8 ms·

I really like the Windows 95 UI. That's why Windows 2000 was my favorite version of Windows, ever. It was very consistent and functional throughout.

by tolger 7y ago

pier25 7y ago
I agree. Even if 95/98/2000 look outdated by today's standards, these are still the best designed Windows IMO. Windows 10 is really a frankenstein.
- airstrike 7y ago
  The fact that the Settings app and the Control Panel are allowed to coexist baffles me
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    The investment is too great in custom Control Panel extensions from hardware vendors, including for hardware supplied to basically all major OEMs. If they toss that, a lot of hardware will become unconfigurable.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    Control panel has to stick around for compatibility with legacy apps, including those that register functionality into it and call it's paths directly. It's pretty well hidden from users at this point and basically just a collection of links to compatibility components. I've never understood the concern.
    - pvg 7y ago
      There are plenty of perfectly mundane, common settings that are only accessible through the old control panels. And, of course, there are a couple of different styles of old control panel to begin with - the more recent 'modular'-ish ones and then ur-panels with lots of tabs and 'Advanced' buttons. As a UI thing, it's easily Windows at its ugliest and most baffling.
    - vbezhenar 7y ago
      How do I edit environment variables with new UI, for example? It's pretty common task and I always have to use that old UI. Thankfully it was actually slightly improved in Windows 10. Another thing is hotkeys to switch keyboard layout, it's still the same UI from Windows 98.
      - layer8 7y ago
        I'd recommend Eveditor (http://eveditor.com http://eveditor.com). Of course it would be better if Windows had something like that built-in.
        Kwpolska 7y ago
        The existing editor does everything you need. The only benefit for that tool would be editing %PATH% more easily, but Windows 10 includes a pretty good editor for that.
      - projektfu 7y ago
        Win-key "edit" brings "Edit the system environment variables" up as first option.
        vbezhenar 7y ago
        That command launches old settings UI.
      - airstrike 7y ago
        rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables is the most natural choice /s
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      There is a ton of stuff you can’t do with Settings but only with Control Panel. I don’t think you can admin a Windows machine without ever using Control Panel.
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        I use the control panel about 99% of the time. I honestly can't remember the last time that I even looked at the settings app.
        Ididntdothis 7y ago
        I have encountered a few things you can only do in Settings :).
        JohnFen 7y ago
        Yes, they certainly exist. But if I needed to change any of them, I've done so long enough ago that I've forgotten doing it.
        OkGoDoIt 7y ago
        With the past few releases they’ve actually been removing things from the legacy control panel, forcing me to use the new Settings. Sometimes the old options I want just aren’t there, since the new settings are always so oversimplified.
        JohnFen 7y ago
        I wonder if anyone has written a third party replacement for both settings applications? If not, it seems like this would be a very desirable utility, particularly as things shift more toward the new Settings app. I smell an opportunity for someone to make a few bucks...
    - satysin 7y ago
      Is it possible to adjust the keyboard repeat key delay without having to go to the Keyboard item in Control Panel yet? Last I looked I couldn't find that option anywhere in the new Settings app.
    - OkGoDoIt 7y ago
      But there’s so many settings where you need to drill into the legacy control panel to change things properly. Want to do anything advanced with your network connections or adapters? Got to go into the old style network settings in the control panel. Want to change your audio output device (for example to output to Bluetooth headphones)? Got to go into the legacy control panel audio settings. Want to change your power settings to not go into standby when your laptop screen is closed? Legacy power settings. Want to enable windows features like IIS, hyper V, etc? You can add features in either one but the old fashioned one has a nice tree list with additional tooltip information, whereas the new Settings interface just has one long list that is clunky to interact with.
      - pvg 7y ago
        Want to change your audio output device This you can do right from the volume control widget on the taskbar. One of the few things that's arguably easier and more obvious in Win 10 than in OS X (where you either have to hit the control panel or know to option-click the menubar doodad).
coldpie 7y ago
Yeah, despite 20 years of "progress", I don't see today's desktops being any more usable than Win 95's, for the typical mouse-and-keyboard setup. There's a couple niceties that have been introduced since then, mostly keyboard shortcuts for window management tasks, but otherwise it's all change for the sake of change, and change for the sake of advertisements.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Compositing was huge. I agree most of the usability stuff is around the window management improvements though. Overall I wouldn't say there has been a lot of change though, you could teleport a Windows 95 user into the present and they'd immediately be running with the current Windows 10 desktop.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Compositing was a hardware change, though. Modern GPU's (including GPU chipsets that are integrated as part of a CPU chip) basically accelerate 2D rendering by managing arbitrary surfaces as glorified sprites, which the hardware can "project" or "render" into other surfaces or on the screen in all sorts of ways, including occlusion, alpha blending, arbitrary 3D transforms etc. Hardware of the Win95 era didn't have anything like this; even moving and resizing windows only "animated" a wireframe rendition of the window, as with twm today.
    - bitwize 7y ago
      Windows 95 was the first release to support dragging of full window contents. I think that hack was even supported in the Windows 95 tech preview for Windows NT 3.51.
      - StillBored 7y ago
        But that was via BLT copy IIRC. Which is why there can be a slight delay filling the part of the screen being unobscured as the overlapped program repainted itself.
shantly 7y ago
I really miss that design. It's a lot more relaxing to look at than modern "flat" UI, IMO. Depth and consistent use of UI elements make it so easy to tell what's what. Modern UI seems to be designed to look like a static glossy brochure, even when it's full of interactive elements.
gruez 7y ago
>That's why Windows 2000 was my favorite version of Windows, ever you could still get the same look (with the "classic" theme) up until windows 7.
- Kwpolska 7y ago
  You get the (IMO ugly) look, but none of the feel. The old start menu, the old explorer, etc. are not available with the classic theme.
tomjen3 7y ago
I installed Lbuntu on an older ultra-portable machine, and while not extremely pretty the UI is extremely snappy -- and mostly resembles win 95. I do miss the ability to search for a program by name, but that is about it.
- worble 7y ago
  Lubuntu is using LXQT these days right? I'm running it on arch, but by default that DE should support menu searching out of the box, and if it doesn't I expect it's been configured out for some reason. Definitely worth playing around to bring it back.
Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
Windows 2000's UI was a slightly evolved 95 UI, but I think Win7 is my favorite. I used the classic theme so it looked like 2000. And since most home users had no experience with 2000, they saw the theme and thought I was still running 98 or ME in 2010.

I really like the Windows 95 UI. That's why Windows 2000 was my favorite version of Windows, ever. It was very consistent and functional throughout.

by tolger 7y ago

I really like the Windows 95 UI. That's why Windows 2000 was my favorite version of Windows, ever. It was very consistent and functional throughout.

pier25 7y ago

I agree. Even if 95/98/2000 look outdated by today's standards, these are still the best designed Windows IMO. Windows 10 is really a frankenstein.

airstrike 7y ago
The fact that the Settings app and the Control Panel are allowed to coexist baffles me
- microcolonel 7y ago
  The investment is too great in custom Control Panel extensions from hardware vendors, including for hardware supplied to basically all major OEMs. If they toss that, a lot of hardware will become unconfigurable.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Control panel has to stick around for compatibility with legacy apps, including those that register functionality into it and call it's paths directly. It's pretty well hidden from users at this point and basically just a collection of links to compatibility components. I've never understood the concern.
  - pvg 7y ago
    There are plenty of perfectly mundane, common settings that are only accessible through the old control panels. And, of course, there are a couple of different styles of old control panel to begin with - the more recent 'modular'-ish ones and then ur-panels with lots of tabs and 'Advanced' buttons. As a UI thing, it's easily Windows at its ugliest and most baffling.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    How do I edit environment variables with new UI, for example? It's pretty common task and I always have to use that old UI. Thankfully it was actually slightly improved in Windows 10. Another thing is hotkeys to switch keyboard layout, it's still the same UI from Windows 98.
    - layer8 7y ago
      I'd recommend Eveditor (http://eveditor.com http://eveditor.com). Of course it would be better if Windows had something like that built-in.
      - Kwpolska 7y ago
        The existing editor does everything you need. The only benefit for that tool would be editing %PATH% more easily, but Windows 10 includes a pretty good editor for that.
    - projektfu 7y ago
      Win-key "edit" brings "Edit the system environment variables" up as first option.
      - vbezhenar 7y ago
        That command launches old settings UI.
    - airstrike 7y ago
      rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables is the most natural choice /s
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    There is a ton of stuff you can’t do with Settings but only with Control Panel. I don’t think you can admin a Windows machine without ever using Control Panel.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      I use the control panel about 99% of the time. I honestly can't remember the last time that I even looked at the settings app.
      - Ididntdothis 7y ago
        I have encountered a few things you can only do in Settings :).
        JohnFen 7y ago
        Yes, they certainly exist. But if I needed to change any of them, I've done so long enough ago that I've forgotten doing it.
        OkGoDoIt 7y ago
        With the past few releases they’ve actually been removing things from the legacy control panel, forcing me to use the new Settings. Sometimes the old options I want just aren’t there, since the new settings are always so oversimplified.
        JohnFen 7y ago
        I wonder if anyone has written a third party replacement for both settings applications? If not, it seems like this would be a very desirable utility, particularly as things shift more toward the new Settings app. I smell an opportunity for someone to make a few bucks...
  - satysin 7y ago
    Is it possible to adjust the keyboard repeat key delay without having to go to the Keyboard item in Control Panel yet? Last I looked I couldn't find that option anywhere in the new Settings app.
  - OkGoDoIt 7y ago
    But there’s so many settings where you need to drill into the legacy control panel to change things properly. Want to do anything advanced with your network connections or adapters? Got to go into the old style network settings in the control panel. Want to change your audio output device (for example to output to Bluetooth headphones)? Got to go into the legacy control panel audio settings. Want to change your power settings to not go into standby when your laptop screen is closed? Legacy power settings. Want to enable windows features like IIS, hyper V, etc? You can add features in either one but the old fashioned one has a nice tree list with additional tooltip information, whereas the new Settings interface just has one long list that is clunky to interact with.
    - pvg 7y ago
      Want to change your audio output device This you can do right from the volume control widget on the taskbar. One of the few things that's arguably easier and more obvious in Win 10 than in OS X (where you either have to hit the control panel or know to option-click the menubar doodad).

coldpie 7y ago

Yeah, despite 20 years of "progress", I don't see today's desktops being any more usable than Win 95's, for the typical mouse-and-keyboard setup. There's a couple niceties that have been introduced since then, mostly keyboard shortcuts for window management tasks, but otherwise it's all change for the sake of change, and change for the sake of advertisements.

zamadatix 7y ago
Compositing was huge. I agree most of the usability stuff is around the window management improvements though. Overall I wouldn't say there has been a lot of change though, you could teleport a Windows 95 user into the present and they'd immediately be running with the current Windows 10 desktop.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Compositing was a hardware change, though. Modern GPU's (including GPU chipsets that are integrated as part of a CPU chip) basically accelerate 2D rendering by managing arbitrary surfaces as glorified sprites, which the hardware can "project" or "render" into other surfaces or on the screen in all sorts of ways, including occlusion, alpha blending, arbitrary 3D transforms etc. Hardware of the Win95 era didn't have anything like this; even moving and resizing windows only "animated" a wireframe rendition of the window, as with twm today.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    Windows 95 was the first release to support dragging of full window contents. I think that hack was even supported in the Windows 95 tech preview for Windows NT 3.51.
    - StillBored 7y ago
      But that was via BLT copy IIRC. Which is why there can be a slight delay filling the part of the screen being unobscured as the overlapped program repainted itself.

shantly 7y ago

I really miss that design. It's a lot more relaxing to look at than modern "flat" UI, IMO. Depth and consistent use of UI elements make it so easy to tell what's what. Modern UI seems to be designed to look like a static glossy brochure, even when it's full of interactive elements.

gruez 7y ago

>That's why Windows 2000 was my favorite version of Windows, ever you could still get the same look (with the "classic" theme) up until windows 7.

Kwpolska 7y ago
You get the (IMO ugly) look, but none of the feel. The old start menu, the old explorer, etc. are not available with the classic theme.

tomjen3 7y ago

I installed Lbuntu on an older ultra-portable machine, and while not extremely pretty the UI is extremely snappy -- and mostly resembles win 95. I do miss the ability to search for a program by name, but that is about it.

worble 7y ago
Lubuntu is using LXQT these days right? I'm running it on arch, but by default that DE should support menu searching out of the box, and if it doesn't I expect it's been configured out for some reason. Definitely worth playing around to bring it back.

Sohcahtoa82 7y ago

Windows 2000's UI was a slightly evolved 95 UI, but I think Win7 is my favorite. I used the classic theme so it looked like 2000. And since most home users had no experience with 2000, they saw the theme and thought I was still running 98 or ME in 2010.