This image was created by /u/[email protected] for this comment here: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/21735989. I had encouraged them to post it somewhere, but as far as I can tell, they never did.
Panel 1: “Installing Windows 20 years ago” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
Panel 2: “Installing Linux 20 years ago” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 3: “Installing Windows today” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 4: “Installing Linux today” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons


All after win 2000 was complete shit.
Even 2000, it was the roller coaster starting its decent, worsening after NT. Barely indistinguishable, but there were clues, the trajectory had started to tip down.
I think it was Windows 2000 I had to install on a laptop for someone…
This was 20+ years ago, so I dont remember the details…but i think there was like 11-13 floppies for the install that I had at the time? All of them OEM floppies… I think from microsoft, but maybe from the laptop OEM?.. and every time I ran the installer another disk would fail, and i’d have to go online and find that disk image and burn it to a replacement floppy. It was the worst OS install experience of my entire life, lol. I think by the time I was done I had replaced all but the first oem disk.