I'd still be using WinXP daily today if I could. That was the peak.
I always used the "Classic" shell with no themes, not the Fisher Price skin that it uses by default.
I ran XP64 for a while, but once XP crossed into legacy territory for me I switched that machine back to XP32.

I had to upgrade to Win7 because of compatibility with some newer programs. I had to figure out how to replace that clunky monstrosity that Microsoft put on the taskbar and replace it with a traditional "quick launch" bar. I couldn't believe Microsoft didn't make that easier to do, but luckily somebody on youtube made a video about it.
With that done, Win7 is okay, bar the occasional frustration when I can't find how to do something. But whenever I use XP I'm quickly reminded that I still prefer it. The only advantages of Win7 are technical - more RAM and newer software support. It's not any more stable, every version of Windows NT I've ever used has always been stable.

Nowadays I use a mix of Win7 and linux. Windows 8 is what pushed me to linux in a major way.
Linux has it's own frustrations, but if you dig into it enough then it's ultimately very configurable. Once it's dialed in, it will respect the configuration and keep working. Modern Microsoft wants to fight with the user and control how they use their PC, so I spent my time getting comfortable with a linux GUI instead.

I have Win10 on a game machine but I have no desire to use it as a daily OS. Recently I turned that machine on and discovered that my video settings are now broken. I have to figure out how to revert that. Thanks compulsory auto updates. This makes Win10 "less stable" in my book. My XP system still works.

I've had Linux around for well over a decade, but I'm just not comfortable with it as daily driver, so besides messing with it when I got nothing else to do, only use it for few specifics.

So far, I've gone by with tweaking Windows to the point it works for me.

Computers aren't fun anymore. Maybe they never were. Sometimes I think about whether it even makes sense to have a computer at home. Why not just get by with a smartphone?

I'm in the wrong field. But there's nothing else out there for me and money rules the world.

I like Debian with Cinnamon, which has a very retro XP-like feel. Its still Linux though so it will be very different from a Windows experience.

ReactOS is probably your best bet for a modern XP alternative (as its designed to basically be a clone of it) but it's not really a completed OS yet and may never be.

UCyborg wrote on 2024-12-09, 21:20:

Sometimes I think about whether it even makes sense to have a computer at home. Why not just get by with a smartphone?

To do stuff, of course...
- Computer science calls them a real world approximation of a Turing machine, so they could do everything if given enough time and memory (and well, Android can in fact be bashed enough to run most "regular Linux" programs in a pinch)
- Moore's law says the phone I bought last week, a 2017 Xperia XA1, ought to be cheaper and more powerful than a 2011 Raspberry Pi 1, itself comparable to a few hundred $ Pentium 1 system (it totally was, though that's because I paid its 70 € price with a 100 € gift card I forgot I had)
- Common sense and observation calls it an open platform, and certainly when the first used Android phones fell below $150 or so is when the console homebrew scene died

So where's a music tag editor I like? Not on Android, it seems (and the phone I name-dropped is no coincidence, not only it's just large instead of obscene, but Oreo is the last good version where the iPhone ripping off at the expense of user freedom hasn't gone too far, relevantly to this specific example is the stupid scoped storage stuff)

Where's a decent video editor? Cyanogenmod had one, ok roughly comparable to the original ME version of Windows Movie Maker but it worked, and I haven't really tried to find an alternative, but a really casual search hasn't found any reasonable freeware or libre one

Decent maps? Yes, OsmAnd totally rocks and introduced me to openstreetmap which I love contributing to, there's also Magic Earth (also osm based, apparently from the ashes of Route 66 company) and Here Maps (still worse than their WP8 apex) but this only further highlights the fall in google maps since the gingerbread days, both in the android app and the actual contents (way too many junk entries)

Good browser? Firefox, but version 73 or something, still better and more efficient than the "completely revamped" later versions (as in a major engine change, removing about:config, and having a forced homepage button on the address bar)

Good games? Yes there are in fact decent mobile games like Strange Adventure, but I suspect it's spyware, and if I'm bored enough to fire up a game I prefer emulators anyway... which at large are retrocrap ports (yes I have a beef with them) or otherwise inferior in features compared to standalone PC versions (give me a full RAM editor and cheat finder)

tldr - maybe 10% lack of developer effort, 90% vested interests

Windows 7 can be made to look more classical using 7 Taskbar Tweaker. Taskbar toolbars work out of the box even in Windows 2022. Rather than trying to customize Explorer, I would use another file manager, which looks the same on any Windows, to avoid the shock of learning a new way of doing basic file operations.

I have read complaints that WIndows 7 has poorer classic GUI performance. It was from a Russian user with an ATI Radeon. He made a demonstration video ( 8tfzT1semVk ). I don't have a Radeon, so I don't have an experience of it. He made an Aero theme with elements that resemble Windows Classic. I tried to use it with Windows 10 but most of it didn't load. It was not actually announced as compatible. There is a theme editor called msstyleEditor, but oh my god, I'm not going to invest time in that. I do experience a strange issue where scrolling views get sticky, which is further amplified by smooth scrolling. Windows 7 suffers from flat greyness on its various panels where emossed lines ought to be.

I have upgraded to Windows 2008 R2 some time ago. I decided to jump ahead and get compatibility with 64-bit and more applications, and skipped Vista. Overall it works well and is stable. But it requires lots of tweaking, disablement and dealing with access being denied. But much less so than Windows 10.

While I can see that dragged windows have tearing, I don't usually drag them around for enjoyment or productivity.

I never plan to use Windows 11. I held on to Windows 98 for very long up to about 2005, and Windows XP up to around 2016.

Wind0ws 2003 32-bit supports lots of RAM. What does not work with it is various miscellaneous expansion boards and Creative Professional E-MU sound cards. Motherboard elements all work, Nvidia works, probably because they are also present on servers.

ReactOS will probably never be ready. They have focused too much effort on making their reverse-engineering legit and pure. Currently it has more issues than any obsolete Windows.

Linux seems to have much faster turnaround of updates, and I would have to deal with even more changes.

j7n wrote on 2024-12-09, 23:30:

I never plan to use Windows 11. I held on to Windows 98 for very long up to about 2005, and Windows XP up to around 2016.

Win11: seconded, Win98SE: ~2010, WinXPSP3POSReady: still in use 😀

j7n wrote on 2024-12-09, 23:30:

Wind0ws 2003 32-bit supports lots of RAM. What does not work with it is various miscellaneous expansion boards and Creative Professional E-MU sound cards. Motherboard elements all work, Nvidia works, probably because they are also present on servers.

I never found the time to really test/use all this MSDNAA software including Windows Server 2003 (R2) all editions...still laying around...somewhere (downloaded it all and saved all the keys back then). Just recall that finding a working free anti virus solution was hard to find.

j7n wrote on 2024-12-09, 23:30:

ReactOS will probably never be ready. They have focused too much effort on making their reverse-engineering legit and pure. Currently it has more issues than any obsolete Windows.

ReactOS already works quite good...but yes, I have it on my list for 15-20 years. What I have seen the last years they strictly had a view on the code being not reverse-engineered, if I remember correctly there were some issues many years ago.

kind regards
soggi

DOS_STORM wrote on 2024-12-09, 22:02:

ReactOS is probably your best bet for a modern XP alternative (as its designed to basically be a clone of it) but it's not really a completed OS yet and may never be.

ReactOS is absolutely nowhere near stable work state.

j7n wrote on 2024-12-09, 23:30:

ReactOS will probably never be ready. They have focused too much effort on making their reverse-engineering legit and pure.

look do you want something to legally exist or not

ReactOS, haha, maybe if I make it to age of 80 and sanity doesn't leave me in the next 10 years.

Ryccardo wrote on 2024-12-09, 22:20:

UCyborg wrote on 2024-12-09, 21:20:

Sometimes I think about whether it even makes sense to have a computer at home. Why not just get by with a smartphone?

To do stuff, of course...

Guess that's my issue, not doing much interesting stuff outside of what I'm paid to do.

Hello guys, today I had to work for a client, using WhatsApp to talk to some, Telegram to others, Excel to collect/send data, anydesk for a remote server and chatgpt to help me with some things like statistics, charts etc. I decided to see how I could work on my Windows XP, always with the laptop with Windows 11 in case something failed and not ruin my work (which feeds me) and I can say, XP passed the test!!!!

Sorry i need to blur many data, but is clients and customers phones and chats jeje

Im so happy still can use my XP not only personal use, but for work in real and modern times

Thats cool,
I was going to setup a XP machine during lockdown and see how far I could go but never did.
XP is for fun, anything later is for work

XP is not even fun. XP is for running old games (and maybe some specific apps) that don't run well on modern systems.

Back in 2014 I noticed hospitals and State government agencies still using WinXP.

dr_st wrote on 2024-12-13, 08:54:

XP is not even fun. XP is for running old games (and maybe some specific apps) that don't run well on modern systems.

I found VERY fun to fight with modern apps to make it work in XP, like the telegram i show

If i download and install.something without troubles is great but no fun

Beside that i found classic windows still the best to work and i have big fun every time in my computer, for example happen last month i decide to build a PC to connect to TV for movies, etc and while windows 10 is ok, i get bored and decide to install windows 2000 , at the end i can watch mkv, avi etc the same

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-12-13, 09:13:

Back in 2014 I noticed hospitals and State government agencies still using WinXP.

Oh, past year i help a friend that was doing dialysis, and the machine was running windows nt 4

Well my friend still alive! jaja

dr_st wrote on 2024-12-13, 08:54:

XP is not even fun. XP is for running old games (and maybe some specific apps) that don't run well on modern systems.

Not that Windows 10 is any more fun when it starts to chug for seemingly no reason.

theelf wrote on 2024-12-13, 11:49:

dr_st wrote on 2024-12-13, 08:54:

XP is not even fun. XP is for running old games (and maybe some specific apps) that don't run well on modern systems.

I found VERY fun to fight with modern apps to make it work in XP, like the telegram i show

Hi, it's possible to run many Windows 10 applications (x86) on older Windows versions through some kernel extension projects..
Most popular projects of that kind are KernelEx (9x), One Core API (XP), Extended Kernel for Windows Vista, VxKex (for Win7).
But that's all I can say. Needles to say that users require licenses for original software (Windows and newer Windows that acts as donor).

Jo22 wrote on 2024-12-14, 15:08:

Hi, it's possible to run many Windows 10 applications (x86) on older Windows versions through some kernel extension projects.. M […]
Show full quote

theelf wrote on 2024-12-13, 11:49:

dr_st wrote on 2024-12-13, 08:54:

XP is not even fun. XP is for running old games (and maybe some specific apps) that don't run well on modern systems.

I found VERY fun to fight with modern apps to make it work in XP, like the telegram i show

Hi, it's possible to run many Windows 10 applications (x86) on older Windows versions through some kernel extension projects..
Most popular projects of that kind are KernelEx (9x), One Core API (XP), Extended Kernel for Windows Vista, VxKex (for Win7).
But that's all I can say. Needles to say that users require licenses for original software (Windows and newer Windows that acts as donor).

Licences... here we dont have this word in dictionary

GemCookie wrote on 2024-12-14, 14:18:

dr_st wrote on 2024-12-13, 08:54:

XP is not even fun. XP is for running old games (and maybe some specific apps) that don't run well on modern systems.

Not that Windows 10 is any more fun when it starts to chug for seemingly no reason.

Agreed. It can be frustrating. XP has fewer background processes, that's for sure, and thus, fewer opportunities for runaway crap. Experienced it with Win10 myself.

On the average, though, Win10 wins for me in terms of usability, on a modern PC. On an old PC - 7, XP, 98 - whatever is applicable to that era.

Before 7 (maybe Vista) introduced servicehost it was easy to understand what services were running, and what they did without digging through the services control panel.

NT was hilariously brief by modern standards. You could get it comfortably within the task manager pane with space to spare.

myne wrote on 2024-12-15, 00:33:

Before 7 (maybe Vista) introduced servicehost it was easy to understand what services were running, and what they did without digging through the services control panel.

Svchost exists since Windows 2000.

If anything, in Windows 10 the Task Manager actually displays which service runs inside which Svchost. In XP you had to dig through each individual process to figure that out, and I think in 7 as well. Don't remember 8.1.