Windows 8.1 discontinued today – A farewell letter

Dear community, today, 10.01.2023, the support for Windows 8.1 ends. This gives us reason for a little farewell speech for this operating system.

Bye-bye Windows 8.1,
of all the Microsoft systems with online account compulsion, you were the most bearable.

You had the fattest calculator,
the best “hidden” functions with the Charmsbar,
the best angular title bars without Aero.

You had the most boring login screen,
the most useless lock screen.
You were finally, after years, an operating system that had a taskbar on every screen,
but still didn’t have native multi-monitor support for its primary user interface.

You have given us not just one way to do or adjust things,
but several, sometimes even branched ways,
you have given us alternative ways.

You made us users realize,
how much we should value our desktop.

And now that our desktop may soon be running TikTok powered by Amazon Appstore,
we remember you and your tiles.

And we ask ourselves: was that better or worse than what we are offered today?