To an Old Friend: A Goodbye to Windows

We were there.

You were my first real OS. The one I crashed with bad C code, froze with my broken C++ while learning OpenGL, and probably abused a bit more than I should have with pirated tools I didn’t fully understand. But you were patient with me. You let me mess up. You let me learn.

I didn’t know it at the time, but those freezes and crashes were my first lessons in programming, system design, and responsibility. I wasn’t just learning code, I was learning how computers behave when humans get it wrong.

You were there during my curiosity phase, my mistakes, my breakthroughs. You saw the worst code I ever wrote and the first things I was truly proud of. You gave me the space to become who I am now.

But we’ve grown apart.

I still remember Windows 7 like it was yesterday: stable, respectful, customizable. Windows 10, for all its noise, still gave me room to breathe. But now, Windows 11… it’s not you anymore. It’s not me either. It’s a platform built for a different kind of user, with different priorities.

I’ve found other places that support who I am now. Systems that don’t reset my settings, track my actions, or try to push things I didn’t ask for. They don’t feel nostalgic. But they feel right.

Still, I won’t forget you. Not the crashes, not the late nights, not the joy of making something work for the first time.

So this isn’t bitterness.

It’s a handshake, a nod, a “thanks for everything.”

We may still cross paths now and then, maybe once a year, for that one app that still won’t run anywhere else. But the truth is, I’ve moved on.

We were there.

And I’m glad we were.