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Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio
Years ago I stumbled across a basic version of this concept and it stuck with me. I knew if I was ever going to take on such a project, it would need to be flawless, but without coding experience it was just another idea that would never happen. By the end of 2024, as AI coding tools exploded everywhere, I finally had a way to make it real.
I started from zero knowledge and spent months collaborating with AI agents as a learning experience. Every pixel and every function went through me. The AI translated what I asked for into code, but every decision was human. I didn't use existing OS frameworks because the goal was learning how basic coding languages worked while also developing my skills with AI collaboration. Apart from basic libraries like xp.css and paint.js, it's all original code.
The result is a fully functional Windows XP recreation running in your browser. Complete experience with sounds, animations, and working applications. Even works properly on mobile, which required rebuilding everything to maintain the authentic feel without becoming unusable on touchscreens.
This project taught me more about coding and AI collaboration than I ever expected. Would love to hear your thoughts on the execution and any feedback on the technical approach.
- timeinput 1y agoWow. Beyond anything, my main take away is *do not try to mimic [wW]indows [xX][pP] in any way*. I will never ever ever get it right enough. Stick to Windows 95 or earlier.
- ChuckMcM 1y agoInteresting that you vibe coded the whole thing.
- nurettin 1y agoHe said it took months, so perhaps we need to coin a new term for it. Maybe AI crawling?
- mitchivin 1y agoits been a nightmare trying to word it... haha. I really do feel like it's something that nobody else is really doing, at least that I have seen. but if I really think about, why would anyone do this? hahaha
- ChuckMcM 1y ago"vibe designed"? I suspect that this sort of design wouldn't come up a lot, but do you think about the difference between this experience and the experience of designing something where you used a workflow that you were familiar with? Or put another way, if you did this again, would it go faster or would it take the same amount of time?
- mitchivin 1y agoIt would definitely go faster based on a few things. One being that these models are continually improving - an ungodly amount of time was spent trying to connect the dots between what I was seeing and what the agent was seeing/understanding. But aside from that, I would still say yes. I've learned a lot (it's just hard to put into words when I'm missing some of the technical language) and I've gained so much confidence in even dealing with code. I've actually started doing some work for someone after they saw my site on Reddit, which I could never have done before. It involves Docker, a bit of Python, and working on a codebase with multiple contributors. It's both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
- pxc 1y agoI don't think it counts as vibe coding, since the author read every line of code and presumably also asked questions about them and looked things up about the meanings of unfamiliar keywords and functions and so on. It might be spiritually close to vibe coding in some ways because the author wasn't previously a programmer, so this code was never reviewed by a professional or trained developer. But it was a high-effort project that involved inspecting and trying to understand the code, which isn't what vibe coding is about. Whatever we want to call it, I think it's awesome! This is a good use of LLMs to help laypeople break into writing code imo, and the result is great.
- mitchivin 1y agoyeah, I've had a tough time finding the right wording so I've even called it vibe coding since its definitely not at the other end of the spectrum. I think its somewhere in the middle, like a developer version of Ratatouille
- pxc 1y agoI think you did a good job describing how you built this! There just isn't a cute little neologism that perfectly describes it in one or two words.
- nothrowaways 1y agoI love the 'recently used' in the start menu.
- mitchivin 1y agothanks!
- zb3 1y agoThe "recently used" part was clever :)
- RobertEva 1y agoDelightful.The XP vibe is spot on, the startup sound and taskbar feel right.
- mitchivin 1y agoit's all about the feels
- pbohun 1y agoThis is cool! I like how you can toggle the pixel effect. A lot of great attention to detail.
- mitchivin 1y agopersonally, I prefer it on but I'd had some complaints and it does have some impact on performance so better to give the choice, right?
- tptacek 1y agoYou got this far have DIR print something!
- mitchivin 1y agohey haha I tried to post this a few weeks ago but my post didn't go through - i'm glad you guys are enjoying it! edit: I'm new here! let me get some of that sweet sweet karma!
- pryelluw 1y agoBeautiful work.
- esseph 1y agoThis is really well done. Excellent work!
- sibeliuss 1y agoCannot believe how well done this is! great work
- dang 1y ago(I'm one of the mods here) - I've re-upped your original Show HN and merged the comments hither. I've also marked your account legit so it won't get misassessed by those nasty spam filters in the future!
- mkl 1y agoFor me, the start menu takes a couple of seconds to appear, and disappears again after a fraction of a second (Chrome 138 on Windows 10).
- VitoVan 1y agoI need to right-click and refresh the desktop, please.
- mitchivin 1y agoIf I glance over at my TODO's its pretty close to next on the list - stay tuned
- oslem 1y agoMind Your Manners brought back some seriously nostalgic memories. Thank you!
- mitchivin 1y agoIt'll defintely be in my MitchIvinXP Wrapped this year
- chatmasta 1y agoIf you didn’t know, Chiddy has been releasing new music. It’s just him now, no Xaphoon, but still pretty decent.
- mitchivin 1y agoI actually didn't know that, but my favourite part of this comment is seeing Xaphoon mentioned. I love Xaphoon! I still listen to some of his old remixes on youtube some times haha
- skwashd 1y agoVery cool. There's an impressive number of little details. My favourite is that the Paint app actually works.
- mitchivin 1y agoVyvanse is a hell of a drug
- windows_hater_7 1y agoAmen
- mitchivin 1y agoIYKYK
- rvz 1y agoGreat portfolio site. Now try windows93 [0] enjoy. [0] https://www.windows93.net https://www.windows93.net
- indigodaddy 1y agoHoly shit!
- JeliHacker 1y agoLove this! The nostalgia hit hard, I immediately felt the urge to play Raft Wars on Miniclip
- sethops1 1y agoI miss the Windows XP look & feel so, so much.
- cr125rider 1y agoThis works incredibly well on mobile too. Awesome job
- mitchivin 1y agothank you!
- utyop22 1y agoDid you make this all by yourself?
- mitchivin 1y agoyeah, its been my obsession for the past 6 months. Im a junior graphic designer so I decided I would try something out of the box to try and grab recruiters attention, since my actual projects wouldn't be enough
- thefourthchime 1y agoman when I hear young people saying they can't get a head start or no one will hire them, I say go make something show off what you can do and you really nailed it here!
- utyop22 1y agoSuper impressive!
- petermcneeley 1y agoThe paint app is very accurate. Kinda shocking really.
- mitchivin 1y agothat is something I cannot take credit for - https://jspaint.app/#local:58ec4c22cf9878 https://jspaint.app/#local:58ec4c22cf9878 I just had to make some small changes so it would blend in better with my site
- shrinks99 1y agoNo way to save my creations though :(
- mitchivin 1y agonah I removed that from my version, I can't remember why though so I might try and bring it back - if you look up jspaint or paintjs theres some really cool ones available
- petermcneeley 1y agoyou ever see this https://puter.com/ https://puter.com/
- mitchivin 1y agothats sick, I hadn't seen it
- souldzin 1y agoIn my head, I heard videogamedunkey saying: “Ohhh... they've got the original paint on this one! I didn’t know this was a slick-type website!”
- ozgung 1y agoOh my Paint doesn't work. New button is disabled. Maybe because I use Safari and Steve Jobs disabled it on purpose.
- stevenfoster 1y agoThis made me immediately want to play Age of Empires and drink a Mountain Dew. Well done sir.
- mitchivin 1y agodo it!
- adastra22 1y agoNo minesweeper?! I’m severely disappointed.
- poundtown 1y agopretty badass sir...cheers to you.
- poundtown 1y agopretty badass sir! cheers!
- mitchivin 1y agothanks boss!
- tombert 1y agoPretty cool stuff. Every time I see it, a part of me misses the styling of Windows XP. It was kind of the only well-regarded windows that tried to actually be fun; the fact that there was a little dog mascot in the search results, the fact that the bar on the bottom kind of looks like a Fisher Price toy, Clippy! I kind of miss when professional programs were allowed to be goofy. As a side note, I really like your avatar; has kind of a Simpsons/Bob's Burgers vibe that I find appealing.
- mitchivin 1y agoaside from the frustration it's been pretty cool building it, its almost like im back in 2006
- msephton 1y agoPhenomenal work. Excellent!
- mitchivin 1y agothank you so much
- zx8080 1y agoTo me, the CRT effect looks like an early LCD (TFT panel) one. CRT monitors picture did not look like made of dots from what I can remember (maybe not for all monitors). Except maybe the Trinitron ones. Great site, thanks for nostalgia!
- mitchivin 1y agoyou're probably right and I've actually had someone tell me that no monitor during the XP era would've been a CRT one haha so the whole things a bit off but I think people can let it slide
- QuantumNomad_ 1y agoGot my first own computer in 2002. It ran Windows XP and had a CRT, as did the home computers my friends had too at the time :)
- mitchivin 1y agowhoever tell me it's wrong next is going to be hit with multiple real life testimonies, they'll never expect it
- zx8080 1y ago> no monitor during the XP era would've been a CRT one haha Well, not really, and it depended highly on the place of work/study and country/state. For example, my University replaced the CRT ones with LCDs only in 2005-06 (they've used XP in computer rooms for quite a long time, skipping Vista and 8). I myself used the CRT monitor with winXP until the late 2004.
- mitchivin 1y agosome of those redditors don't know what they're saying then, huh? thats such a good point - couldn't I run XP on a CRT monitor today if i wanted to
- lurquer 1y agoVery cool
- StrangeDoctor 1y agoThis looks and feels really good, nice work. Makes me wonder what windows mobile could have been
- mitchivin 1y agocease and desist followed by the announcement of windows on mobile any day now
- jolmg 1y agoExtreme nitpick, but the progress bar animation on bootup was stepped, IIRC.
- mitchivin 1y agothe site is built on extreme nitpicking my friend, its welcomed and encouraged. I'll look into it!
- scripper1 1y agoThat CRT effect is dope. It's amazing it's even possible.
- mitchivin 1y agofun fact: this whole journey started because of that effect. I had that and was trying to think how I could use it haha
- carlsborg 1y agoArguably the most familiar desktop user interface on the planet. I often wonder why complex web apps do not use this searchable start menu format.
- mitchivin 1y agoi've got no statistics to back it but I'd bet my life savings on it being exactly that (its $0, but still)
- clbrmbr 1y agoWow. You are going places, Mitch. Epic design skills. Listening to Unwritten and loading up that email form… can’t wait to see what you build.
- mitchivin 1y agothank you so much for the kind words, appreciate it more than you probably realize :)
- busymom0 1y agoWould be cool if the contact you page let me send you an email from your site itself instead of trying to launch my default mail app. I typed out an email and filled in my email but it tried to launch mail app when I tried to send it.
- mitchivin 1y agoyeah I would also love to get that working - at one point that was the plan but things changed. It's something i'll look into updated, thanks for the suggestion. btw, if you let your mail app open - whatever you typed into my contact me app will be pre-filled in a new message ready to send
- QuantumNomad_ 1y agoMight not apply to most people, but on some of my machines I have left the mail app unconfigured and so the few times something uses a mail link launching the app will just land me on the setup screen. It’s rare enough that anyone uses those sort of mailto: links that I haven’t bothered doing anything about it. And it might be that most other people have their email program set up already so only me and a handful of others run into any sort of issue with that :p
- mitchivin 1y agofunny you say that, you are the first to mention it but I personally use Gmail installed as an app from my browser, so I encounter this exact issue hahah. Even worse, there was a time where I uninstalled outlook completely. It was also pretty messy in that instance I kind of assumed that if someone found themselves in that position they would contact me another way and it shouldn't be a dealbreaker haha
- zx8080 1y agoConsider using the display/monitor icon in tray to manage CRT effect on/off instead of the Windows Defender icon.
- mitchivin 1y agofair call! the CRT toggle was fairly recent in comparison to the full screen toggle so it was a case of seniority haha but I'm at the point now were I can spend time on things like that and the icons will be getting a refresh at some stage so i'll remember this. thanks
- oceanhaiyang 1y ago> I started from zero knowledge and spent months collaborating with AI agents as a learning experience. Every pixel and every function went through me. The AI translated what I asked for into code, but every decision was human. This is so absurdly cringe and absolutely not coding. It’s like saying I spent absolutely trying to get ChatGPT to write my college essay for me. At the end of the writing period, I wrote nothing but decided which ai goop I liked best.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- daemonologist 1y agoIf OP were a front end engineer or something I might agree, but this is a graphic design portfolio. I think it's completely reasonable to rely on outside assistance for the scripting and interactive stuff.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 1y agoWith Windows XP already being visually designed, this project not being "fully-functional" but just a visual wrapper of some portfolio pages where the code was written by AI, I'm left wondering what this piece actually represents.
- rizky05 1y ago[dead]
- ChrisArchitect 1y ago+1 Who's hiring a graphic designer based on a Windows XP aesthetic that they didn't even produce? Of course novelty. But then what. Not really promoting the graphic design side. Not really promoting the development site. Bizarre noob accounts here loving it. He cooked. (But not really) And we're all cooked.
- initramfs 1y agoGive this man a job! (If he doesn't have one already)
- sangeeth96 1y agoQuite honestly, super cool! Telling that you probably managed to wield AI tools quite well if you managed to get this far with it. Only pet peeve I have is with the obvious AI generated art (including the wallpaper?) — still can't get onboard with them.
- mitchivin 1y agoIt was definitely a long fought battle haha Yeah for sure, I completely get it - I can genuinely understand the large majority of reasons people have for holding that opinion and I don't even necessarily disagree with many of them. I will admit, I do find it wildly entertaining and having the ability to turn an idea into something tangible almost instantly allows me to produce more high quality work. Aside from personal opinions, I just think that it's pretty clear where the world's going and since money doesn't care about feelings - companies are going to use it. so I feel like it probably helps, or at least will start to help more and more as time goes on having it clear that I can and do use these AI tools they keep hearing about.
- muststopmyths 1y agovery cool ! On my dell XPS13 (Windows) the high DPI scaling makes the page display "please rotate your device back to portrait mode" . If I zoom out a few steps (ctrl-minus in the browser), it loads fine.
- mitchivin 1y agothanks for letting me know! i've had someone else mention that it didnt work on folding devices, but considering i've never even held one this makes more sense to me so ill look into it
- felarof 1y agoWow, this is cool! You should open source this and let other people contribute and build apps that work inside this sim. I would love to build a version of our browser into this. (https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS)
- billdybas 1y agoReally cool! Added to my collection of personal websites @ https://personal.network/ https://personal.network/
- DustinBrett 1y agoGood stuff! Desktop environments are so much fun to make.
- phendrenad2 1y agoI can tell this was a ton of work, and a ton of fun. Congrats!
- mitchivin 1y agothank you!
- haloblue 1y agoAbsolutely brilliant.
- mitchivin 1y agoThank you!
- _-_-__-_-_- 1y agoThis is wonderful. You should be proud. It's a fun recreation and it was fun to use. Back when I was using XP (2004-2010), I had a 19" black CRT monitor. Once I got a laptop, it became a second monitor. I got whatever the family didn't want and the few things I scrounged from used computer stores. In 2010, I jumped to Windows 7. The theming of Windows XP always reminds me of seeing it for the first time, how colourful and inviting it looked.
- mitchivin 1y agoif they remember the site, they'll remember me :) kinda?
- djshah 1y agoThis is amazing! Really enjoyed the trip down memory lane. It would be wonderful if you could also share or write a post about your vibe coding journey to put this together!
- mitchivin 1y agojust like the site itself, I'm slowly trying to piece something together in a coherent way when the process itself was the complete opposite. When I do figure it out I'll do a post/series of posts on LinkedIn most likely. there's a few posts already on there about it, but nothing super in-depth im open to all connections btw :) i'm just getting started!
- ctxc 1y agoWould be nice if you can add your contact details to your profile too :)
- celeritascelery 1y agoI love the little things, like the paint program and music player. This was so fun.
- meq1986 1y agoThere’s even a command line where you can run commands, that’s really nice!
- garganzol 1y agoIn general, it is even smoother than the real Windows XP. Kind of a magnetizing experience, and I do not know why. There is something attractive in this idea in terms of UI/UX, aside from the obvious nostalgia. Another interesting aspect of this particular implementation is that it blends naturally with a browser tab hierarchy, it does not try to overrule it, it just blends in. Probably thanks to a distinctive taskbar, or maybe it is due to the startup screen/login/sound that set up a distinctive boundary "you are here now, and this is a friendly place to be".
- mitchivin 1y agoobviously the nostalgia is a huge factor but you might be onto something with the login sound haha. did you try logging out? :)
- giveita 1y agoWindows (or anything) is nice when its fast. Most things should work in under 20ms so I don't notice a delay.
- gloosx 1y ago20ms is faster than a fly reaction time, it's about the same time which 60HZ monitor takes to refresh the frame, 10 times faster than a typical human's reaction. Everything under 150 ms is pretty much indistinguishably fast to a normal person.
- majewsky 1y agoIf this were true, then a 10fps movie clip would be indistinguishable from a 24fps or a 60fps one. I have written several years ago about how optimizing my shell prompt from 50ms to 5ms was definitely a noticeable impact on how snappy the shell felt: https://xyrillian.de/thoughts/posts/latency-matters.html https://xyrillian.de/thoughts/posts/latency-matters.html
- gloosx 1y ago
- scosman 1y agoGreat work
- Dwedit 1y agoNo right-click menus anywhere. How am I supposed to Lock The Taskbar? (As seen in https://madeupandprobablydoesnotexist.com/taskbar/ https://madeupandprobablydoesnotexist.com/taskbar/)
- mitchivin 1y agoi've been putting together a list of things for the right click menu, thanks for that one.
- l8again 1y agoLooking at your resume, I am curious how you are intimately familiar with XP. Seems like it should be before your time.
- mitchivin 1y agoIt should be based on my resume, you're right haha - a peak behind the curtain reveals a decade of struggles finding my place in the world before saying fuck it and following my gut. I'm 30, whoooops - if you do the math on my graduation you should be able to get there, not hiding it - but didn't want to shout it from the rooftops either haha
- ldbooth 1y agoI'd love to see that command line working for some Easter eggs.
- mitchivin 1y agohit me with some idea's. in terms of novelty ideas ive thought maybe unlocking extra songs in the music player, or opening a different version of my projects that looks like it should (internet explorer) showing my wow logs or something lame hahah just some for the ones who would respect it
- unop 1y agoMaybe cmd.exe launch into "your terminal" - styled with starship or whatever, your shell aliases but taking the user into your (code?) projects' directories that they can have a nosey around with (mirroring github repos?)
- StarterPro 1y ago"AI agents " I KNEW something was up with it. Wrap it up.
- mitchivin 1y agoits nice and warm in here, come on.. join us
- wild_pointer 1y agoWasted opportunity: shut down -> orange "now it's safe to turn off your computer"
- jonathanlb 1y agoWasn't that just Windows 95 and 98? I think I remember XP having the Windows logo and the "It is now safe to turn off your computer" text in white.
- xp84 1y agoEvidence you’re right: this video at 1:10 https://youtu.be/1N8MSI0mB04 https://youtu.be/1N8MSI0mB04
- abanana 1y agoNo, I recall once being surprised at seeing it in XP back in the day, on a particularly old PC that had had its OS upgraded from 9x. Older AT power supplies were entirely mechanically controlled using the power button. ATX power supplies added the ability to turn on or off via software. That screen was shown on PCs using an AT PSU because Windows couldn't shut it down itself, it had to ask the user to do it.
- m4houk 1y agoI love this. As a former XP user, here are some pedantic inaccuracies you've got: - The taskbar tabs are slightly off from how they looked in the real XP (must be the borders? It's the same issue with the windows as well). - The close/maximize/minimize buttons never had hover transitions - By default, desktop icons didn't have any hover effects in the real XP - I'm surprised you didn't recreate the XP mouse cursor! - IE6: - The address bar didn't show progress - The buttons in the toolbar at the top never had any transition effect on hover
- mitchivin 1y agotaskbar tabs - correct and I spent a crazy amount of time trying to figure out why they look off, admittedly I accepted defeat at where we landed but I think its pretty damn close! the rest, are all aesthetic decisions haha but I was aware of some of them - I'm surprised you missed the biggest one of them all though.. also that nobody else has mentioned it yet - maybe its because nobody has tried it the drag selection over desktop icons highlights the icons in a way much closer to windows 11 than XP... i really just thought it deserved an upgrade edit: did i miss it or did you just add the thing about selection? you're right though
- typpilol 1y agoThe command prompt?
- keepamovin 1y agoI think of this as a homage or appropriation, a gentle upgrade of classic Windows XP aesthetic into a form that merges a few contemporary affordances and new polish. It's a classic way of keeping art and styles fresh and how aesthetics evolve while retaining a clear lineage that respects their roots.
- mitchivin 1y agothis ^ while also completely disregarding portfolio conventions. some have even said "If i was a recruiter I would instantly click off because it takes too long to load" hahah
- tayo42 1y agoI've gotten so used to instant loading operating systems, I've forgotten about those loading screens.
- calf 1y agoI don't understand the claim, is it recreating the actual operating system and kernel, and it can run and install programs like an emulator? Or is it just superficially the UI?
- mitchivin 1y agopurely UI - HTML, CSS, JS
- zeroCalories 1y agoVery cool. I'm on mobile and on your projects page I couldn't scroll down to read the details of some projects. Otherwise worked well but I would double check.
- mitchivin 1y agoNoted, thanks for letting me know - do you mind telling me which device /browser you’re using
- zeroCalories 1y agoPixel 8 / chrome
- mitchivin 1y agocheers!
- cylemons 1y agoWorks very smoothly on my phone
- mitchivin 1y agolove to hear it :)
- nategreb 1y agothis is sick
- ghoshbishakh 1y agoI salute your tenacity.
- mitchivin 1y agoit can't be understated, truly - people would think im insane
- srini_reddy 1y agoWindows XP is an emotion for me. You have rekindled the memories of 2005 .
- adithyassekhar 1y agoThis is awesome, I found a tiny bug. On mobile, if I open CMD and the keyboard opens, the browser thinks I'm in landscape and blocks the UI till I close the keyboard.
- mitchivin 1y agonoted, thanks - which device do you have if you dont mind me asking?
- adithyassekhar 1y agoS24 on chrome.
- MintPaw 1y agoWindows didn't fade in and out in Windows XP.
- iLoveOncall 1y agoI've seen a lot of similar projects, but never ones that worked well on mobile, and this one works perfectly, quite impressive. That said, I wonder if it makes sense for a graphic designer to have a portfolio with a design that just copies someone else's (Microsoft's)?
- magic_hamster 1y agoIt's very cool, but I think two issues keep this from being truly delightful. First of all, it doesn't really feel like a computer, little things like typing "dir" in the command line could be a great little interaction, but it's not supported. I'd try to make it more fun to use and not just pretty to look at. The other thing is, I think the portfolio doesn't really match the quality of the website you vibe coded. This is actually a pretty bad sign that your own work is not as good as something you can do with AI (human assisted or not). The website is pretty high quality, so browsing through extremely simple assets just feels out of place. Overall it's a good project.
- makuchaku 1y agoAmazing work!
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoWhere is the doom demo launcher? https://github.com/cloudflare/doom-wasm https://github.com/cloudflare/doom-wasm =3
- merelysounds 1y agoFeature request, very nitpicky: currently there is a grid overlay that simulates display pixels; but the content behind it is high resolution - as a result one “pixel” consists of multiple colors, which can break the illusion; this is especially visible when scrolling text. Perhaps there’s a way to render actual content in low resolution too, to match the grid resolution? E.g. set the css width&height of an element to 50% and upscale 2x via css scale transform (although filtering could be a problem), or render to a canvas and upscale there, or use html gl, or maybe there’s another way?
- submeta 1y agoWow, really enjoyed clicking trough it. Super smoooth. Lots of attention to detail. Excellent. Well done mate.
- mitchivin 1y agothanks dude!
- Abdullahkh 1y ago[dead]
- stonecharioteer 1y agoThis is so damn cool! I love that you have MS Paint too xD
- quantummagic 1y agoGreat job, well done. This really highlights that people who obsess in telling us that "AI hallucinates", and "AI isn't intelligent", are missing the point. At the end of the day, it's simply useful, and incredibly empowering.
- mitchivin 1y agothanks mate haha yeah I stay out of those convos
- melkael 1y agoReally neat! I made one a few years ago too, it still is online (but not updated) https://melkael.github.io/ https://melkael.github.io/
- harelush99 1y agoI think it’s the best portfolio I ever seen! Loves it!!!
- Lprince 1y agoAt this point do you even need a portfolio? You can already build amazing software, why not create your own startup?
- phito 1y agoNot everyone wants to be an entrepreneur
- mitchivin 1y agoWhen I started building this I needed any design job more than I can explain haha
- colinscruggs 1y agohe didn't build the software. AI did. also, why is an aspiring graphic designer so reliant on using AI to generate visual assets anyways?
- tristanMatthias 1y agoWait! Was your score big for LIGR? Also hi from someone who comes from Brizzy! (SF now)
- Kwpolska 1y ago> A faithful XP-inspired interface, custom-built to showcase my [...] attention to detail. Here goes: 1. "Welcome" on the login screen should be lowercase 2. Balloon is too high (should touch the icon), close icon is too small (should be roughly the same height as the balloon title) 3. About Me is missing the scrollbar on Firefox 4. Wrong gradient for "Social Links" 5. Start menu should have a shadow 6. In My Projects, two tiles are loading forever 7. Windows that cannot be maximized, but can be minimized, should have all three buttons, with the middle one disabled 8. Paint did not have the Windows logo in the corner. It would be better to show the JSPaint menu bar to make things like Undo accessible, and the JSPaint authors deserve attribution. 9. "Git Co-pilot" is not a thing, as Git ≠ GitHub. (On the XP project page.) If I were making something like this, I would probably skip the boot and login screens (certainly would not require user interaction; indeed, XP would automatically log you in if you had a single passwordless user), and show "About Me" on startup, so that potential clients don’t give up before they learn more about you.
- gjvc 1y agono way, the boot and login screens add to the overall charm of the faithfulness of the reproduction, as much as does your attention to detail. In GUI applications one needs both aspects to enchant the user and keep them in a state of joyous disbelief -- without the disappointment -- as they use the system.
- numtel 1y agoAlso missed that double clicking the icon in the top left of the title bar closes the window. It does not toggle maximization like clicking the rest of the title bar does.
- reddalo 1y agoFun-fact: that's a relic of Windows 3.1, where the close button was exactly in the top left corner of each window. Too bad most new Windows 10+ apps don't support that anymore.
- gg2222 1y agoWow, this reminds me of how Windows XP was such a beautiful UI. UI these days are flat everything and pretty boring.
- rawxtl 1y agoThis shit is fucking awsome!
- mitchivin 1y agoThanks boss!
- kennyloginz 1y agoNo offense, maybe I am jaded by our environment, but this reads like an ai ad….
- gloosx 1y agoDid you ask Microsoft permission to use logo/branding etc. Or are you ready to be sued?
- Biganon 1y agoRecreations of Windows UX in a webpage have been done a million times and I've never heard of Microsoft suing them. I think they have better things to do.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoAs a design showcase it is odd to basically trademark/copyright infringe all the visuals. In university design classes they made it pretty clear we should take care choosing sources for assets we used, even as a base for our work. At least back in the early oughts. Maybe it's different now that crime is legal.
- Biganon 1y agoWhat you say is true, but as an HR person i wouldn't care too much about the copyright aspect, more about the fact that this showcases nothing about the guy's actual design abilities. That's more a feat of a front end dev integrating an existing design, which is impressive but this aspect has been mostly vibe coded, or at least "vibe taught" (is that a thing ?) according to OP himself
- bartread 1y agoIt’s neat: I like it a lot actually. But the problem with you billing yourself as a graphic designer and reimplementing Windows XP is that you’re copying a design that already exists rather than showcasing your own design skills, so I can’t immediately tell how good a designer you are[0]. I can look at your projects under the IE icon, which gives more of an impression, but some of the visuals there do look decidedly AI generated, which isn’t super-encouraging. The UX is also weird. For example, the back/forward history controls behave like carousel controls through your portfolio, whereas when I hit back/previous I expect to be taken back to the menu of projects. If you applied to me for a job with this, would I interview you? Yes, I would, simply because I can see you’ve put a lot of effort in and created something high quality. But I’d have some reservations because of the concerns I’ve raised above and, in particular, I’d want to dig in to how user-centred your approach is, because that isn’t really demonstrated here. Sorry if this sounds discouraging. What you’ve done is cool, and I like it, and it would certainly get you a foot in the door of many interview processes, but that will be when the real work of showcasing your skills begins. I hope that makes sense? [0] Literally, I could do this, and I suck at design. It’s very similar to the process of implementing a design passed to me by a UX Designer, which I’ve done loads of times.
- lukko 1y agoThis was my concern too - as a little project, it's interesting but if it's a replica of XP it has been done before and much more accurately. As a portfolio, I think it doesn't work at all and is detrimental to what you're trying to do. I think now in design, it is more important than ever for your work to cut through the noise and show at least some attempt to create something original. I think sometimes graphic design is seen as competence with certain programs, which I guess includes genAI now, or making something cool - but really it is visual communication that responds to a set of constraints - e.g. a brief, tailored to a target audience, communicating a product or emotion. There are no shortcuts - study what has been done, work on communicating what you want to say with colour, layout, typography and images. Draw and paint; avoid genAI until you are competent without it. Currently as a graphic design portfolio, I'm sorry to say it is memorably bad and there is a lot of work to do. That said, well done on finishing something, and making it to the top of HN. I hope the attention leads somewhere and that you continue making things.
- Hiro-Nakamoto 1y agoWe are learning. The thing about open access and giving access to those codes is so the knowledge is there, anyone can do it, use it for a reason, and hopefully they generate rewards for improvements people that are much better at coding than I will be able to fix and add on it never goes stale in 100 years the improvements are made .
- mjankowski 1y agoman, fix the typos. Dyanamic. otherwise, fun, great, keep going!
- mitchivin 1y agoit took me way too long to find but i've 'fixed' it haha, thanks!
- supermatt 1y agoLooks great, but you probably don't want to be serving copyrighted music mp3s directly from your site: e.g. https://mitchivin.com/assets/apps/musicPlayer/audio/song2.mp3 https://mitchivin.com/assets/apps/musicPlayer/audio/song2.mp...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- supermatt 1y agoAny reason I get downvoted for this?
- mjankowski 1y ago"Dyanamic" typo. otherwise, cool, nice, great work!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mitchivin 1y agofixed the typo! thanks
- kstonekuan 1y agoThe mobile experience is really well done too!
- block_dagger 1y agoAuthor looks shirtless in the avatar photo.
- turblety 1y agoThe mobile experience was actually really good. Pleasantly surprised.
- kragen 1y agoWhat was the worst part of the Win32 API to implement? Offhand I'm guessing CreateToolhelp32Snapshot or StretchBlt.
- padolsey 1y agoThis gives me so much joy. Well done!!
- fatata123 1y ago[dead]
- storus 1y agoOne thing that immediately popped up was how much nicer Windows XP looks compared to the current OS UIs...
- latexr 1y agoIt’s interesting, I’ll give you that, but feels entirely like the wrong approach. I opened the page before reading your post, and what immediately jumped out at me is that you say you’re a graphic designer but then you’re copying someone else’s old design which isn’t even that good. The second thing I noticed was the obvious AI icon for the login, and that hovering on it makes it move weirdly. I haven’t used Windows XP in over two decades but don’t remember it doing that. It looks like an error. At that point, I started losing confidence. You are supposed to be a graphic designer but are obviously using AI to design graphics and I assumed you would be doing the same for the code. The resume as a fake PDF is cramped and zooming in feels like a poor solution. Same thing with your projects, I can’t view them properly because they’re shoved in a tiny window for no reason. Plus, two of them are just loading animations, and it’s hard to understand if they’re broken or will ever load. Then I finally read your post. You say you had no coding experience and used AI agents and “every decision was human”, but if you don’t know how to code, most of the decisions will have been made by the LLM even if you instructed it in particular ways. Do you feel confident regarding what you ostensibly learned and that you’d be able to reimplement most of the project yourself from scratch? Again, it is interesting and a cool project, but it’s not particularly well-made or original¹ and I feel that as a portfolio actually does you a disservice by showcasing your skills in the worst possible light. ¹ https://win32.run https://win32.run
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- santah 1y agoThis reminds me a of a very faithful (in browser) recreation of Windows XP I stumbled upon recently, may've even been on HN: https://win32.run/ https://win32.run/ Good times.
- nrabulinski 1y agoIt’s very neat but I’m sorry, you can’t advertise yourself as a designer while prominently showcasing very obviously AI-generated graphics. The wallpaper and the avatar immediately undermine everything else, I can’t take you seriously seeing those
- mitchivin 1y agoSo you can’t take me seriously based on the use of a tool that almost definitely is used on a daily basis by everyone in my industry? Or would I be taken more seriously if I took a moral stand like you, and failed to adapt to my changing profession?
- broast 1y agoMy mobile device is a square aspect ratio and thus there is no portrait mode to check this out :(
- sejje 1y agoWeird, what phone? How often does that aspect ratio ruin things?
- broast 1y agoIt's the cover screen of my zflip 5 with the inner screen being broken. It's surprisingly usable and I find myself wishing more phones were purposefully built at this size and shape.
- mitchivin 1y agoI will get around to it, sorry! Thanks for letting me know
- ipaddr 1y agoIt looks great the application section was a little lacking. Add minesweeper or defrag or any number of the pre installed pieces like file explorer and get more creative. Its a lot of work setting everything you have up spend sometime on more details / applications
- mkovach 1y agoThis isn't meant to critique you personally. Your post just sparked the thought. But it points to a deeper, systemic issue with AI collaboration in coding, design, writing, and beyond. The core tension is between replication and creation. Yes, some things will always resemble what came before. A hard-boiled detective novel usually has a corpse or two, a bottle, and a wisecrack. But the artistry and work are in what you do with the formula. Take Les Roberts, for example. He wrote detective novels, sure, but he set them in Cleveland, gave them local color, and turned Northeast Ohio into a character. That's authorship. That's presence. You can absolutely ask an AI to plot the story. But the soul, that point, is what you bring to it: the choices, the voice, the friction. What gives me pause here is that I don't feel that presence. The project looks good, but it feels like Windows XP. Smooth, clean, and generic. I can't tell what this person's actual skills are. From the post, they clearly put in real time and effort. They learned something and got it working. But what I see is replication. Competent, yes. But flat, in my opinion. If I were in their shoes, someone who would struggle to replicate this, I'd still treat that as step one. Okay, I copied it. Now, what can I improve? What parts of the interface feel off? Where could I take a risk? Then, show the before and after. So here's the long-winded point. Why stop at imitation? Why not go further? Why not show that you can replicate something, build on it, shape it, and own it? That's the more profound concern I have about AI collaboration. How do you show your work in a world of infinite templates and effortless iteration? How do you show your soul, or if you are too shy to bare your soul, at least a differentiator, that means you should be hired? (I say this with the absolute irony that I used Grammarly to ensure this collection of words somewhat resembled a coherent thought. In the words of Dirty Harry, "A man has to know his limitations."[0]) --- [0] Probably a misquote.
- Fade_Dance 1y agoI think a clear recreation is a cool addition to a wider portfolio that also showcases some of the elements you mention. Having one deeply extended project and one memorable clean recreation (it's getting upvotes, seems like a novel enough idea) is probably more unique than two mildly extended projects, if I were to hazard a guess into what people ripping through dozens of portfolios are thinking. You are probably right that the portfolio needs to be rounded out though and that this project shouldn't stand alone.
- ftruzzi 1y agoThis is really nice work, and it does showcase your skills, ability to learn, persistence and attention to detail. I disagree with others who complain that either the design was copied or a few little details are not exactly the same as the original – I don't think that's the point here. Congrats!
- amsterdorn 1y ago> Apart from basic libraries like xp.css and paint.js, it's all original code. I wouldn't say this constitutes "original code". AI agents are trained on open-source software; to apply them and present this project as your own work is misleading.
- johndhi 1y agoThis is amazing!
- mitchivin 1y agoThanks mate!
- replwoacause 1y agoLooks great on mobile! I think it’s awesome. But I’d change the avatar to something more XP like and less Simpson-esque that has a less obvious GPT designed feel to it.
- mitchivin 1y agohaha yeah I’ll get around to it eventually, it’s clearly a pain point for many - it’s really just not a huge deal for me
- jheriko 1y ago[dead]
- apwell23 1y agohey i saw this a while ago on /r/vibecoding . Looks even better now .
- mitchivin 1y agothanks dude!
- supersparrow 1y agoWow! Seriously, well done! I love it.
- mitchivin 1y agoThanks so much mate, appreciate the kind words
- allendale 1y agoSkip the scanlines, makes everything blurry on my sharp display. https://windows96.net https://windows96.net
- vkaku 1y agoThis is excellent, detailed, and does the job. Many of these comments are myopic and miss the point. This is better than the way most people would present their portfolio and it shows some creativity and thoughtful design. Especially if they've visited the rest of your portfolio. Good job, OP. Stay away from the haters.
- mitchivin 1y agoThanks boss! Appreciate the kind words. I’m not phased by the comments at this point haha I take them all on board but I’d already considered the large majority of their points before I decided to go all in! The people that get it, get it
- colinscruggs 1y agoyou're still sticking with that god awful AI generated Studio Ghibli profile picture, just... why? how does relying so heavily on AI to make your assets indicate your proficiency as a graphic designer?
- mitchivin 1y agoit’s actually closer to family guy/bobs burgers than Ghibli, so it’s pretty obvious you just jumped on the AI hate train around the Ghibli craze And if that’s your only complaint, thanks so much - I’m glad you could find something to try and drag me down though for your own enjoyment
- aforty 1y agoReally cool. Only bug I noticed was that the command line output doesn’t scroll. This was on my iPhone with the keyboard up as I was typing commands and press return.
- mitchivin 1y agoOh interesting, that’s not intentional but it might be something I just hadn’t considered - does it scroll again after the keyboard is hidden?
- bitwize 1y agoIt looks good. As others have flagged up there are a few inaccuracies, but I noped out of Windows about the time XP came out (mainly due to the product activation stuff), so I couldn't itemize those in detail. These kind of projects are fun to do, but as a showcase of your design skills... ehhhh? There are a few things that have your original design, like your résumé and such. Something like this is a much better showcase of your front-end coding skills, but you've delegated much of that to AI. My advice: if you want to show off your programming skills, learn how to do it on your own. Don't do Windows XP right off the bat. Start with something simple. Make an Amiga "boing ball" bounce around the screen or something. Then tackle more complex challenges. It's not just about arriving at a finished product. By crafting something yourself, without machine assistance, you develop a better feel for what should be in the finished product and what shouldn't. (It's OK to use dumb code generators to automate repetitive tasks, transpilers, etc. But there's a feel for when and how to use those as well.)
- alexvitkov 1y ago> Every pixel and every function went through me. The AI translated what I asked for into code, but every decision was human. You'll find that programmers are a lot less prickly when you use AI to generate code, than say artists are, when you use it to generate pictures. You don't have to defend yourself, it's OK to use it to make cool things that you couldn't otherwise. You should be aware though that even though it may "feel like magic" when just getting started, there's an upper limit to the complexity of what you can build with AI-generated code - it's very low quality and will start falling apart once you stack a lot of it. For the same reason I wouldn't recommend using it as a learning resource, if you really want to get into programming.
- throwaway743 1y agoLooks and feels solid. Only issue I noticed off the bat is that scrolling isn't working in Chrome on Android. Also, idk if it's an issue with mobile Chrome but the address bar doesn't drop down.
- mitchivin 1y agoWill check out the chrome scrolling on android, is that in the my projects app? Sadly the address bar does not drop down haha Maybe one day
- zephyreon 1y agoThis is really good. I’ve seen recreations before but the attention to detail made this delightful to use. Agree with some of the other points that you’re recreating a design that already exists but it’s evident you spent some effort on this even with the help of AI (which was disclosed in the AUTHOR command in command prompt, thank you!)
- iJohnDoe 1y agoGreat job! Working on mobile is really a nice touch!
- mitchivin 1y agothank you!
- voodooEntity 1y agoWell it kinda feels like the optimal example of "if you cant make it good make it look good". While, if the author reached its goal and is happy about it, thats fair and fine - tho for me as a former webdev looking at the source and how its build well it basically yells AI... and absolutly not in a good way.... If you really want to learn coding - put the AI aside and learn it by yourself. You may use AI to search for documentations and stuff, but dont try to learn coding style/sturcturing from it ... because its very bad at it.
- mietek 1y agoA graphic designer should be capable of designing an avatar for themselves instead of using AI slop that rips off Studio Ghibli. I closed the page as soon as I saw that.
- p4bl0 1y agoLove that the hidden 10x zoom in Paint is there and works :).
- ayaros 1y agoGet rid of the AI profile picture. Just use the picture on your resume! That AI one means a good chunk of people will hate this website before they even click your name to "login" due to their own preexisting biases. As an artist myself I'm not happy about how AI companies have shamelessly plagiarized people's work. The fact you're using the same Studio Ghibli style everyone else is using just feels unoriginal. Whether employers would care is another story entirely. Others have left good feedback regarding the UI inconsistencies that you should address. If you really want this to reflect on your abilities as a graphic designer, you should make this "themeable." XP had multiple visual styles - there were variants of Luna, as well as the Royale theme that came with Media Center Edition, and other themes like the Zune theme. There were also numerous third-party user-created themes you could download and use (if you installed a dll patch). You should consider adding a few of the standard themes - at the very least the silver, olive, and royale themes. But more importantly, you should make your own themes, and add them as options as well. Open up a dialog similar to XP's "Appearance" dialog on first run so users instantly know they will have that option. It's great if you can recreate a user interface... but anyone can do that and many already have. What matters more is how you can build on the UI while remaining true to its design language and interaction paradigms. What uniqueness can you add to the UI? Here are some links for inspiration: - One example of this sort of thing is https://macthemes.garden/ https://macthemes.garden/, which has thousands of Mac OS 8/9 themes. - Here's the wikipedia article that goes over the first party XP themes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_visual_styles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_visual_styles - For examples of XP third party themes... I don't know any good websites off the top of my head but DeviantArt has had lots of 3rd party themes and style assets uploaded to it over the years (for both Windows and macOS): https://www.deviantart.com/search?q=windows+xp+themes https://www.deviantart.com/search?q=windows+xp+themes Use these as inspiration and come up with your own unique visual styles which would still feel at home with Windows XP. If you can do that, I think it will really impress people.
- vpShane 1y agoIf you enjoyed making this then I enjoy it. For the love of tinkering, technology, learning new things. I would suggest a multi-player OS, where web apps can be launched inside the OS, think: multiplayer paint, saving files, and JS web apps with its own 'app submission' where apps can be run and show up on everybody's screens. Vibe coding is fun, glad you could do this!
- radley 1y agoWhile I'm sure this was fun to make, I think this site is a little tone-deaf, and I'd like to save you some time and frustration. Clients hire graphic designers for unique and modern designs. I get that WinXP is retro these days, but WinOS is also the antithesis of good design. Hacker News will love it, but design industry folks won't. Especially all the clicks and delays it takes to get to your actual work (hint: bounce rate). You're competing with a lot of designers right now, so you need to show your best work up front to stand out. Just like you, your clients need to grab attention and establish trust for their products and services, which is why they're spending money to hire a graphic designer. Now that you've made this, archive it as a Personal Design Experiment and add it to your portfolio so it can still be discovered. Then, remove the WinOS skin from your actual portfolio. Take visitors straight to your projects page: it should be your homepage. In each project: show your work. It doesn't have to be perfect, 5-star design. Make it clear what you personally designed vs AI-designed, so they know what they're paying you for. Did you make sketches? Revisions? Show 'em. Not everything, just samples. With those, describe your thought process and work process. Demonstrate that working with you is a positive, efficient experience. That's what will get you hired. Finally, your work so far is sports oriented. You many want to make that your focus for now. Think about what a sports-designer portfolio should look like: bold, powerful, action-oriented graphics.
- skyzouwdev 1y ago[dead]
- Varun08 1y agoyou sir are an absolute mad lad! kudos.
- nektro 1y agototally blown away when paint worked
- mitchivin 1y ago:)
- henrygallen 1y ago[dead]
- m_2018 1y agoCongrats on this milestone. can it run games. what if yo host games remotely and launch them using this application?
- Obscurely 1y agoThis was so nostalgic... I really like it and I am very impressed by how well it performs. Regardless of wether the design is original or not if you implemented this from the ground up and used something else as inspiration this is still a clear showcase of your skills. I think this could be considered as the equivalent of looking on StackOverflow for backend programming solutions. Congrats!
- madou 1y agonow we need windows 3.1
- mautty 1y agoThis is super cool, I’m really impressed by how well it works on mobile, it feels very strange to be “using” windows on a phone but the whole experience is very smooth
- colinscruggs 1y agoA I S L O P
- mitchivin 1y agoThanks so much dude!! really appreciate it, I couldn’t agree more and I can’t wait to make the next project even sloppier It’s cool hey