It would have to be Windows 7. Yep, of all the Windows releases out there, Windows 7 is the one I’d install on a new computer, the one that I prefer to use most of the time. But mine is not a full-on love affair.

Before I prattle on, I’ve been so über busy these past two months that I’ve not had time to update a blog post. Sorry! It’s been exhausting. Hopefully my schedule mellows out and I’ll have time to catch up on some issues and thoughts for the rest of the year.

Anyway, a reader asked me earlier today which was my favorite version of Windows. I had to say Windows 7.

I’ve used probably every version of Windows out there, including the very first version.

At the publishing house where I worked, we had a Tandy 2000 computer. It was one of the early models, which wasn’t fully IBM PC-compatible, even though it was an 80286 machine. Microsoft came out with a version of Windows specifically for that system, and I had an opportunity to play with it.

My observation was that Windows was interesting — and very colorful — but the command line power of DOS was just too quick and useful for me to consider something graphical like Windows. Besides, the Macintosh did graphics and integration far better than the Tandy 2000 with Windows.

I’ve used Windows 386, but mostly because I had to write books about it. Ditto for Windows 3.1, though they were a bit more useful. At the time, however, multitasking on a PC was far easier using the DESQview utility.

Windows 95 was a yawner, but I upgraded anyway because — you guessed it — I had to write a book about it.

I really enjoyed Windows 98. It was stable and fast. I used Windows 98 on my main writing computer from 1999 through 2008. I even bought a second copy on eBay in case I wanted to install it on a new system. Windows 98 was very solid.

Windows ME? Nope. Hated it. It was clumsy and awkward. After writing books on it, I banished that computer. Actually, I think I upgraded the system to Windows 2000 — the only NT-class system I ever had. I wrote a book on Windows 2000, then I reformatted the thing and ran Free BSD on it for about six years.

Windows XP was solid and popular — and still is. I liked it, but it came off as cartoony to me, so I was never really happy with it. In fact, I liked Windows Vista much more than XP, which tells me that I wasn’t a big Windows XP fan.

Speaking of Windows Vista, I never understood why so many people didn’t like it. Granted, it was slower than frozen snot on a laptop, but on a desktop it’s okay. I still use Vista on my main writing computer. The only issue I have with it is that Vista can’t seem to work well with HP Printers. That ticks me off, which is yet another reason I’m so fond of Windows 7.

Windows 8? Never mind!