3 ms·

Yes, 2000 was by far my favorite Windows. Very solid, very clean style. I have a burning hatred for the visual design of Windows 7 (and Vista to a lesser degree

Yes, 2000 was by far my favorite Windows. Very solid, very clean style. I have a burning hatred for the visual design of Windows 7 (and Vista to a lesser degree) - it may have been technically great, but the design felt appropriate for a toothpaste, not for an operating system. I could only stand XP with the 2000 style as well. What the hell were they thinking?

rzzzt 4y ago
The theme in Windows 2000 and its classic counterpart in XP 64-bit used a darker shade of blue for the background, which I always tried to hand-select on the systems that I had (and weren't running these versions). There was also some tiny difference between the active window colors as well, IIRC.
mrighele 4y ago
I consider Windows 2000 the top that Microsoft reached with regard to style (both look and feel). But you can choose "Windows Classic" as a style in Windows 7 and it will not to be too different, although some thing may be annoying. For example, Windows 2000 was more keyboard-friendly. In Explorer, you edit the path on the top input, then you tab and you move between files. Since Windows XP that has been increasing, and its 5 tabs in Windows 7. Pratically unusable The control panel is not yet fucked up like in Windows 8+ but still you can guess the year in which the entry was written. On the other side, the start menu is better because you have a search field that works well (no web stupid web searches there).
- KMag 4y ago
  My chief complaint about Win7 is how much slower it seemed to perform than Win2k on late 90s/early 2000s hardware / on a virtual machine. (Also, IIRC, the licensing terms for Win2k were better regarding running on virtual machines.)
- ihatepython 4y ago
  For me, peak Windows in terms of style was Windows 3.1 with the Hotdog Stand theme. But Windows 2000 was solid as well
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
You can switch Win7 to classic theme and pretend it's an improved Win95. That's what I do in my VMs since I don't need to be burning cycles and RAM on eyecandy.
- supertrope 4y ago
  Ironically in Vista and newer the GUI is GPU accelerated and switching to the classic theme switches from GPU acceleration to CPU rendered.
  - froggit 4y ago
    But isn't this somewhat moot in a lot of VMs considering they often lack GPU acceleration?
    - supertrope 4y ago
      I casually use VirtualBox and GPU acceleration works.

rzzzt 4y ago

The theme in Windows 2000 and its classic counterpart in XP 64-bit used a darker shade of blue for the background, which I always tried to hand-select on the systems that I had (and weren't running these versions). There was also some tiny difference between the active window colors as well, IIRC.

mrighele 4y ago

I consider Windows 2000 the top that Microsoft reached with regard to style (both look and feel). But you can choose "Windows Classic" as a style in Windows 7 and it will not to be too different, although some thing may be annoying. For example, Windows 2000 was more keyboard-friendly. In Explorer, you edit the path on the top input, then you tab and you move between files. Since Windows XP that has been increasing, and its 5 tabs in Windows 7. Pratically unusable The control panel is not yet fucked up like in Windows 8+ but still you can guess the year in which the entry was written. On the other side, the start menu is better because you have a search field that works well (no web stupid web searches there).

KMag 4y ago
My chief complaint about Win7 is how much slower it seemed to perform than Win2k on late 90s/early 2000s hardware / on a virtual machine. (Also, IIRC, the licensing terms for Win2k were better regarding running on virtual machines.)
ihatepython 4y ago
For me, peak Windows in terms of style was Windows 3.1 with the Hotdog Stand theme. But Windows 2000 was solid as well

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

You can switch Win7 to classic theme and pretend it's an improved Win95. That's what I do in my VMs since I don't need to be burning cycles and RAM on eyecandy.

supertrope 4y ago
Ironically in Vista and newer the GUI is GPU accelerated and switching to the classic theme switches from GPU acceleration to CPU rendered.
- froggit 4y ago
  But isn't this somewhat moot in a lot of VMs considering they often lack GPU acceleration?
  - supertrope 4y ago
    I casually use VirtualBox and GPU acceleration works.