Do you have a favorite version of Windows?

The preview build of Windows 11 is already available for Windows Insiders, but instead of looking forward let’s look back. What’s your favorite Microsoft proprietary graphical OS from the past? Are you old enough to remember 3.x introducing PC users to the wonders of a GUI, and Solitaire? Do you stan for Windows 95 thanks to the start menu and taskbar? Windows XP, but only with Service Pack 2? Windows 7 just for rescuing us from the horrors of Vista?

Do you have a favorite version of Windows?

Here are our answers, plus some from our forum.

Phil Savage: Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not sitting on any Windows hot takes. As long as it lets me open programs and look at files, I’m broadly happy. Despite people seeming almost comically angry about Vista when it was released, I thought it was fine—it was quite nice to have something different to look at after years of using XP. Part of my ambivalence is down to the fact that once you turn off each release’s most irritating new features, it’s broadly the same thing with a minor visual upgrade. I turned off Cortana on the first day of installing Windows 10, and I’ve already checked to confirm that you can move Windows 11’s taskbar icons back to the left. Beyond that, I’ll continue to ignore 90% of the new features that go into an OS release, and in doing so find some measure of happiness.