If this your anecdote, or are their studies around this?

I ask because anecdotally everyone I know finds Windows 10 to be the most stable Windows they've ever used.

There was a big data deletion bug from an update that happened around a year ago, I don't think there was anything that bad in Windows 7

Did they not use 2000? Or XP? Or even 7 for that matter?

I've used Windows on and off since 3.11, and have used 98, xp, 7 and 10 a lot.

As much fun as it is to hate on Windows, if I'm honest with myself 10 has been the most stable experience I've had with Windows, with the possible exception of 3.11 (though that was a long time ago).

I've used Windows since 3.11 as well and I still use Windows 7 and Windows 10 every day. The rate of significant issues has been higher with Windows 10 than with Windows 7. Although they're mostly related to the UWP parts. For example on Windows 10 the UWP UI stuff sometimes stops working so I can't even open the start menu. That has never happened to me on Windows 7, although it did happen on XP and earlier. To be clear, I'm talking about the start menu specifically not the whole explorer.exe freezing, which happens on every Windows including 10, but can be restarted without a whole PC reboot.

It’s not like there was anything to do in Win3.11 other than Word, mspaint, Solitaire, and writing funny messages in the marquee screensaver

This seems pretty far removed from most other people's experiences.

Which is why I was asking if there was any kind of quality study / survey / anything better than opinions around this, because as you say the anecdotes in my anecdote arsenal seem to be quite a bit different from other folk (or at least other highly verbal folk) on the internet.

I agree with you SCdF. Win 10 has been the most reliable Windows for me since 3.11, except maybe late-stage XP when all the worst bugs had worked out. I think it’s always the case that people that have bad experiences are going to be vocal, because you don’t go around talking about “oh hey, everything worked normally today.”

The deletion bug WAS pretty bad, but it also affected a VERY tiny group within the subset of users that had opted in to experimental/advanced-preview updates.

All previous versions of Windows stabilized because they were more or less feature complete. The problem with W10 is that it’s continuously in motion. 1809 becomes stable, but before you know it you’re on 1903 and the trouble starts all over again.

Win 10 is fine for me.

Windows 10 is fine for me too, altho UWP apps seem really laggy. I understand the logic of callback style coding, but it seems like you click a button, and then the system graciously responds. Whereas in non-callback style coding, the system begins to do something and you feel like it's definitely on the job. It would be nice to have some kind of feedback constantly linking the button press to the response that happens.

Who uses UWP apps? At my workplace we have managed desktops that lock out the Windows Store and I don't miss it at all.