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<rant>

Surprisingly, given the bad start it had, fully updated Vista 64 late in its run was better than XP, 7, 8, and 10. Many people made their minds up early when Vista had issues, so never got to see how well it worked later. It was a faster, more secure, more capable version of XP for practical purposes.

I realize am in a minority saying that, but I went from not liking Vista, to loving it; and to being mad I had to move on from it.

I used all these OSs extensively at the same time on different machines, and progressively updated hardware on my favorite Vista system for years (nothing left but the OS which was even on new hard drives with entirely new motherboards and processors and video "cards." I never would have moved on to Windows 7 / 8 / 10 except for Vista being orphaned to the point of being an increased security risk, plus of course the eventual lack of compatibility on new devices, etc. I did not want to re-install all my very complicated end extensively customized software. If you keep a clean system and it is running well it is a myth that you have to re-install a clean version periodically. Reinstalling 100 programs and re-customizing them all if just too hard to do right if it is not necessary.

Microsoft's dumbing down and the "Metro" thing to make Windows (and Mac OS also) look like a phone, where, for example, they...

minimize the use of overlapping windows, AND
instead use full-screen dialog boxes that cover all context, and break up related choices into separate screens,
removal controls that worked well and provided context, like scroll bars that show you where you are easily and don't disappear for fake esthetics, AND
cease following interface guidelines, like consistent use of checkboxes, radio buttons, push-buttons, etc, all of which provided context and "the big picture" before changes are made, with the ability to completely cancel complex selections of options before they are saved -- now you basically have to "screen shot" an options dialog before you change it if you might need to reset them, because there is no OK and Cancel usually now -- selection change immediately for each little feature every time you select something -- try that on a nuclear control system!

This was all part of the new dysfunctional dumbing down that started with Windows 7 and accelerated with 8 and 10, paralleling the same dysfunctional trend on the Mac OS. In fact I blame Apple for leading the way on this stupid trend and Microsoft wanted to be one of the cool kids too.

These changes are terrible and getting worse, although recently I was slightly heartened to read that "the ribbon" in MS Office is finally being reversed (partially at least) back toward the same type of menu-based user interface we lost with MS Office 2003. People read words in a list to choose from (a "menu") aligned from top to bottom very well! Complex menus of changing icons left to right are dumb! English is not a pictoral language. The one and only purpose that really drove their use of "The Ribbon" everywhere (even too much in Windows 10 itself) is that "users" would not "discover" deeper features if they were hidden in menus, although I think "the ribbon" hides them even more! Therefore everyone has to have a bad interface in their face all the time just so that some lazy people can find lesser used features that they might or might never use. Now they put that in so many programs and the entire effect on computing is bad, Windows 3.1 on modern hardware would be a better interface.

I still use Office 2003 on Windows 10, it still works when installed right, and is SO much better to work with than the Offices from 2007 and up. I bought about 5 new copies from a Goodwill computer store as sloon as that ribbon came out back in the day, so glad I did.

And "Metro Sucks" ought to be a bumper sticker.

I also really liked Windows 2000 (which was Windows NT imnproved). It was so small and clean and so devoid of crapware, if they has gone on with that NT line it could have been really great, but the public wanted something cuter and dumber. So they mixed too much Windows ME line and not enough Windows NT line together and got Windows XP as a result. I was not happy they did not carry on with 2000.

</rant>