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Comment by hypeatei | Hacker News Reader

So glad I switched to Linux and got away from this garbage. Now I have to convince my employer to also allow Linux on their workstations.

Windows 7 was the last good OS from MSFT but even that had a bit of telemetry.

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I recently made the switch to linux full time as well. Even small things, like my computer taking three seconds from clicking Shutdown to turning off, is such a relief compared to Win11.

It's amazing how much frustration and cognitive load you remove when using things that aren't hostile to you. I've had the same experience.

The year of linux on desktop, everyone!

If it is about telemetry and related stuff (like that activation), it would be Windows 2000.

Sadly I never had the chance to experience it and went with Windows ME. :(

Activation, introduced in Windows XP, is the main reason why I consider Windows 2000 the high water mark of Windows. The Windows NT lineup was truly no nonsense, no fuss. Unfortunately the merger of consumer-focused Windows (which used to be the 3.1/95/98/Me) lineup) and pro-focused Windows (which was the NT lineup plus Windows 2000) coincided with the introduction of many annoyances, starting with activation in Windows XP and later adding nagging prompts for updates and security-related things, telemetry, UI changes, and more.

Sadly even macOS has gotten more annoying over the years with its various nagging prompts.

What Windows 7 telemetry are you referring to? Other than WER, there was no telemetry in Windows 7 to my knowledge. There was an update a few years ago that back ported telemetry to Windows 7 right before the final stage of extended support and final EOL.

Back when Microsoft started pushing telemetry in Windows 10, they added additional telemetry to Windows 7 through updates. Not nearly as pervasive and omnipresent as with Windows 11, though; you can just remove the telemetry updates: https://gist.github.com/xvitaly/eafa75ed2cb79b3bd4e9

Yes, it was me that backported some of that telemetry to both Windows 8.1 and Windows 7, circa 2015 when I was working on the WU team but we used WER to upload that to our endpoints. I don't think there was any telemetry at all before 2015 in the base operating system.

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