Windows 7 is the best Windows since - Windows 3.1

I have used several versions of windows over the last 20 years. My first experience with Windows was the 3.1 edition released April 1992. This 10 floppy-disk distribution was the first of the windows distributions that gave value to the end-user with its TrueType font system making it a valuable desktop publishing platform. You run it on top of DOS. Sadly the joint project between IBM and Microsoft named OS/2 never became a commercial success. The second edition of it was a pure IBM delivery, and Microsoft used part of the source as base in their NT editions.

For me the upgrade to Windows 98 was big as it added internet access. This change was bigger than the changes in the operating system. Windows 2000 could have been named Windows NT 5.0 but got the 2000-name as everything else in the year 2000. I used Windows 2000 until the beta of XP arrived – and XP (NT 5.1) was by far the best from Microsoft since Windows 3.1. Compared to the functionally at that point of time it was a good OS – but a lot has happened since 2001.

I will not say anything about Windows ME.

Vista was an upgrade from XP, but this will overtime be remembered together with ME. Vista was released just to release something new. Nobody needed Vista as the service pack 3 of XP was a better operating system than Vista. So Windows 7 needed to be the best operating system ever from Microsoft – and it is. Even compared to 2010 technology level it is really a great operating system. And now the graphical interface is at the level of Apple’s OS X. With the current (Snow Leopard) version of OS X, Microsoft is in the lead – making the future fight between the two even bigger. I am looking forward to Windows 8 – hoping that it will not be the next Vista.