I dare say it, too. I really liked that era. Win7 was cool, the gaming division's aesthetic and marketing were cool. Original X-Box? Man that was a JAM.

I mean, part of it was just being young and naive too I guess, because I have plenty of memes from the '95 era about how evil Gates was/is. (Internet Explorer was a hot button topic back then!)

But also I think the landscape was competing for favor of the users (however underhandedly as usual) rather than how the landscape is now: Where end users are more of an afterthought and now it's all just about farming users while billionaires pass money back and forth.

EDIT: I was already maining Linux by then, but Microsoft definitely hit my shitlist when they decided to just paperweight WMR devices entirely. Screw them.