Reinstalling graphics drivers from a real TTY when the occasional update hoses them is far and away more preferable than, say, ads in the start bar (for me).

... or installing fucking candy crush by default (which, really, is just a long form ad).

But maybe that's my inner (outer, now?) old man talking? I mean, Minesweeper, patience and a couple of others, maybe even a pinball game always came with Windows.

Windows never came with fortune though, which is the best "I didn't ask for this, but would have if I'd known" default I've come across. Yep, old man is now outer and child is inner.

The difference to me between Minesweeper + Solitaire and the Candy Crush incident is that Candy Crush was developed by a third party and, more importantly, is designed to be addictive and separate users from their money. The point of putting Candy Crush on Windows machines was to lure new people into playing Candy Crush and hopefully giving King + MS money. Microsoft is providing access to its users to third parties for profit.

The point of putting Solitaire + Minesweeper on the machine was to demonstrate the OS's capabilities + get people used to using either a computer or a GUI. Solitaire and Minesweeper were installed for the user, Candy Crush was installed for King.

I say to people that Linux is now the most usable of the big three. And not because it's improved.

heh, sad but true (maybe, I'm not familiar with MacOS).

Windows 7 was actually an amazing OS, everything since then has been hot garbage. I have no experience with Windows 11, but that's on purpose.