Groan, the luddite mentality about Windows is and has always been out of control, with so many people insisting on living on decade-old software for silly pedantic reasons like "cloud crap" that can be turned off in 5 seconds. Don't move my cheese, nothing else can possibly be better, Windows peaked 10 years ago.

No, my Windows 11 system doesn't use a Microsoft Account. No, I don't get ads on Windows (web search and suggestions are off, e.g., turn Windows Search settings to "classic"). All of the annoying stuff takes very little time to disable. And let's not pretend that Windows 7 didn't have people looking to turn off things about it they found annoying. [1]

Don't forget that the system requirements for Windows actually decreased after 7 when Microsoft optimized it for lower spec devices. Windows 7 isn't actually all that well optimized compared to 8/8.1/10/11. Windows 10 and 11 are much better able to take advantage of hardware enhancements on modern chips that are vastly different than the hardware available over 10 years ago. How many x86 processors had big.LITTLE architecture in 2009? Because that's what Intel is shipping now.

Don't forget about all the things that are massively antiquated about Windows 7 like the legacy control panel with no search function, lack of multiple desktops, lack of basic built-ins like a PDF reader, garbage command prompt and powershell, troubleshooting wizard that did nothing, Windows Update still being relatively disruptive and unreliable.

Don't forget about all the things that are actually REALLY good about Windows 11 like the game bar, task manager, Linux tooling and aliases (can you run ls ~/ | grep example in a Windows 7 shell without additional software?)/PowerShell 7/SSH being preinstalled, expanded and improved window management, very clean and minimal visual design, Windows Hello biometrics (I can SSH to my Linux server with a key stored in 1Password, automatically authenticated with my fingerprint when I run the SSH command (I don't have to open 1Password manually), using the built-in Windows SSH client, can Windows 7 do that??)

Windows 7 looked good because Vista was so unfinished and inappropriately matched to the contemporary hardware of the time, but in reality it wasn't anything particularly special and had plenty of missing and frustrating aspects.

[1] https://www.maketecheasier.com/disable-annoying-things-in-wi...