I actually used earlier versions of Windows. Old 1.0 (like everything until XP) was just a DOS application, and I used it for the first time in early 1986. I sure didn't like it. It wasn't really a tool for multitasking; it was a HUGE resource hog, consuming both floppy drives and pretty much all of the addressable RAM, and it crashed every two minutes or so, pretty much every time you tried to use it for anything. Of course, it was running on an old XT, but that old machine ran Wordstar and Lotus 1-2-3 pretty well.
Windows 2 was similarly unusable but added the innovation of desktop icons. Windows 3.x was the first semi-usable Windows O/S, and Windows 9x could actually be usable in business settings if you could teach yourself the habit of frequently saving your work. It wasn't until XP that it became reliable enough to use with confidence.
People badmouth Vista. I love it. Seven is better, but Vista was almost unbreakable, and to me Windows Seven only seems like something that should have been released as a service pack for Vista -- they're about as similar as Firefox 8 is to Firefox 7. I have run a Vista PC with an Intel Core2 Duo E6600 since 2006 and it has only suffered two crashes despite a lot of program compiling, video editing, and game playing -- often simultaneously. When I used XP machines after getting accustomed to Vista, it presented almost the same effect as going back to a 98 machine after becoming acclimated to XP -- clunky, slow and primitive.
I don't know about 8 yet. It looks like it will be a considerably more significant change than XP was over 98, or Vista was over XP, and from what I have seen it appears to be more specifically tailored to touchscreens than keyboards and mice.
Maybe I'm becoming just an old curmudgeon, but I really don't like touch screens on anything bigger than a smartphone.