5 ms·

Windows 2000, to me, was the pinnacle. It had a number of refinements. Gallery of screenshots https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win2000advserv https://

Windows 2000, to me, was the pinnacle. It had a number of refinements. Gallery of screenshots https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win2000advserv https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win2000advserv

panzi 4y ago
Agreed.
Waterluvian 4y ago
I’d love to know the story behind why CD player is so different. Gotta be cool?
- p_l 4y ago
  1990s multimedia skeumorphism. Honestly, the cd player is quite understated there...
- cokeandpepsi 4y ago
  it was made to look like a car streo i guess
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  It's from the Windows 98 Plus Pack. They didn't rewrite it for Windows 2000, they just used it as-is, so it retains the Windows 98 "Plus" look.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Oh that old chestnut. Is 2000 filled with 98 and 95 UIs like modern times?
    - chungy 4y ago
      Yes, but 95+98+2000 were basically all of the same design philosophy, so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb when something was not changed from 95.
      - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        Except for the folder chooser from Win 3.1 that still lingers around in Win 11.
  - Lammy 4y ago
    > It's from the Windows 98 Plus Pack Relevant: demo of this in Computer Chronicles' Windows 98 episode: https://youtu.be/N3s0_yf2mS4?t=1022 https://youtu.be/N3s0_yf2mS4?t=1022
- RedShift1 4y ago
  IIRC that cd player wasn't from Microsoft itself, they bought it from another company.
metadat 4y ago
I agree 100%, it was perfect, and also intuitive. Is there a Gnome or KDE theme or clone inspired by Windows 2000? Windows 8, 10, and 11 are simply offensive in comparison. I kept and open mind but still haven't come around to liking any version, not even close to W2K. Edit: jeroenhd, this is superb, thank you for sharing! Also the BMW 7-series from 1998-1999 was one of the best ever. Every subsequent one isn't nearly as good, IMO.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  There are several themes that try to approach older versions of Windows. Support for the latest versions of DEs is not guaranteed, though. I've run variants of this: https://b00merang.weebly.com/desktop-themes.html https://b00merang.weebly.com/desktop-themes.html on GNOME for quite some time, without putting in the effort to recreate the start menu. My coworkers definitely looked at me weird for my Windows XP theme but it felt very nostalgic. Small details are off, though, unless you go in manually and tweak the CSS even further to correct for the differences between the author's DE and yours. For LXDE, this project: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 goes further than just a theme, restyling some common utilities as well. It's not Windows 95, but if you'd told me it was designed around that time I would've believed you. This post: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/tijkr3/plasma_welcome_to_fedora_2000/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/tijkr3/plasma_wel... shows a very good KDE Plasma theme. Some icons are Win98, though, so you may need to replace those for the authentic look and feel. What I myself would love is for someone to make a proper Windows 7 Aero theme for Linux. The icon sets and the backwards compatibility themes are available everywhere, but there's no Aero theme that's not jarring. In a perfect world, I'd like the frosted glass effect as well, but that's probably too much to ask. I've thrown some Windows DLLs into Ghidra to try and find the frosted glass theme engine code, but I had no idea where to look and couldn't find anything.
  - anthk 4y ago
    Chicago 95 is not just for LXDE, it works perfectly under XFCE and MATE.
- ironmagma 4y ago
RedShift1 4y ago
Aaah look at that nice title bar gradient. Always liked that, they even took that away from us :-(
- jonhohle 4y ago
  The Watercolor placeholder theme[0] for Windows XP was such a beautiful evolution of that Windows 2000 look and feel: much more professional looking than Luna, modern but obviously Microsoft, and very space efficient. I recently reinstalled XP on an old computer for some retro gaming and the first thing I did was find Watercolor and the anxiety induced by Windows XP instantly gave way to joy. Windows 2000 will always be my favorite Windows, but XP with Watercolor is the best looking, imho. 0 - https://www.deviantart.com/alecu222/art/Watercolor-4-3-Visual-Style-506839342 https://www.deviantart.com/alecu222/art/Watercolor-4-3-Visua...
  - mostlysimilar 4y ago
    So beautiful. We've fallen so far in modern UI. Every six months or so I look for the ability to skin Windows 10 to look like this, or like Windows Classic at least. It seems to be largely impossible.
  - RedShift1 4y ago
    Watercolor is great! I used it too "back in the day". That crisp Tahoma font, those refined little squares where the 2 colors in the title bar meet... So elegant.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Speaking of Tahoma, I think that one was a big part of why Win2K looked so much better (the 9x series used Microsoft Sans Serif as its default UI font). It's not much to look at today, but it was amazingly readable on low-res screens back then. I wonder sometimes just how much effort went into manually hinting it at all the standard UI sizes to make it pixel-perfect.
  - Lammy 4y ago
kyleee 4y ago
The cohesiveness is delightful and makes me want to cry a little bit
graypegg 4y ago
This site is worth a post in its own right! Just enjoying skimming thru it. Good find!
pcurve 4y ago
it looked great, but it also 'felt' amazing. 2000 felt so different than windows 98.
- anthk 4y ago
  It didn't crash upon installing a driver or sneezing near it.
gregvab 4y ago
My favourite is the Gnome 2.2 icons that come with Redhat 9 https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/gnome220redhat9 https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/gnome220redhat9
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Oh that's very nice. I remember that. You might like the BeOS icons too (which Haiku still has)
- Underphil 4y ago
  That and the Bluecurve theme. Perfection.
moffkalast 4y ago
That old calc design with red text on light gray is an absolute abomination and an insult to UI designers everywhere.
- anthk 4y ago
  UI designers had done worse stuff today with flat themes.
- hulitu 4y ago
  You should see the new calc. Gray on gray. Big buttons. Full screen.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    Touchscreens really do ruin everything they touch (ha) in terms of UI design. All buttons need to be gigantic and simple, can't have mouse hover menus or anything nice.
qubex 4y ago
Absolutely. Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of Classical Millenial Windows design. After that we got XP’s Fisher Price mode (albeit easily regressed) and it’s been downhill since then (switched to Mac in ‘03, totally baffled by Windows UI nowadays).

panzi 4y ago

Agreed.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I’d love to know the story behind why CD player is so different. Gotta be cool?

p_l 4y ago
1990s multimedia skeumorphism. Honestly, the cd player is quite understated there...
cokeandpepsi 4y ago
it was made to look like a car streo i guess
LeoPanthera 4y ago
It's from the Windows 98 Plus Pack. They didn't rewrite it for Windows 2000, they just used it as-is, so it retains the Windows 98 "Plus" look.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Oh that old chestnut. Is 2000 filled with 98 and 95 UIs like modern times?
  - chungy 4y ago
    Yes, but 95+98+2000 were basically all of the same design philosophy, so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb when something was not changed from 95.
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      Except for the folder chooser from Win 3.1 that still lingers around in Win 11.
- Lammy 4y ago
  > It's from the Windows 98 Plus Pack Relevant: demo of this in Computer Chronicles' Windows 98 episode: https://youtu.be/N3s0_yf2mS4?t=1022 https://youtu.be/N3s0_yf2mS4?t=1022
RedShift1 4y ago
IIRC that cd player wasn't from Microsoft itself, they bought it from another company.

metadat 4y ago

I agree 100%, it was perfect, and also intuitive. Is there a Gnome or KDE theme or clone inspired by Windows 2000? Windows 8, 10, and 11 are simply offensive in comparison. I kept and open mind but still haven't come around to liking any version, not even close to W2K. Edit: jeroenhd, this is superb, thank you for sharing! Also the BMW 7-series from 1998-1999 was one of the best ever. Every subsequent one isn't nearly as good, IMO.

jeroenhd 4y ago
There are several themes that try to approach older versions of Windows. Support for the latest versions of DEs is not guaranteed, though. I've run variants of this: https://b00merang.weebly.com/desktop-themes.html https://b00merang.weebly.com/desktop-themes.html on GNOME for quite some time, without putting in the effort to recreate the start menu. My coworkers definitely looked at me weird for my Windows XP theme but it felt very nostalgic. Small details are off, though, unless you go in manually and tweak the CSS even further to correct for the differences between the author's DE and yours. For LXDE, this project: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 goes further than just a theme, restyling some common utilities as well. It's not Windows 95, but if you'd told me it was designed around that time I would've believed you. This post: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/tijkr3/plasma_welcome_to_fedora_2000/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/tijkr3/plasma_wel... shows a very good KDE Plasma theme. Some icons are Win98, though, so you may need to replace those for the authentic look and feel. What I myself would love is for someone to make a proper Windows 7 Aero theme for Linux. The icon sets and the backwards compatibility themes are available everywhere, but there's no Aero theme that's not jarring. In a perfect world, I'd like the frosted glass effect as well, but that's probably too much to ask. I've thrown some Windows DLLs into Ghidra to try and find the frosted glass theme engine code, but I had no idea where to look and couldn't find anything.
- anthk 4y ago
  Chicago 95 is not just for LXDE, it works perfectly under XFCE and MATE.
ironmagma 4y ago

RedShift1 4y ago

Aaah look at that nice title bar gradient. Always liked that, they even took that away from us :-(

jonhohle 4y ago
The Watercolor placeholder theme[0] for Windows XP was such a beautiful evolution of that Windows 2000 look and feel: much more professional looking than Luna, modern but obviously Microsoft, and very space efficient. I recently reinstalled XP on an old computer for some retro gaming and the first thing I did was find Watercolor and the anxiety induced by Windows XP instantly gave way to joy. Windows 2000 will always be my favorite Windows, but XP with Watercolor is the best looking, imho. 0 - https://www.deviantart.com/alecu222/art/Watercolor-4-3-Visual-Style-506839342 https://www.deviantart.com/alecu222/art/Watercolor-4-3-Visua...
- mostlysimilar 4y ago
  So beautiful. We've fallen so far in modern UI. Every six months or so I look for the ability to skin Windows 10 to look like this, or like Windows Classic at least. It seems to be largely impossible.
- RedShift1 4y ago
  Watercolor is great! I used it too "back in the day". That crisp Tahoma font, those refined little squares where the 2 colors in the title bar meet... So elegant.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Speaking of Tahoma, I think that one was a big part of why Win2K looked so much better (the 9x series used Microsoft Sans Serif as its default UI font). It's not much to look at today, but it was amazingly readable on low-res screens back then. I wonder sometimes just how much effort went into manually hinting it at all the standard UI sizes to make it pixel-perfect.
- Lammy 4y ago

kyleee 4y ago

The cohesiveness is delightful and makes me want to cry a little bit

graypegg 4y ago

This site is worth a post in its own right! Just enjoying skimming thru it. Good find!

pcurve 4y ago

it looked great, but it also 'felt' amazing. 2000 felt so different than windows 98.

anthk 4y ago
It didn't crash upon installing a driver or sneezing near it.

gregvab 4y ago

My favourite is the Gnome 2.2 icons that come with Redhat 9 https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/gnome220redhat9 https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/gnome220redhat9

guerrilla 4y ago
Oh that's very nice. I remember that. You might like the BeOS icons too (which Haiku still has)
Underphil 4y ago
That and the Bluecurve theme. Perfection.

moffkalast 4y ago

That old calc design with red text on light gray is an absolute abomination and an insult to UI designers everywhere.

anthk 4y ago
UI designers had done worse stuff today with flat themes.
hulitu 4y ago
You should see the new calc. Gray on gray. Big buttons. Full screen.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Touchscreens really do ruin everything they touch (ha) in terms of UI design. All buttons need to be gigantic and simple, can't have mouse hover menus or anything nice.

qubex 4y ago

Absolutely. Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of Classical Millenial Windows design. After that we got XP’s Fisher Price mode (albeit easily regressed) and it’s been downhill since then (switched to Mac in ‘03, totally baffled by Windows UI nowadays).