Windows 2000 Server named peak Microsoft

Not the operating system:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_Verifier

I lost less time to bluescreens than I have to forced updates and sidestepping value add nonsense like one drive, edge.

They didn't "prove the kernel is correct", they built a tool to prove that a single driver maintains an invariant throughout execution.

Yeah the ribbon drove me to LibreOffice and Google Docs and I haven’t been back.

Windows 2000 Pro was the peak of the Windows UX. They could not leave well enough alone.

The original ribbon sucked but with the improvements it's hard to say it's generally a bad choice.

The ribbon is a great fit for Office style apps with their large number of buttons and options.

Especially after they added the ability to minimize, expand on hover, or keep expanded (originally this was the only option), the ribbon has been a great addition.

But then they also had to go ahead and dump it in places where it had no reason to be, such as Windows Explorer.

I never understood the issue with the ribbon UI. Epecially for Office it was great, so much easier to find stuff.

> I think it ended at the first "ribbon" UI, which was in the 2003 era,

Nah. 2007 era.

Office 2007 introduced the ribbon to the main apps: Word, Excel, I think Powerpoint. The next version it was added to Outlook and Access, IIRC.

I still use Word 2003 because it's the last pre-Ribbon version.

I don't know quite when it started to happen, but changing and/or eliminating the default Office keyboard shortcuts in the last few iterations has really irked me.

People hated it because it was all over the place. Change this or that setting? UAC. Install anything? UAC. Then you'd get a virus in a software installer, confirm the UAC as usual, and it wouldn't stop a thing.

It is more of a warning than an actual security mechanism though. Similar to Mark of the Web.

> Static Driver Verifier

Well, the Crowdstrike driver isn't (wasn't?) static. It loaded a file that Crowdstrike changed with an update.

Most drivers pass through rigorous verification on every change. But Crowdstrike is (was?) allowed to change their driver whenever they want by designing it to load a file.

I’ve been watching ReactOS development for years and and progress is slow but steady. I’m excited for the point where it will be fully usable as a drop in replacement for old Windows software.

Linux UIs can’t even align fonts correctly within the elements.

It is miles away from the original and you can immediately see its Linux because things don’t quite line up. Huge difference in quality, attention to detail, and the entire interface becomes unpleasant to look at.

Also, Linux power management and lack of hibernation means its useless on laptops

Plenty of distros/skins get it 99% of the way there for a similar looking screenshot but only 25% of the way there for the actual user interface experience. ReactOS is probably the closest (in terms of going down a holistic user interface approach) but saying it's 25% the way there to being a finished solution would be generous.

While DEs often emulate the look of macOS or Windows, they always get the feel wrong. You can put a global menu bar, Dock, etc into KDE, but ultimately it still acts like KDE and nothing like macOS.

Adding to this If you're willing to go third party

Everything can give you instant search, and with a PowerToys plugin you can integrate it into PowerToys Run, which gives you an Alfred Style search bar

WizTree works for visual inspection of Storage

Screenshots apps, Markdown Viewers, are common enough, won't comment further on those

On the printer disconnections: I've had some weird experiences, recently, a technician showed to me that, using the default windows update driver, my work printer regularly disconnected, but using the manufacturers driver, the setup has so far worked without a problem

Markdown should have a UI viewer

Both Windows 11 and modern macOS are slow as shit now. The other day I clicked the Notifications settings in the outhouse they call a Settings app on my Mac and it took a solid 3 seconds to render the UI.

And behind me, was a G4 Cube that could open the System Preferences app off of a spinning hard drive in less time.

What happened to us?

You can still give users a 24-hour warning at a minimum, and only force a reboot for really critical issues.

I use WizTree to see what's taking space. On NTFS volumes it uses the same method as Everything does to quickly read all the file info straight from the filesystem.

So much easier to use tar -z

It doesn't let you type text on the image. That's so important! The main thing I want to do when I take a screenshot is to circle something, or draw an arrow, then type some text about the item I am pointing to.

That's not enough. Sometimes it is system tasks that don't show up in the task manager.

You’re not wrong, but depending ln the org size those charges are still cheaper than Windows Server + CALs.

Ideally though, it’d be like Okta in that its core directory is in the cloud, but also like ADDS/LDAP in that local servers/objects can join to a domain via local containers posing as domain controllers.

Yes, I know modern device management and cloud-based IdP means the need for a directory is decreasing by the day, but Enterprises still want it for ease of user and computer management via a centralized database of sorts. Having someone, anyone offer me a leaner way of achieving this without a crusty LDAP deployment or expensive Windows Server + CALs, would be hugely appreciated.

In my opinion, the year of the Linux desktop happened more than 2 decades ago, when the last kinds of applications that were previously available only on Windows became also available on Linux, e.g. movie players and device drivers for some less common hardware, e.g. TV tuners.

That is when I have converted all my computers, desktops and laptops, from dual-booting Windows and Linux, to Linux-only. For some servers I have continued to use FreeBSD and I have continued to use Microsoft Office Professional, but on Linux with CrossOver, where it worked much better than on Windows XP (!).

I agree that installing and configuring in the right way Linux remains a job for someone with decent computer management skills.

However, I have also installed Windows professionally, and on less common hardware, like embedded computers, I have encountered far more problems and far more difficult to solve than when installing Linux on the same hardware. Moreover, the solution for most Windows installation problems was not using some menu in a graphic tool, but using some obscure Windows command in a CLI window, with some very cryptic and undocumented command-line options, which I typically found by searching Internet forums where Windows users complained about the same problem.

Therefore the only real reason why Windows is more user-friendly is because it comes pre-installed on most computers, after professionals have solved any compatibility problems.

For whomever has a friend or relative that is knowledgeable about Linux, Linux can be more "user-friendly" than Windows.

My parents, older than 80 years, have been using Linux (Gentoo!) on their desktops for many years, without any problems, for reading/writing documents, Internet browsing, movie watching, music listening, TV watching, e-mail using, and so on, despite the fact that they do not even know what is "Linux".

You jest, but with Android desktop mode support it might actually turn out to be true!

10.6.8

Still kicking myself for not getting an Axiotron Modbook running Snow Leopard.

Imagine coming into the mac world with a 10.5 cd and upgrading to the current 10.6 and then watching it deteriorate through years into 10.10. Yeah that's me. Peeking at a glimpse of perfection only for it to flash and fade.

Libraries confuse me to this day. Just give me a path!

Also let’s not forget that windows 11 puts random news stories in the start menu. Here in Australia, a lot of them are clickbaity scams. I really can’t believe Microsoft is endorsing whatever horrible choice of news provider they’ve teamed up with. It really spoils their brand image.

There’s a way to remove it, of course, by running some obtuse console command. But normal people have no idea how to do stuff like that.

Except that AFAIK 2003 kernel was different enough that a few apps and specially games refused to run, properly or at all, compared to XP.

Cannot agree more. Used Windows Server 2003 for over a decade, until I moved away from desktop to laptop and started having driver issues.

I agree here. I ran server 2003 on my early 2000's desktop for a while.

and 64-bit (x86_64 not IA64), which no version Windows 2000 was AFAIK

Windows 7 with classic UI is probably the most-recent decent version.

yeah while 2K was their best ever single breakthrough improvement, it was a v1 and XP/2003 in classic mode was a more refined 2K eg more drivers and better plug and play, more graphics compatibility. And 2003 Active Directory had a number of quality of life improvements.

I bought it from my college computer store for like $5 for the CD and an endlessly reusable license key. Truly the good old days.

IIRC, Win2K would wait for most / all service startups to complete before showing the login prompt. XP and later would allow login to occur while many services were still starting up.

It's a tradeoff. A Win2K system was pretty responsive when you log in after a reboot/startup, but you've got to wait for that experience. In the days of spinning disks and single core CPUs, you had to fight those still-starting services for resources, making the first several minutes of XP usage painful.

I used the NT 5 betas for a while, and loved alerts not stealing focus. But that came back in the released W2K, and I remember being slightly annoyed by it.

You are confusing 2k with NT 3.1. Win2k was not happy with anything less than 128 MB RAM.

edit: changed to 128 MB. It was XP that needed 256 MB to be any good.

Can it run Firefox yet? The last time I tried reactOS, it BSODed just trying to launch Firefox... and don't even try using Windows drivers on it, it'll either hardlock, BSOD immediately, or during startup, regardless of whether you're in safe mode or not...

Sure, Windows 2000 was definitely great in a lot of ways, but Server 2003/R2 either extended on all of those (e.g. greatly improving AD and its management) or added on it's own big firsts such as x64 support - all without really introducing any of the types of downfall people hate the more modern versions for.

It required attention to detail, from a sysadmin / desktop admin perspective, but it was definitely possible and paid dividends in users being unable to completely destroy machines like they could on the DOS-based Windows versions. I put out a ton of Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and Windows 2000 Pro w/ least-privilege users. It was so convenient to be able to blow away a user's profile and start w/ a clean slate, for the user, w/o having to reload the machine.

This is a forum populated almost entirely by people whose day-to-day existence depends upon building the new stuff that sucks :) (mine too!)

Android (all apps sandboxed). Desktop OSes are still barely catching up to this one.

Desktops have been in a rut for a decade. Windows has sucked post Win7 in ways that are either conspiracy or the most stinging indictment of managerial incompetence possible. Osx is good except it's key bindings are alien and the hardware is closed and apple hasn't improved it really at all in ten years and it has loads of inconsistencies with Linux cli. Linux has been in a huge rewrite of the desktop and graphics lift for no real end user benefit and flubbing the opportunity to make ground on windows while it tried to commit market share suicide.

3d compositing, ssds, mega displays, massive multi core, all completely wasted.

You know what I should be able to do? Hot execute windows and Linux and Osx on the same desktop without containerization that leaves 3d as an afterthought or worse a never thought.

Virtualization. FDE. Hot patching. Io Ring (io_uring), etc.

Isn't Sharepoint like an enterprise management tool? I've never interacted with it once.

As for appdata... There's many faults to find in modern Windows changes, but I'm not willing to pin this on MS. Microsoft stuff tends to use %appdata% fairly sensibly, in most cases. On the other hand, the behavior of third-party developers has been really frustrating. What was initially intended as a universal storage location for some program data has become some kind of program container. Now, whenever you download some giant 300-500mb Electron app or whatever, you can be sure that it will force its entirety into appdata with no way to change the location. Every one of these developers has decided that their program is so valuable and Important that it's inconceivable that the user might want to install it on anything but the system drive. No, our program is unique and deserves nothing but the best!

I am 50/50 on this particular argument for why OSes are in a rut. I think there is actual competition in the form of the various distros out there and they have passionate advocates with real skill trying new things but they don't really take in a more mainstream way and they rarely feel revolutionary. I think this is more of a track gauge problem. It is hard to provide a truly novel OS without building all the infra around it so that people can actually use it. That takes resources at a scale that few can muster. What if I wanted to build something that kills off the idea of a file system? All the apps out there are written at their very core with this concept in them so even if it is a better idea, it is incredibly hard to bring it out to market and only huge companies can do it. At the same time though the huge companies are pushing their versions of things which makes it hard to compete and have even small innovation in the space. I don't have a solution here. I had hoped things like web assembly would have led to OS breakaway by now but it hasn't really happened. Maybe it still will.

I always heard it as FuCK GateWay (the PC maker)

That makes sense.

"A computer on every desktop and Windows on every computer" was the company's goal. Ever since they claimed success on that one (glossing over the ubiquity of Linux everywhere else) they've been sorta directionless.

I like it for the same reasons. I just wish it supported high DPI. It, and Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion era OSX, at high res would be peak desktop usability.

XP also inexplicably required at least twice the ram as 2000. when XP came out that was a significant cost, and I personally was able to salvage many laptops at the time by downgrading them from XP. Eventually XP became the default for me because ram got a lot cheaper and the service packs and driver support made it more viable.

But then, tangentially, I started using ubuntu at work, in a sort of misguided belief it would make me a better sysadmin, and it was only a matter of time before I couldn’t stand windows at home as well.

I thought win7 was pretty solid, though I didn’t upgrade until well after win8 was shipping. But lucky for me, proton finally got really good, and that allowed me to basically skip win10+. Now it’s only for the rare tool that I even boot into my windows partitions anymore. When I do, being bombarded by random attention grabbers is completely jarring and I want flee as fast as I can.

I'm already moving into Linux for one of my laptops. If the drivers and desktop experiences are good enough (or bad enough in Windows) I might move 100% to Linux in a few years.

Thanks, yeah, I figured. Maybe I can move to Linux in 5 years. I'm already using Linux for my dev laptop.

The best Linux I have ever seen is Linux Mint. I tried it out because I needed to do something with firewire, but all of the other Linux kernels had dropped firewire, and it was the only one left that still supported it. I found it to be intuitive and friendly and everything just worked.

Eh, this is going to sound like a I'm a stick in the mud, but I've tried Linux about a dozen times now, and every time has eventually led to 'a Linux evening' that disenchants me from the fantasy and back to reality. It's fantastic as a server OS, however.

I tell customers that they should use LTSC for things like virtual desktops. You need stability, such as it not randomly deciding to install a 4 GB game like Minecraft for every user as a “critical update”.

Microsoft joined a meeting and told the customer that they don’t agree with my recommendations because they want to make sure all users get the “latest experiences”.

There’s your problem right there: pushing your own KPIs instead of what’s best for the customers.

To be fair, driver support sucked ass for NT3/4, and I don't think 4 even had DirectX support...

LTSC is likely what you want then (needs to be purchased through a VAR but it's not hard to find a smaller one that will sell single copies)

Well, Xenix was extremely popular since it was the cheapest option on x86. That said, I doubt Bill Gates would have hired Dave Cutler had he stuck to Xenix.

XP was the last that I really REALLY used. I've had Windows 7 (on my work machine that I didn't use) and I have a Windows 10 machine that I boot from time to time when I want to mess with recording gear. But I kinda fell into "they're all bad, I was just used to them".

I'll give my prime example. I used to know Device Manager/Control Panel SO well. I could just get things done. Now I have to hunt around forever to do any sort of hardware related task. In their attempt to make it "so easy, even your grandma could use it" they've alienated power users. My grandma still has to call me to help her attach a printer... but now I have to say, "I dunno... let me watch a YouTube video and pray that it matches the sub-version that you're using".

I don't know how good Windows 95 was in practice, but in our country where 99.9% of internet cafes didn't have licenses, or service pack updates (if they even had any for the 95 variant), it was a pretty easy Windows to DoS via the netbios vulnerability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinNuke

>95 Good

That's arguable, I thought it was poor at the time.

Windows 3.0 was good. 3.1 was a minor improvement.

When Win10 started, it was clearly Bad. No good reason for updates, invasive privacy-breaking telemetry, updates at random moments of the day, and everything was a little different but nothing was better. People flat out refused to upgrade when it was given for free. Microsoft had to force it trough windows update, and did multiple rounds of breaking software people explicitly installed to block the upgrade.

When did it become good? WSL and DirectX 12 were real changes, but all in all, my impression is that the user has been frog boiled over the years, with 2K,XP and 7 becoming distant memories.

The only 'bad' thing about Vista was it's change (and thus deprecation of many drivers) of driver model. Once tweaked and with good native drivers it was the first good 64bit windows - far more reliable than XP64. At least until 7 came out.

NT 3.51 Best

These are also mixing two separate streams: Win3.x/9x/ME and NT+

There is a pattern when you remove the versions few people used.

Vista was indeed fine. I used it for many years and had nary a problem with it. The problem with 11 isn't the core (everyone seems to agree that is fine), it's that Microsoft insists on putting ads and other user-hostile BS in.

I think the vista hate is well earned. Remember when Microsoft had to trick users into trying it by calling it 'Mojave' instead?

Windows 11 is the only version of Windows I’ve used where the taskbar routinely crashes on login and refuses to load.

Windows Vista was essentially unusable on release unless you had very high-end hardware.

A couple of weeks after release the first step after getting a new computer was changed from "downloading firefox" to "downgrade to windows xp". Unironically, many people did that.

The story I heard[1] was that Microsoft skipped 9 because people used to check for "Windows 9" prefix string to identify 95 and 98:

    if(version.StartsWith("Windows 9"))
    { /* 95 and 98 */
    } else {

it sure does