As a programmer, my world changed when Windows 95 came out, what with being 32-bit and having an extremely powerful (if difficult-to-use at first) low-level audio API, since I mainly wrote software synthesis and music composition apps. I have not given two fucks for anything that has happened since 95. Quite amazingly, that audio API has remained in existence, unchanged, all the way until today. 30 years of not having to change what I’m doing at all has been absolutely amazing. That shit even worked, without modification, for Windows CE (Compact Edition) and Windows Mobile, so I was able to make versions of my software synthesizer that ran on shitty smartphones from 2005. It worked on Windows Phone as well, albeit it quite uselessly.
In a way you can. Install ZorinOS or Linux Mint. Add WINE, and you can set wine to “emulate” an version of Windows. I was using it to run some old engineering program and WinAmp
I’ve got Windows installed on a separate drive in case I wanna play Forza Horizon 5 (which I stupidly bought on Microsoft store because stepdad had an Xbox at the time and it was nice to be able to play on that as well when I was visiting - now even he moved to PS5). I haven’t booted it in over half a year despite missing the game at times. If it was Windows 7, I’d probably boot every now and then.
At this point I’ve forgotten if I have Windows 10 or 11. Chances are I did some enterprise version of one of them to get longer support, as I did the OS install like 8 or 9 months ago.
Oh how I wish we could just go back to W7 :(
As a programmer, my world changed when Windows 95 came out, what with being 32-bit and having an extremely powerful (if difficult-to-use at first) low-level audio API, since I mainly wrote software synthesis and music composition apps. I have not given two fucks for anything that has happened since 95. Quite amazingly, that audio API has remained in existence, unchanged, all the way until today. 30 years of not having to change what I’m doing at all has been absolutely amazing. That shit even worked, without modification, for Windows CE (Compact Edition) and Windows Mobile, so I was able to make versions of my software synthesizer that ran on shitty smartphones from 2005. It worked on Windows Phone as well, albeit it quite uselessly.
In a way you can. Install ZorinOS or Linux Mint. Add WINE, and you can set wine to “emulate” an version of Windows. I was using it to run some old engineering program and WinAmp
I’ve got Windows installed on a separate drive in case I wanna play Forza Horizon 5 (which I stupidly bought on Microsoft store because stepdad had an Xbox at the time and it was nice to be able to play on that as well when I was visiting - now even he moved to PS5). I haven’t booted it in over half a year despite missing the game at times. If it was Windows 7, I’d probably boot every now and then.
At this point I’ve forgotten if I have Windows 10 or 11. Chances are I did some enterprise version of one of them to get longer support, as I did the OS install like 8 or 9 months ago.