It was, eventually. In the beginning 10 was literally just Windows 8.1 (it even ran the same NT6 kernel) but with the classic UI slapped back on. They called it 10 to get away from the Windows 8 branding that everyone hated.

I recall it being pretty mediocre at release, just a reskinned 8.1. 10 started to come into its own much later after NT10

Aside from the start menu no, not really. Windows 8 is the most performant operating system. No laggy animations (thanks to DirectUI), fast boot time, especially fast on older systems. Windows 10 started the whole lagfest.

"aside from the start menu" is one hell of a caveat. When you screw up one of the main UI elements as badly as they did, it really drags the whole experience down.

Well most people just press the Windows key and type to open a program which works exactly the same on Win8. And personally I loved the start screen. And how often do you really need the start menu?

That's the most brain dead take I've seen in a while. Yes, forget about start menu and lets just search everything or use giant pictorials designed for 'blind' people.

Not what I said.

exactly! I don't understand why people hated it so much. It was snappy, clean OS. I've always thought it was better than Win7. Of course, absent of start menu was terrible choice. And I meant 8.1, not 8.

Windows 8 was ultra stable. I've seen uptime well over multiple years on it. The original UX was beyond awful and 8.1 made it ok but the core of the OS was solid.

Idk, I literally skipped Windows 8.