You were frustrated by Windows 98 because you could not reason about it on the level you were used to. But think back on the earlier electronic enthusiasts who were used to thinking about resistors and voltages – they would have been just as frustrated by your ZX Spectrum because they would not have been able to reason about machine code by thinking about what voltages they mean. The level to reason about Windows 98 would instead be by thinking about installed programs, registry settings, DLLs, etc. If someone came to computers fresh and started with Windows 98, this level is what they would know.
