Every other day, it seems like we hear someone complain about how Windows keeps getting worse, whether it's by adding features we deem unnecessary or shoving ads down users' throats. And all of that is valid criticism (after all, I'm a macOS and Linux user now), but the claims that Windows is actively getting worse tend to get blown out of proportion.

I've used every version of Windows since XP as it came out, but I wanted to revisit them and see just how valid those comparisons are. Was Windows really better back in the old days? Well, there's definitely room for debate there. Let's go through each one and see some of the main things I concluded.

Windows XP

More rigid than you might think

Windows XP is the first operating system I remember using on my family's desktop computer back in the early 2000s, and I have many fond memories of it, but it's also easy to see where cracks start to form when you're used to a more modern experience. While app windows were easily resizable and movable, the ability to snap apps to any side of the screen to split it wasn't available yet. To be fair, screens were lower resolution back then, so multitasking side-by-side made a little less sense.

But customization on Windows XP was also not that great if you weren't willing to install third-party apps, which were a big risk. Only three color themes were available for the default style, and if you wanted more color options, you had to revert to the "classic" themes that already felt outdated at the time. And as much as we can complain about the Start menu today, the one on Windows XP wasn't without limitations, and it was a bit harder to edit. Plus, without a search bar, anything you couldn't access from the main screen required a few clicks to get to.

Everything feels a little more cumbersome in this version. Windows Explorer didn't show you a file tree at all times, which made it easier to jump to different locations, plus there wasn't much in the way of customization for what folders and files are shown under "My Computer".

That's not even getting into some of the complexities that come over more long-term use, like how USB devices were far less "plug-and-play" than they are today. Setting up peripherals could be ridiculously complicated by today's standards. I will give XP this, though: it still has the best collection of games to be included with any version of Windows.

Windows Vista

More modern, with a lot of pitfalls

Windows Vista gets a bad rap (and that's an understatement), but it was a big leap forward for Windows in many ways. A few of the problems I just mentioned were actually addressed in this version, including more customization in terms of colors, which can apply to windows, the taskbar, and, to some extent, the Start menu now. It also added a search bar to the Start menu so you can find apps more quickly. Windows Explorer got some big upgrades too, making it easy to add favorite links and showing a directory of all the major locations on your PC.

Still, a lot of the features that make productivity easier today weren't here yet. Snapping apps to the sides of the screen wasn't possible yet and multitasking was still a bit harder. The Start menu also still lacked a ton of customization, and had a significant portion of it reserved for items you couldn't fully control. You could remove items from the side panel, but the panel always remained there. It was a very vertical menu.

Plus, Vista had a lot of well-known issues, like its overly aggressive User Account Control, high resource usage and lower performance, and the introduction of Gadgets that always stayed on the desktop and posed a security risk. And tools that you may take for granted today weren't here yet, either. Screenshots were much more difficult to capture with the Snipping Tool at this time since there wasn't a dedicated shortcut, and screen recordings just required third-party software. A lot of this wouldn't change for a very long time.

Windows 7

Still missing a lot

Windows 7 was a cleanup job after Vista, and it improved on a lot of things, but many of the same complaints I had before still apply. The Start menu wasn't all that customizable or optimized for space considering it only supported a list view and couldn't be resized horizontally.

Some big improvements were made, though, including a more user-friendly Windows Explorer that more closely resembles what we have today, changes to Gadgets that allowed them to be moved anywhere on the desktop, and some performance improvements across the board. Plus, User Account Control was toned down significantly so it got in the way less frequently.

Other aspects also improved, as you could now drag windows to either side of the screen to have them take up that half of the display, as well as drag them to the top of the screen to maximize them. However, we were still nowhere near the level of flexibility Windows 11 offers today. Apps would always resize to take half of the screen when you dragged them to the edges, even if another window was already snapped to the other side, whereas today, Windows can automatically fill the blank space in each situation. Not to mention all the options that were still missing, such as snapping to quarters, or the ability to resize snapped apps simultaneously.

And I haven't touched on it before, but let's also consider there was no support for virtual desktops at this time, either. You had one desktop, and that was it.

Windows 8.1 (and 8)

What a mess

Windows 8.1 barely needs any further criticism, but let's get through it quickly. In an attempt to make the OS more friendly to tablets, Microsoft created a divided experience that hurt everyone. Desktop users were forced to have a full-screen Start menu that constantly removed them from their usual context, while tablet users only had a subset of features that were reasonably usable because the desktop itself wasn't that optimized for touch. The new Metro apps didn't mesh with the classic desktop programs at all, and the entire experience felt disjointed.

Technically, Windows 8.1 did introduce some cool things, though, like the ability to snap apps side-by-side and resize them simultaneously... but this only worked for Metro apps, so desktop users still didn't have a great experience for multitasking. It also introduced on-demand file syncing for OneDrive, allowing you to view your online-only files without downloading them to your system. That's a major feature to this day, to the point where other cloud services can offer similar features. Even File Explorer got its best iteration here with the Ribbon UI making more actions more easily accessible than ever before.

This is also when Microsoft started pushing online accounts as part of the Windows experience, though it was a completely optional feature at this point, as it arguably should have remained.

Windows 10

Why does it look like that?

Out of all the Windows versions to reminisce over, Windows 10 probably makes the most sense because a lot of the best features in Windows 11 did originate here, though it really depends on what version of Windows 10 you're considering. Since it got many features over time, the final release of Windows 10 is nowhere near the same as the initial one.

But taking the finalized version of Windows 10, we do have a lot of the best things about Windows 11, including the ability to easily snap apps into different areas of the screen, even being able to resize snapped apps simultaneously to make use of the screen real estate more effectively. Windows 10 even introduced the ability to suggest apps to fill in the available space after snapping one of the apps, so it was that much easier to get started. Windows 11 just built on this by adding suggested layouts as a flyout so you can more easily visualize what your desktop will look like, plus saving layouts as "snap groups". Windows 10 also introduced virtual desktops.

And to Windows 10's credit, it probably had the best Start menu yet in terms of customization. It was easily resizable both in height and width, which meant you could see as many of your apps as you wanted by pinning them as tiles. Live tiles started getting some hate later on, but in terms of showing more apps at once, this made things very efficient. You also had a list of all your apps you could scroll through right away, and links to system folders and settings were shown in a very small area that barely took any screen real estate.

The big problem with Windows 10 was how bland it looked throughout its life. Coming from the very colorful Windows 8.1 style, Windows 10 brought a heavy dose of sterilization, reducing a lot of the UI to flat, single-color interfaces with a basic text font that had no personality. The "modern" style became even more bland, and while Windows 10 tried to bring together the classic and modern styles of Windows, the experience was very disjointed in terms of looks, with old apps often looking out of place next to modern UIs, plus some Windows 8.1 apps not getting updated to really embrace the new design language. It also took a long time for light and dark modes to feel like equals, with many old elements stuck in light mode for years. A lot of that was addressed with Windows 11.

Windows 10 also still lacked some important tools Windows 11 now offers. While Snip & Sketch made it easy to capture screenshots, saving those screenshots still required extra steps since they were only copied to the clipboard. And while the Snipping Tool on Windows 11 now supports screen recording, that wasn't an option on Windows 10, either — you still needed a third-party app after all this time.

And while we can blame Windows 11 for enforcing tighter restrictions around online accounts and ads, all of this was already made very clear with Windows 10. A Microsoft account was already required for Home editions; Microsoft has just been shutting down more and more workarounds. And things like ads were definitely not new in Windows 11, either. Windows 10 started including games like Candy Crush Saga installed by default. When Groove Music shut down, Microsoft started advertising Spotify, and that was still in the Windows 10 era.

Windows 11 is a net positive

Despite its flaws

I won't deny that Windows 11 has many flaws, from Microsoft offering all kinds of upsells during setup and in places like the Settings app, to unnecessary features like Copilot being injected into every possible surface. But with all the annoying things Microsoft has done in the Windows 11 era, there have also been a lot of improvements.

Multitasking has become better than ever with snap layouts and improved multi-monitor support. Taking screenshots and recording your screen is fully supported now without needing third-party apps, and the ability to open and create archives with file extensions such as RAR or 7z are also new to Windows 11. Windows 11 also introduced new security enhancements, like Smart App Control, device encryption that's enabled by default, and backup features that let you easily restore settings from a previous machine on a new one.

Windows 11 also introduced a lot of new enhancements to built-in apps, especially compared to Windows 8.1 and 10, where the "modern" versions of apps were very often severely limited compared to the classic ones. Windows 11 brought together the modernized design and more robust feature set in many of these cases, such as Snipping Tool and Paint, and then built on top of them with even more. Apps like Voice Recorder and Media Player also became much better.

Yes, Microsoft has become more annoying in some ways, and things like the Start menu are a legitimate downgrade from Windows 10. But I'd argue it's still better than Windows 7 and earlier, and at least Microsoft is finally working to fix it. Plus, at least we have a more consistent visual style that's also much more appealing than Windows 10 was.

None of this is to say that I think Windows 11 is perfect, and I do prefer using macOS or Linux these days. But when you look at things objectively, Windows has kept getting better over time.