Windows
In spite of what you may think, there are other operating systems besides Windows. There are Linux and a few others. But most people use a version of Windows on their personal computer and use it for just about all their computing needs, unless of course, they are using a Mac. Macs have a totally different operating system.
My first computer was a Commodore 64. It did not have Windows. It had a command line & no GUI (graphical user interface). I was totally enamored with it. It had wonderful graphics and I could spend hour’s just playing games. When I got a Commodore 128, I could do word processing and use a basic database. It was wonderful! All programs were stored on a flimsy 5-¼ inch floppy disk and the disk drive was a separate piece of equipment.
I never imagined that I would one day give my Commodores away & go to something new. My next computer was a Tandy 1000 SL. It had an 8086 processor & it did not have Windows either. I added a 20mg hard drive & that was big! It came with word processing, but no Internet capability.
Then came computers with Windows. I got a Packard Bell 486 with Windows
3.11. Wow! It came with a lot of fun games & other programs. Still no
Internet though. It did have a built in 9600-baud modem. My son used it to
access his university system.
Then Microsoft came out with Windows 95. I bought the upgrade &
installed it on the old Packard Bell. Now I had the Internet! I thought it
was great. Then I kept seeing ads for newer & faster computers, Pentiums! So
of course I had to have one, even though at the time I couldn’t really
afford one. So I managed to find a rebuilt Packard Bell with Windows 95.
This may have been a mistake. I became a real computer junkie & addicted to
the Internet, too. I was always tweaking to make Windows better, always
finding fixes for the everyday occurring BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).
Microsoft came out with Windows 98; I had to have it. (On a new computer!) Big improvement over Windows 95, lots more features and more stability. The Internet grew by leaps & bounds every day and I wanted to see it all. Whoops, not everything! Some of those sites were awful! Pornography & who knows what else. But there were so many good sites where I could download free programs, games, and utilities and oh, the wonderful pictures for wallpaper & themes. I really got hooked on themes and screensavers for a while. But still I got BSODs, so I was still tweaking & finding the fixes. I think I had more fun fixing problems than anything else I did on the computer. It was so satisfying when the error messages went away because I had isolated & fixed a problem.
Next came Windows ME. I decided to skip that version as I kept
hearing it wasn’t that much different than Windows 98 and there was no
real reason to upgrade. Also kept hearing from folks who did upgrade &
then formatted & re-installed Windows 98.
Then I got Windows 2000. Well, now I was truly happy with Windows! I had a dual boot with both Windows 98SE and Windows 2000. The only time I used Windows 98 is when I wanted to burn a CD or upload pictures for my camera, as the software is not truly compatible with Windows 2000. No more BSODs! What else can I say? Windows 2000 was faster, safer and a lot more stable.
Then came Windows XP. So, you guessed it, I got Windows XP Home Edition. It was on a desktop which eventually crashed and burned due to bad capaciters. Since I am hardware challenged and in the midst of a difficult move I didn't try to fix it. The laptop I have using Windows XP is still going stron and I use it to troubleshoot XP.Then came the advent of Windows Vista! I have a laptop with Vista Ultimate. In spite of all the negative comments about Vista, I have had no problems with Vista and I like it a lot more than Windows XP.
Since I am truly a computer junky I now have a desktop with Windows 7. It is sweet!