Here's my opinion
98 3E was a good system still based on DOS so its works were more readily available. Could not be used however with many programs designed for the non DOS later MS offerings and had to be forgone.
ME was a bit of a lame duck. not too many problems, MS's first release of a non DOS base system. It's limitations heralded an early release of Windows XP which was a bit of a dog. However by the time all its problems were sorted out with SP3 it became a most reliable and friendly system and enjoyed so much by the users they stopped needing to update their OS's.
This annoyed MS because they were losing market share to Mac so they tried a new idea with Vista which was a bit of a look alike to to the Mac with few good points and all the bad points. However it was reasonably friendly and liked by many.
MS then brought out its enhanced Vista and called it Windows 7. By this time it had decided that to keep its market share it would need to lock up users so that they would be stuck with MS forever. It built so many if's and but's into it under the guise of security that it is very unfriendly to anyone that does not bow down to them.
Cloud computing will probably take most of their client base because it will save them zillions.
I have not tried Windows 8 and don't intend too.
I hope Linux will take over a bit more of the market share.
Barry

