Ya, gotta give you that. Linux users tend to be more likely to have an actual idea of how their computers actually work than your average windows user. However, that is no excuse for how utterly broken and primitive the windows update system is. Allow me to give you an example.
About a year or so ago I bought a copy of Win7 pro to run in a VM so I can do itunes for my phone. Really. That's it's primary purpose in life (itunes and phone backups-which you can't do in Linux to the best of my knowledge). So, I installed it in a VM, on what was essentially a bare-metal install. I'm not going to complain about the initial install process as compared to Linux (fedora, mint, or ubuntu), inasmuch as it is much more =needy= than the Linux install is. (my opinion).
OK, so, I the thing was installed, and I fired it up. (The initial user was assigned administrator privs. OMFG) Then I did the initial update. Cool, it went out, said you have BLAH many updates, do you want to do it? Ya, says I, update yourself please. It took a long time for that initial bunch of updates to download (ya, takes forever for the initial update of mint/fedora/whatever). Then it wanted me to reboot. OK. Fine, whatever. Reboot. I logged back in once it was back up. Then it says, "hey bro, you've got a bunch of crap you need to update, want me to do that?" Yeah. Download (again), update, (again), reboot (again), login, (again). Hey dude, you have a bunch of crap you need to update, do you want me to do that? (OK, let's try it again. Download (again, again), update (again, again), reboot, (again, again), login (again, again). After a few minutes, it says, once bloody again, you have some stuff you need to update. Want me to do that?
This process repeated at least four times. Possibly five. Can you possibly defend that?
Here's what I had to do when I installed Linux Mint in a VM. Install, answer some questions. Reboot. Login. (to a user that was NOT an administrator) After a little while, it tells me I have updates. I download, install then continue on with my work. I rebooted the VM that night just because I'm paranoid after a major update like that, and want to make sure I can still boot, but it wasn't required.
THIS is why I say the windows update process is fundamentally broken and archaic.
Yeah, hard to take anything you say in your example too seriously because you are talking about a 7 year old OS. A year ago it was 6 years old, and had been succeeded by Windows 8 3 years previous. I know for a fact that a lot of what you’re complaining about was in areas that were improved (the default admin log-in,mfor example).
I bet you don’t install 6-7 year old Debian distros and then complain about how much better the current version of Ubuntu is. This is another disadvantage Microsoft has - users that refuse to upgrade and them pitch an absolute hissy fit if you drop support for an old version or release some software that isn’t compatible with it.
Also, regarding the installer, Windows has Linux beat hands down there. Some distros have gotten very good at this. but there’s not a one of them that supports the breadth of hardware and upgrade configurations that windows does. As far as the installation UI, they are all about the same now.
I will freely admit that Windows has some major flaws, but you haven’t identified any of them here. Get back to me with an Apples to Apples comparison.