Back to topic: I highly dislike it that I obviously can't install a stable branch .0 release. There is a reason there are stages before.
On a side note, I hope hEX Pro, S009 and new APs are coming in the next half year, too. 
Just to recall facts: there were electric cars in use before WWII.
I'm so very dissapointed and very very very sad that you people need to drive a new ferrari instead of your old and trusty fiat panda that you had to hand crank to start, get a grip, nobody cares, move on.
Overall user reaction across the MikroTik community forums and Reddit regarding RouterOS 7.25 forcing WinBox 4 (v4.3 or newer) has been mixed, leaning heavily toward frustrated annoyance, though tempered by the realization that it was inevitable.
Key themes of the online discussion include:
-
Resistance to Change: Many veteran network administrators who spent decades relying on the lightweight, native WinBox 3 executable feel rushed or forced into adopting WinBox 4. Critics point out that WinBox 4 (built on Qt) initially brought higher memory overhead and UI layout adjustments that disrupted long-standing muscle memory.
-
Compatibility Breakage: System administrators managing fleets of mixed-version routers expressed irritation that upgrading a core node to version 7.25 suddenly locks them out if they happen to run an older management tool version on a jump box or laptop.
-
Security vs. Convenience: Pragmatic users acknowledge that MikroTik had to unify the API backend eventually to support modern features, cryptographic protocols, and richer UI widgets (such as the new container management options and Wi-Fi spectral scans introduced in v7.25). However, many questioned why the protocol lock had to be strictly enforced rather than allowing a legacy compatibility mode.
Thank you for this very informative AI generated post.
Regardless of whether it’s for or against Winbox 3,
you can shove those AI-generated posts directly on trashcan.
It was just general information about public reaction... not sure why that would offend anyone but OK
I mean this is off topics but there where electic cars before petrol once
https://www.energy.gov/timeline-history-electric-car
It would be quite OK if you wrote it yourself and it was your own opinion, not just the summarization of known facts we have been disscussing.
Reading this I feel as watching contemporary documents where something is said but in the next moment I am trated as a dumb because the narrator repeats same facts again and after a short break it is repeated again just to remaind me what was said 15 sec or 1min earlier.
@mklassen: don't you have same feeling reading what you posted?
BTW: it was an ironic comment:
https://forum.mikrotik.com/t/7-25-stable-is-released/273987/138
OK I understand I also realize that there is a consensun to not post AI searches so yes that was my error... Like I said it was only a quick statistical search I made about public reactions not really a tecnical script or anything like that.
AI holds uncounted "Captain Obvious" badges thanks to generated summarizations of "obvious obviousness" 
You know what help. Is folks keep this thread clean. It quite annoying to have a dozen folks bag on the release process for issues they do not have, or offer advice that is repeated that "most folks" waiting until some point/patch release like .1 or .2. True, good advice, no need to repeat 10x.
By the volume of posts you'd think the whole release is busted. And, yes, software ships with stuff with "bugs", but sometime bugs do not turn out be bugs and are config/other-vendors/highly-specific cases.
I don't care that other topic on the forum go on tangents, that's fine by me. But it's tough to read through all these posts to see what actual issues are reporting in the new release... since for each real report, there are then half-dozen or more comment per one unrelated to the bug... not a "I see this too", or "not here" — those are fine.
Just think that a lot of folks read these release thread. Start a new topic if you have something say that isn't related to the 7.25 release, please.
Anyone can drive a Ferrari. Not all can afford owning one.
except this one is free
7.25 [stable] is ...
Kudos to you for speaking up and calling things by their true name. It’s exactly this kind of honest feedback that is needed, otherwise, MikroTik's QA process will never improve.
But brace yourself, because the forum defense squad will be here any minute. The pattern on this forum is always the same. They’ll rush in to excuse these issues by saying things like: "MikroTik gives you enterprise features for a fraction of the price", or "you should have tested this update in a lab for a month before deploying it", or "even Cisco has bugs". They will list all the great things about the brand just to invalidate your point.
The reality is, a release officially tagged as [Stable] shouldn't feel like a game of Russian roulette. Yes, we all appreciate the value, features, and flexibility MikroTik provides, but a low price tag shouldn't be a free pass for using the customer base as unpaid beta testers. Expecting a semi-pro router to maintain basic stability after a standard update is the bare minimum, not an unreasonable demand.
It’s refreshing to see someone actually pointing out the real issues directly instead of sugarcoating them. If users stay silent, nothing gets fixed.
Now, grab some popcorn and wait for the usual forum apologists to show up. Any minute now, they will arrive to defend the brand with the classic excuses:
- It's so cheap, what do you expect?
- You must have misconfigured it, show your export.
- You should only run the Long-term branch in production anyway!
There is a weird kind of Stockholm syndrome on this board where people fiercely defend broken updates just because the hardware is affordable.
You are completely right - if MikroTik wants to be treated as a serious network equipment provider and not a toy manufacturer, Stable needs to actually mean stable, not just another public beta. We shouldn't be afraid to click the Update button.
But you have to admit that this doesn't reflect well on MikroTik, when someone says:
"Everything often falls apart... you’d better test things first, as the updates aren't reliable..."
So, the person writing this (often... myself) is certainly not defending MikroTik:
on the contrary, they are explicitly stating that the updates are unreliable and that the company doesn't test them on proper way.