Ask some people why Windows Vista failed and they will tell you that most of the problem came from hardware compatibility. I don’t remember ever having problems with Vista back when I used it. Then again I was running it on a brand new computer with the OS in question preinstalled.
And that’s another thing, I think you’re pretty much expected to upgrade your hardware at least every few years. I’d like to think that the people who had problems with Vista kept the same white-box PC they’ve had since 98SE, or even 95. Vista ran great if you had the right hardware. Maybe if Microsoft had optimized their OS even for XP-era machines it would have seen greater adoption.
I also really liked the Aero glass theme, it made younger me feel like I was in the future. Those gadgets at the side of the desktop were pretty cool too. Overall I think it was definitely ahead of its time, and with support for current software and hardware, would have been a solid choice for average computer users today.
Look man, Vista was a complete piece of shit in every measurable way.
Even if you hand wave away the fact that most important hardware/software didn’t work with it and yes you could get stable hw going…
And give it that the gadgets were pretty cool, akin to my widgets on Android…
The entire thing was a misbegotten disaster of design and implementation. And from a business perspective, they rammed it down everybody’s throat a year before it was even remotely ready. Hardware partners, manufacturers, software developers, not just end users got fucked hard. Most people ended up with steaming lumps of shit that could open a web browser if they were lucky, and maybe use their recipe software.
People forget what Apple was doing with the Mac UI at that time, and Microsoft, decided to sell the sizzle of that, forgetting that they don’t know how to do that. And it was such a internal cluster fuck It was literally never going to be finished unless it got shoved out the door.
It was one 1/2 baked idea layered on top of the next.
And you know it.