I've been using Microsoft Windows since version 3.1, when it was just a thing that ran on top of MS-DOS.  Then with Windows 95 it replaced MS-DOS as the operating system on your computer.  Windows 98 essentially introduced the Blue Screen of Death.  Windows 2000 mostly fixed that, and it was clean and wonderful.  Windows XP made everything bubbly, but still good.  There was a period of time in those days when Windows was stable and usable and everything felt good, but you had to download third-party software to do things like view pictures and videos (and different software for different filetypes!), and to do simple/standard things like open zip files.  I think I skipped Windows Vista, or it was unmemorable, but either way around this version or Windows 7, everything started to become baked in.  You didn't have to download any other software to do the things you do on a computer.  I would say this was the pinnacle of Windows.  I think I skipped Windows 8, but Windows 10 was essentially more of the same, though perhaps a little cleaner.  We're now at Windows 11, and things have changed.  If you haven't upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11, your computer will tell you, it will repeatedly remind you even if you tell it to stop asking, and it will nag you until you throw it in a dumpster out of frustration.  Windows 11 changed a bunch of functionality, removed a bunch of configurable settings, and introduced AI as a core component of the operating system.  There's even AI in Notepad, the simplest, most straightforward piece of software ever conceived, ruined by a half-baked, unnecessary, unhelpful, undesirable piece of forced technology. 

Throughout its lifetime, Windows started out as a clunky add-on, became buggy, became the industry standard, fixed its bugs, became its true self, and then deteriorated into a worthless pile of garbage foisted on its global user base by techno-futurist zealots.  An operating system isn't the piece of technology people want to interact with.  When I use a computer, I want to use software, I want to write, create, learn.  The operating system is simply the skeleton that holds everything up.  If I have to fight with my operating system to force it to allow me to do what I want to do, it no longer has any value for me.  Windows has become a nuisance, a paper cut, a broken bone.  I guess it was inevitable, but it's still sad to see. #technology