## Why Windows 98/XP/Vista/Seven? ##

Written on: April 10, 2025

### It started with... Wait... ###

Haven't we been here before? When I wrote about why I use
Snow Leopard to this day[0]? Well, yeah, but no. See, this
isn't about why I use Windows XP/Vista/7 as a daily driver
OS, but about why I continue using them and prefer them
over Windows 10 or 11. While the previous piece was
inspired by something written on another site, this is
more for thoughts about my own reasons for things, without
being inspired by another person's work. It's is me just
talking about a thing I want to talk about.


### Some History ###

My first computer that I myself owned was a Packard Bell
/Legend VIII/ desktop. It ran MS-DOS 3.22, with an early
DOS version of Packard Bell Navigator, and came with very
little in complimentary software. I ended up installing
Microsoft Word, Windows 3.11, and a metric buttload of
games on the thing, but it was still MS-DOS. It had some
limits.

Later on, I wound up getting an upgrade in the form of a
Compaq Presario tower, bought at the local Circuit City.
Came with AOL internet, several games, Microsoft Works[^0]
and Encarta, and quite a bit more. But most importantly,
it ran /Windows 98/. I was absolutely blown away by how
much easier it was to use over Windows 3.11, and with the
/Microsoft Plus! 98/ pack that came with it, it looked
amazing as well. I remember playing games like Moto Racer,
the 3D Ultra Pinball series, lots of Star Trek games, and
/so/ much more. I played on Neopets, learned about Usenet,
made some early RPG Maker games, learned the basics of web
design, and even got into art and creative writing, all
because of that computer.

I eventually moved to Windows Me, and had almost no real
problems with it (aside from a few hardware bumps). Then
I got an eMachines desktop with Windows XP, but started
running Mandrake Linux not long after. That wasn't my only
computer, though. I also ended up with an eMachines e2352
laptop as a birthday present, and I /kept/ Windows XP on
that one. It was mostly for school and gaming, but I also
did early YouTube as a Let's Player on it, thanks to the
likes of Windows Movie Maker, a TV Tuner card, and my old
camera. I liked Windows XP, even as Linux was my daily use
OS.

I stayed with XP until Vista came out, and even before the
first service pack came out, I had no problems and quite
liked it. I got a Dell Inpsiron 530n with Ubuntu not long
before I upgraded, but Vista was...okay! I liked the OS,
and I liked the software. I was using OpenOffice and GIMP
at the time, though eventually got Adobe CS3 to replace
a few pieces of software, and Microsoft Office 2007 got
into the mix as well. Same with Encarta, Firefox, and a
lot more. I also loved the Zune software, and even owned
a Zune for a while.

Eventually, I moved to a Windows 7 laptop, and thanks to
things occurring in Linux land, I started to move there
on my desktop...until I got a 2011 Mac mini. I ran Win7
with Boot Camp on it as well, but generally stuck to
Mac OS up until El Capitan. From there, it was almost all
a mix of Windows 7 and MacOS up until Windows 10 becoming
a thing.


### Windows Today ###

I'm going to come out and say it bluntly, I don't like
Windows 10 or Windows 11. Besides all of the required
internet-connected parts, I deeply dislike the flat UI
design, and it just doesn't function as well as older
Windows versions do.

There's also the same problem I have with Linux: Update
trauma. The number of botched and broken updates I've run
into with Windows 10 alone has me paranoid of ever running
them, but Microsoft tend to force those updates, even when
the user doesn't want them, or they would break the OS.
I talk more about that elsewhere.[1]

Meanwhile, I'd say that XP, Vista, and Win7 all still work
perfectly fine, even though they're end-of-life. My Dell
Latitude E6430 running Seven is still going, and my Dell
Inspiron E1505 with Windows XP runs quite well for its
age. Even on my 2009 MacBook Pro and 2009 20" iMac, Win7
is going strong, Vista and XP in VMs are quite capable, and
even Windows 98 and 3.11 are fairly useful for more than
just gaming via Parallels.


### Continuing to Use Old Windows ###

Here's the thing, though. These meet /my/ personal use
case, but it's not for everyone. I don't rely on the web
for nearly as much of what I do as other people tend to.
I don't use web apps, I mostly use YouTube on my phone a
third-party client, I don't watch livestreams anymore, and
just in general, my uses for a computer are far more simple
than those of other people in the tech/geek scene.

I mean, I have access to plenty of software for my needs,
and I don't need to constantly update them just to do the
work that I want to do. Microsoft Word 2007's UI isn't
cluttered and still allows me to write just fine without
upgrading. Adobe CS3 software lets me do things without
needing a perpetual subscription. WinAMP still lets me
listen to music without needing to be online. And even if
I do need to go online, RoyTam1's forks of Pale Moon and
Basilisk (on XP and Vista), Retrozilla (on Win98 SE), and
Pale Moon (on Win7) are all still being updated, so I'm
not really left out looking for a browser. That's not even
counting the other software and games you can find as FOSS
and freeware for the platform. Hell, /RetroArch/ still
builds binaries for as far back as Windows /95/!!!

Sure, the OS isn't getting updates, but believe it or not,
a lot of the "don't put it on the internet" videos seen on
YouTube were done with intention as a way to get views and
virality (as well as ad money). Most homes use a NAT
router with a built-in firewall that stops 99% of malware
from getting in on its own. The other 1% is usually from
browsing and downloading from malicious websites, so just
being careful will deal with the majority of that problem.
You can't account for *everything*, but you're generally
not in danger as long as you just pay attention to what
you're doing. Plus, modern operating systems are just as
vulnerable to zero-day attacks and the like before they
get patched. Again, you can't stop it all.

Is it the *best* option for everyone? No.

Is it the *best* option for /me/? For now, yes. It's far
better than me hating technology outright because of how
modern operating systems behave.


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[0]: gopher://gopher.prismdragon.net/0/writings/snowleo.txt
[1]: gopher://gopher.prismdragon.net/0/writings/whynotlinux.txt

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