95 Good, 98 Bad, 98 SE Good, ME Bad, XP Good, Vista Bad, 7 Good, 8 Bad, 10 Good.
Counting 98 SE as a separate release does seem like cherry-picking in order to make the pattern work. Then again, you could also say the cycle started with Windows 98 (putting the whole of that release into the good pile), and you'd still have a remarkably consistent pattern across two decades and seven versions of Windows. Honestly makes you wonder if there's some deeper cause related to Microsoft's organizational structure or something.
If you're breaking out 98 into two releases, then you should probably break out XP into pre-service-packs and post. IME it wasn't until SP3 that XP really felt solid, depending on what hardware you were running.
>And then there's 11 which doesn't really feel like a new version at all to me.
That's because it isn't, Windows 10 and 11 both identify internally as NT10.0.
For some context: Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1 identified as NT6.0, 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 respectively; Windows 2000 and XP identified as NT5.0 and 5.1 respectively.
For all the rightful hate 11 gets for ads and tracking crap, once you turn it off it feels... fine. I even don't mind the UI look and really like the new window management, but I don't use windows for anything serious anymore, only gaming so maybe there are other issues.
95 Good, 98 Bad, 98 SE Good, ME Bad, XP Good, Vista Bad, 7 Good, 8 Bad, 10 Good.
Counting 98 SE as a separate release does seem like cherry-picking in order to make the pattern work. Then again, you could also say the cycle started with Windows 98 (putting the whole of that release into the good pile), and you'd still have a remarkably consistent pattern across two decades and seven versions of Windows. Honestly makes you wonder if there's some deeper cause related to Microsoft's organizational structure or something.