Which iteration of Windows was the best?

    Which version of Windows was the best? 37

    1. Pre-Windows 95 (0) 0%
    2. Windows 95 (1) 3%
    3. Windows 98 (FE & SE) (2) 5%
    4. Windows 2000 (0) 0%
    5. Windows ME (1) 3%
    6. Windows XP (2) 5%
    7. Windows Vista (3) 8%
    8. Windows 7 (14) 38%
    9. Windows 8 (original and 8.1) (2) 5%
    10. Windows 10 (7) 19%
    11. Windows 11 (5) 14%

    A little more than a year ago, I created a poll on the ProBoards forums asking a rather simple question: which iteration of Windows was the best? Today, I'm asking the same question again now that Windows 11 has come out.


    Personally, my answer is tied between Windows 7 and Windows XP. While Windows 7 wasn't nearly as customizable as Windows XP was, its Aero theme looks absolutely beautiful. With that being said, Windows XP was absolutely bulletproof in terms of stability and reliability, especially compared to previous operating systems like Windows ME which ran under the Windows 9x kernel. While Windows 7 is also extremely stable, it's still not as stable as XP.

    honestly, i gotta do this in a bit of a tier list as its not easy pick a winner


    xp-8.1 are like my S tier operating systems. yeah im including vista and less surprisingly 8 and 8.1. vista had a very shitty launch that tarnished its reputation and 8 had quite the exotic UI change. say what you want about those two but they're stable in my experience and thats what mostly counts


    im too young to have had proper experience with anything before XP. but i've had some experience with either 2000 or 98 on actual hardware in my playgroup PC when i was that young. and i did hear that ME and 98 FE are dogshit.


    11 is a step in the right direction from 10, i personally find it a lot more tolerable. i know a lot of people dont think it with how streamlined things are now but i only have a few gripes mainly with its context menu but they've generally made a UI change for the better here. it just looks.


    10, i dont like it. atleast out of the box. it uses more resources then it could actually believe it needs, has bollock software i'd never use and just looks aids out of the box to this day. its possible to make an LTSC version likable with tweaks and all. i actually see too many craptops with hard drives that i have to downgrade to 8.1 to work so much better

    i fucking put everything into you and you stomped on it.

    I vote XP because of the fact that you can find it still being used all the time today. Many other Windows iterations have had a similar longevity, but none can really compete with that of XP.

    ↩  FromTimeToTime yeah i know i said that but literally yesterday i was going through winaero tweaker on 11 on college pc's and i've changed the option and completely forgot about it till now lmao

    i fucking put everything into you and you stomped on it.

    ↩  Alco_Rs11 cap though. earlier versions of Windows (XP and even 7) were notoriously unreliable for me and ran into many more issues than 10. Look, I don't like the UI inconsistencies in Windows 10, but Windows 10 has been objectively much more stable for me

    Vista. It had the necessary security improvements XP lacked, was the last edition without unsolicited telemetrics and the one to introduce the beloved Aero theme.



    Nah I'm undecided between XP or 7

    TotalFreedom's Executive Community & Marketing Manager

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