This image was created by /u/kuebic@discuss.tchncs.de for this comment here: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/21735989. I had encouraged them to post it somewhere, but as far as I can tell, they never did.
Panel 1: “Installing Windows 20 years ago” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
Panel 2: “Installing Linux 20 years ago” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 3: “Installing Windows today” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 4: “Installing Linux today” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons


The fuck? XP was awful. I left because of it. What are you on about?
Me too!
XP was what sent me running looking for an alternative. Nearly landed on IRIX, until I found the GNU GPL to read.
Maybe you had a specific experience with It, but XP was and is considered universally a good windows version, compared to its predecessors and the posterior Vista. Only losing to windows 7 when it launched.
Security was awful, multi user wasn’t, windows started the Microsoft id program with it, they lied about removing programs with an apllication that only hid them, they tied music downloads to explorer only, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
It was a nasty looking mess, got hacked in 10 minutes if you put it on the internet until service pack 3, and in person it wouldn’t last 3 minutes.
That’s leaving out the crazy licensing programs they introduced.
It was really, really bad. But since a lot of people knew nothing before it, they look back at it with rose colored glasses. It was truly garbage.
Yes it had very bad flaws, which didn’t discourage its wide range of use. One can say it’s not objectively good, but it’s subjectively not bad.
As I answered below, it was part of the “good guys” versions of windows, not receive popular backlash like windows ME, 8 and 11
It was so bad I had to leave. It was bad. Like really bad. People mayhave liked it, but it was objectively awful.
So if you’re correct with that, that NewNewAugustEast and I find it intolerably bad means we must exist outside the universe?
Is this what happens… to the perception of those who remained with windows, those who escaped to FOSS, apparently just ceased to exist?
Nothing of the sort, just said it based on the general usage, for all the flaws it had, It was, undeniably a very popular and used piece of software.
At the time of its peak, it was not universally bashed against like Windows ME, 8 or Vista. It was well received like windows 95, 7 and10
Oh, sorry. I must have had a dyslexic moment and misread:
as
“universally considered”