Had to move to a Win11 machine, because of work - I've never been so frustrated with a Windows interface in my life. For reference, I've used everything from Windows 3.11 to 10, enjoying most upgrades (except Vista). Never have I experienced such UI and usability downgrade.
Windows 8 was a nightmare unless you installed Classic Shell, then Microsoft eventually figured out that desktops aren't tablets and deprecated Metro after about a year of people bitching.
This is the only one from the list that I skipped. They couldn't force me to upgrade from 7 at the time, then the reviews came, and I wouldn't touch 8 with a stick. Waited for Win10 instead.
I wish I could skip 11 to whatever next version they fix it with, but alas this time I'm trapped :/
I think they were feature complete with 98 and polished with xp. Everything after that was unnecessary bloat and chasing flashy UI trends (or worse, needlessly changing things to "innovate").
I use xfce and it basically hasn't changed UI style since xp and I love it.
I disagree for 3 things: UAC, PowerShell, and general driver abuse loopholes being closed and making security not a joke
I will also say from my personal experience there are a fair number of QOL improvements in the UI, but they kind of threw most of them away with 11, but hey, at least we get tabbed explorer... Which I still can't figure out any real use for, especially the way it's implemented...
Making security not a joke blessed us with crap like safedisc, securom, secure boot, denuvo, TPM, Pluton, Widevine, HDCP and more heinous crap. I think I can live without.
The only good thing is the UAC prompt. That one makes sense. Doesn't protect any of your important files, but keeps windows from killing itself. Sometimes.