Last Windoze I used was XP. Back then most geeks reinstalled the OS from scratch every few months or so. This was necessary to combat the inevitable rot that happened to every installation. There was always a number of things that were necessary to install to make the system usable every time. We worked out how to streamline some things by building custom installation discs. But there was still a load of effort and accumulated knowledge applied to just using the damn thing.
I'd been playing with Linux for a while but hadn't got beyond the dual-booting phase. Then at some point I realised that if I put as much effort into Linux to learn how things worked etc. it would probably be just as good in practice. Why did I continue to put up with Windows? Turns out I was right. I haven't had Windoze in my house for well over a decade at this point. I never had to use Vista. One of the best choices I ever made.
I'd been playing with Linux for a while but hadn't got beyond the dual-booting phase. Then at some point I realised that if I put as much effort into Linux to learn how things worked etc. it would probably be just as good in practice. Why did I continue to put up with Windows? Turns out I was right. I haven't had Windoze in my house for well over a decade at this point. I never had to use Vista. One of the best choices I ever made.