to disagree:

What does a Workstation PC Technician do?

Windows XP: 2001 – 2014
windows-xp-logoWindows XP was destined to become one of the most cherished operating systems ever. I well remember the outcry when XP’s end-of-support date was finally upon us and comments such as ”they’ll have to take XP from my dying clutching hands” were commonplace. All I can say is, these people must have had very short memories. When XP was first released it was, in my experience, an abomination of an operating system, with issues aplenty. It was actually XP that helped me learn more about Windows than any other operating system, before or since. I reckon I spent much of the first 12 months running XP, constantly searching online for how to fix this and how to fix that. Seemed barely a day went by before yet something else broke.

Sure, eventually XP matured into a very good operating system. However, it took three service packs and almost a decade to reach that exalted position. No other operating system in Windows’ history has enjoyed the luxury of that extended period of support or been through so many service pack bug fixes. So, you’d expect XP to be pretty good in the end, would you not? I reckon XP was a lot like homesickness; users quickly forgetting all the bad times and only remembering the good times. My rating for XP: 2.5/5