For those of you who do not know, a software product of the importance of Windows has been with us for more than three decades thanks to Microsoft . Of course, it must be admitted that despite the many successes achieved by the firm, there have also been some clear failures. In fact in these same lines or we will talk about some of the worst versions of Windows throughout the years.
At the moment most users are opting for the use of Windows 10, but up to here, it has been a long way. We have gone through versions of Windows that are still missed today, such as Windows XP or Windows 7, but other really bad ones. It is possible that some of the most veteran of the place remember most of them, or all.
In fact, many may have experienced the struggle of dealing with their mistakes and failures of all kinds. To classify the worst Windows, sections such as the hatred it generated, how badly it sold, how bad its reviews were, its short life, etc. can be taken into account. It is true that in this sense there are opinions for all tastes, so this list will not be to everyone’s taste, but it may be the most generalized.
So, next we are going to talk about what could be considered the worst Windows that Microsoft has given us over the years. All this until reaching the current Windows 10, system today Microsoft has put a good part of its efforts to make it better and better.
Windows 1.0
This Windows saw the light for the first time back in 1985 and it can be said that it had great importance because it was the first version of Windows. But of course, compared to what we saw later, this was a bit of a disaster. One reason is that Windows 1.0 exceeded the limits of the capabilities of a typical PC at the time. It was just consuming memory and making it too slow. This is precisely where all the criticism that this software myth received over time came from.
First version of Windows XP
We have already commented before that Windows XP was one of the best versions of all time and much remembered. But at first it was not like that, at least until the arrival of XP Service Pack 2 in 2004. Until then the operating system was a real disaster with many problems with the drivers and large security holes.
There were also problems with the new system activation system, all in order to avoid piracy. Thus, if significant changes were made to the hardware of the computer, Windows XP required a reactivation, which caused many headaches. Fortunately, Microsoft continued to refine XP for many years.
Windows RT
In 2012 the Redmond firm had the idea of launching Windows RT , an ARM-based version of Windows that would run on lighter and more efficient machines. Of course, this had a problem, and that is that it could not run millions of Windows applications designed for the traditional Windows x86 architecture. Therefore third-party programs were prohibited even if they were recompiled for ARM . Therefore, among other reasons, RT was a complete failure.
Windows 8
At the time, this was one of the largest projects of Redmond, something that was unveiled in 2012. Windows 8 was a very risky commercial move in the form of an operating system that could work with both touch screens and the usual ones. . The problem with all this came because their main customer base, desktop PC users, saw their productivity compromised.
The main one of this was the new interface that gave priority to touch screens, the so-called Metro. It was a great interface especially suitable for tablets, but not for desktop computers. When you got to the desktop there was no Start menu, and there were annoying corners to interact with this item. In short, Windows 8 was a bet that did not give the expected result.
Windows Vista
This is considered one of the biggest failures in Windows history. And is that after the great success of Windows XP, Windows Vista was the opposite. The new operating system came in six confusing editions that most never quite understood. Also one of the main complaints about Vista was that it ran very slowly on machines that ran well with XP. This was because it was consuming a lot of RAM.
Much of the blame was on its flashy Aero user interface and constantly running gadgets. At the same time, annoying notices from User Account Control and other elements appeared that almost no one liked. All this gave way to the beloved Windows 7 that solved the problems of Vista and went much further.
Windows ME
For those of you who don’t know, Microsoft’s intention was for Windows 98 to be the last kernel-based operating system inherited from MS-DOS . But the company realized it didn’t have time to finish an NT-based Windows for consumers. The result was Windows Me. One of the many problems with this version was that it crashed a lot, too much. In fact, no one has ever explained exactly why Windows ME was more unstable than Windows 98 was already unstable.
One of the suspicions was the rush and the few tests that were carried out with this system. Also, the programs running on Me tended to produce a lot of memory leaks, which caused crashes. On the other hand I removed the real MS-DOS mode, which was necessary for some legacy programs to work, especially games .
Do you think we’ve forgotten any of the worst Windows on this list, or that it shouldn’t be here?