Ask some people why Windows Vista failed and they will tell you that most of the problem came from hardware compatibility. I don’t remember ever having problems with Vista back when I used it. Then again I was running it on a brand new computer with the OS in question preinstalled.
And that’s another thing, I think you’re pretty much expected to upgrade your hardware at least every few years. I’d like to think that the people who had problems with Vista kept the same white-box PC they’ve had since 98SE, or even 95. Vista ran great if you had the right hardware. Maybe if Microsoft had optimized their OS even for XP-era machines it would have seen greater adoption.
I also really liked the Aero glass theme, it made younger me feel like I was in the future. Those gadgets at the side of the desktop were pretty cool too. Overall I think it was definitely ahead of its time, and with support for current software and hardware, would have been a solid choice for average computer users today.
I bought a brand new desktop with Vista preinstalled. I had a 3 year old scanner that wouldn’t work with it. That seemed reasonable. My 2 month old, $500 printer wouldn’t work with it either. None of my Games would work with it. Most of the software I had wouldn’t work with it. I had to buy a new printer, scanner, and software which was very expensive. I just tossed my games, which I regret because there are emulators that can run them now.
It also had major issues, and would crash a lot. Most of the new “features” didn’t actually work. I had it less than a year before I switched to Linux.
My son is into retro computing. He tells me that eventual Vista updates made it much more stable and usable, but I didn’t have it long enough to get those updates.
That pretty much ended my relationship with Windows. XP had me thinking that maybe Microsoft wasn’t that bad, but Vista left me with such a bad taste in my mouth that I could never buy another Windows machine.