Windows 7 voted most innovative Microsoft OS by Windows Central readers
Windows 7 eked out a victory against Windows 95 to be crowned the most innovative version of Windows by our readers.
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What you need to know
Windows 3.1 turned 30 years oldlast week. To celebrate the anniversary of the OS, weran a pollto see which version of Windows our readers believed was the most innovative. After a close campaign, Windows 7 (24.86%) defeated Windows 95 (23.36%) by a narrow margin. Windows 10 (14.57%) and Windows 8/8.1 (13.2%) also received noteworthy numbers of votes.
While Windows 7 drew the plurality of the votes in our poll, very few people commented about the operating system. One user, Andrew G1, noted that Windows 7’s main innovation was stability.
“I’m not sure I know what constitutes innovation in an OS. All I can say is Windows 7 had the innovation of not crashing on me nearly as often as previous versions. My main OS was still some version of GNU/Linux, usually with KDE.”
We added an “other” option in case anyone felt a different version of Windows was the most innovative. Several people pointed to the innovation ofWindows XPin our comment section.
“Why isn’t XP on your list? First to merge the NT/Consumer cores and way too many other things to name. I had to pick Win95, since it changed Windows significantly from 3.x,” said christopherandroid. “However, XP is as transformative for what it did under the hood as 95’s UI improvements.”
Our readers don’t appear to rank the innovations of early versions of Windows highly. Windows 3.0/3.1 only earned 2.94% of the votes, whileWindows 1received just 0.57%.
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Sean Endicott is a tech journalist at Windows Central, specializing in Windows, Microsoft software, AI, and PCs. He’s covered major launches, from Windows 10 and 11 to the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT. Sean’s journey began with the Lumia 740, leading to strong ties with app developers. Outside writing, he coaches American football, utilizing Microsoft services to manage his team. He studied broadcast journalism at Nottingham Trent University and is active on X @SeanEndicott_ and Threads @sean_endicott_.
