Except for my 2022 laptop, all of my 10+ computers are capable of running Windows XP (officially supported with drivers) all the way to Windows 10. The thing with any version of Windows before 8.1 is they don't work very well with modern hardware. Intel iGPU will report an error when you try to set a custom resolution higher than 2560x1440 in Windows XP, which means unless you're using a dedicated GPU with Windows XP, you can forget about hooking it up to 4K monitors/projectors. Windows 7 doesn't support HDDs above 2TB, I wager if you hook it up to a 3TB drive, Win7 will try to initialize it the wrong way causing you to lose all the data on the drive. The only viable ancient Windows version to use these days is 8.1 (works with 4K resolutions works with 16TB HDDs etc.)
To no one's surprise that Windows 8.1 won.
The only Windows that worked pretty well on my 7200 RPM hdd. Used it over a decade until support was cut off.
I'm now on W10 LTSC, but if I could, I would go back. Everything that Microsoft pushed with W10 died. UWP is dead, the store is irrelevant. Groove Music is dead.
W11 is AI crap infested that will probably break when the servers are turned off.
Win 8 was by far the most underrated windows version, up there with Win 2000.
They should add linux to the mix, it would win easily.
Quote from: astolfo on January 05, 2026, 18:12:11To no one's surprise that Windows 8.1 won.
The only Windows that worked pretty well on my 7200 RPM hdd. Used it over a decade until support was cut off.
I'm now on W10 LTSC, but if I could, I would go back. Everything that Microsoft pushed with W10 died. UWP is dead, the store is irrelevant. Groove Music is dead.
W11 is AI crap infested that will probably break when the servers are turned off.
A large part because as of windows 8, MS forced standardize the drivers, where as before each manufacturer did their own unoptimized bloated drivers.