I always find it bizarre how different people's experiences are.
> I've never seen a Windows install over a year old that didn't have ad popups, corrupted drivers, 100 apps starting and running in the background at startup, or was just slow as all hell.
I've never had any of these problems, the sample being Windows 98SE, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1/10. I've never once had to reinstall Windows. As far as I know, things like this happen because people install random binaries suggested by ads, not because of anything to do with Windows, and stopping that is a large reason why we have the locked-down ecosystem we have today.
I do think Windows has gotten worse over time, but I've never found Windows to require any "maintenance" since the days of defragging disks.
> I've never seen a Windows install over a year old that didn't have ad popups, corrupted drivers, 100 apps starting and running in the background at startup, or was just slow as all hell.
I've never had any of these problems, the sample being Windows 98SE, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1/10. I've never once had to reinstall Windows. As far as I know, things like this happen because people install random binaries suggested by ads, not because of anything to do with Windows, and stopping that is a large reason why we have the locked-down ecosystem we have today.
I do think Windows has gotten worse over time, but I've never found Windows to require any "maintenance" since the days of defragging disks.