LOL I don't agree with your assessment of Windows 9x and XP. Windows 95 and 98 systems were built on top of MS-DOS but the 16-bit components used co-operative multitasking which relies on CPU time being shared between various processes. Also, parts of memory were not protected from being written to by user-mode apps. That is why the 9x series froze and crashed so much. The Windows NT family (Windows 2000, XP and later) is far sophisticated and its kernel pre-emptively multitasks so it can interrupt running tasks to schedule other tasks (in 9x, only 32-bit components had pre-emptive multitasking). Also NT family has true memory protection where each program is given its own memory space. So XP is a massive step up from 9x.
But yeah after Windows 8, things pretty much got out of hand from a usability perspective. Serious usability flaws were there in Windows Vista and 7 too (which is when Classic Shell was born). Now Windows 10 has messed up many core aspects besides usability. The UWP which is implemented on top of Win32 APIs but is "replacing" it has seriously broken and unusable GUI controls. The API is incomplete and nowhere near Win32. Large parts of the GUI and entire apps are implemented with these broken controls in Windows 10. Microsoft has also messed up the OS servicing (which was already pretty bad since Vista) and bloated it with so much unnecessary crap that CPU, memory, disk and network capabilities of the hardware that people have are constantly violated. Their software is almost untested, unstable, poorly designed, feature-limited crap and has no design considerations for user productivity or usability. As such, Windows 10 is the absolute worst version released so far.
You could install Windows 8.1 and use the drivers for Windows Server 2012 wherever you cannot find native Windows 8.1 drivers. Install Classic Shell and you're good to go for the time being. If you prefer Windows 7, use the drivers for Windows Server 2008 R2 (if your hardware doesn't have native Windows 7 drivers). For Windows 7, you might face some roadblocks. You might need to integrate some drivers like USB 3.0, NVM Express etc into your Windows 7 setup files, and disable UEFI boot in your BIOS, and enable legacy MBR. Windows 8.1 doesn't have these issues - it supports USB 3.0, NVM Express, UEFI, Secure Boot etc so installing it should be easier.
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I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.
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