The best windows OS Microsoft produced was windows NT. We had NT4 at work for some time and it was rock solid stable and reliable. WinXP was OK but eventually all the computers we had at home with it became cluttered with all sorts of junk and no amount of decluttering would sort it. I suppose I could have reinstalled but with all the business of multi digit access codes it was just too much hassle.

When the rubbish called Vista came along, I migrated to Linux. Best move I made. Reliable, stable, secure easy to update and upgrade and highly customisable and no M$ telling you what you should want or making life difficult if you don't want to do it their way.