It had this bollocky 'registry' which took me ages to comprehend fully. It was Microsoft starting to refuse to let me do what I pleased with my god-damned computer.

Nobody "comprehends fully" the Registry.

Myself, except for a couple of instances of Registry fun, I always had decent luck with Windows 95 and Windows 98. It was WinMe that was really got mucked up (especially when it started using the "restore disk" concept.)

You know, I think I've actually had more NT blue screens than I've had Windows 98 crashes. That's a scary thought. I've had some XP crashes, but that turned out to be hardware (video card).