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The default Windows 95 didn't look that great, but almost everyone agrees that 98 or 2000 are much better (at least they have gradients). But I'm not 100% old s
by theandrewbailey 5y ago
The default Windows 95 didn't look that great, but almost everyone agrees that 98 or 2000 are much better (at least they have gradients). But I'm not 100% old school, and I think that Windows 7 Aero looked good, too. I'm sad that someone decided that glassy transparent windows were an abomination and broke them all :(
- kitsunesoba 5y agoTo me the biggest improvement that 2000 makes to the 9x look are the move to a lighter base gray, as well as changing the default desktop color from that funky teal to a much nicer blue. As minor as those two things may seem they made the OS feel more pleasant. But that may just be the classic Mac OS fanboy in me speaking. Mac OS never used particularly dark grays, so the almost-perfectly-middle-gray seen in 95/98 felt almost depressing in comparison.
- rbanffy 5y ago95 copied more the NeXT than the Mac look. The grey is much closer, as are the button corners, an explicit rejection of the Windows 3 rounded corners. The NeXT greys made sense for the original cube, which was limited to black, white and two greys.
- anthk 5y agoI hated gradients on Windows. They looked as if the "stepped out" from the GUI. They broke the "3D layering" illusion.
- zozbot234 5y agoGradients would have looked bad with 8-bit color, which was still very much in use in the 1990s. Solid color was the reasonable choice back then.
- theandrewbailey 5y agoWindows 98 didn't allow gradients on 256 color (8-bit) modes. You had to use at least high color (16-bit). (Win 95 didn't have gradients.)