Windows 95 users you didn't go to the store and buy it pre-configured, you installed it. And given the crap state of the software you were buying, even if you did get it pre-configured, you stood a better than even chance of having to re-install it a couple of times during the year. And people loved it - prior to that they had DOS, (fine for me, calling a BBS whereever, but not for most people) which was just friggin' greek to them. Windows really changed all that, yet a reinstall is still likely if they get bad malware, or even just an install of some third party stuff that screws things up.
And most people could install it, get it up and working on their own - something they had an inordinate amount of trouble with when it was just DOS, and it has gotten better and better over the years. I walked hundreds and hundreds through it, and until we got to the point of setting up stuff that was specific to the mfr or vendor I was doing stuff for, it was just "next", "next", "next"...
I watched that bite businesses. One of the places I used to work, an ISP that is no longer there, depended, as did a number of them, on selling their expertise. Windows came out and people could actually hook up with nothing more than a small scrap of paper with their user name, password, and mail servers, and lots of them did.
Even grandmas did it.
The guy that owned the place used to just rail at customers and everyone else for buying such crap software (they would have fired a SUN employee had they tried to distribute such garbage), but what he didn't understand is that people have lives outside of his narrow little computer world, and they don't get this stuff because they are so enamored of the software - they get it so it can do a job and they can go on to what is really important, to them. And when it slows them down, or if they have to pay someone to help them, it often gets set aside, as it should, and they go on to something else that someone put an ordinary amount of thought into.
Win 8, on the other hand, appears to be reverting back, and lots of businesses are saying screw that and stopping with 7. Lots of users appear to be sorry they ever tried 8, and Microsoft, from what I was reading, is even thinking about coming out with something else. Again. boneheads.
Once one gets past this, Mint is pretty good, and each release is better than the last. But users don't like questions they don't have enough information for, and it always leaves a nagging thought in their heads, which can often times lead them to something else. No reason for it.
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