4 ms·

Looking at those screenshots made me a bit nostalgic for the old windows 2000 UI. It wasn't exactly showy, but from a UX experience it was great (clean lines, n

Looking at those screenshots made me a bit nostalgic for the old windows 2000 UI. It wasn't exactly showy, but from a UX experience it was great (clean lines, nice spacing, easy to find things, responsive, consistent). Every UI Microsoft has done since then has sort of been a regression, even if not a terrible one. Windows XP looked like a cheap toy, Aero was pretty but their insistence on killing menus and blending UI elements with the title bar was weird, and metro is awkward on a desktop. I know you can still go back to "classic" mode, but it's definitely a second class citizen at this point.

rsync 12y ago
Agreed. I do not miss working in a Windows OS as I much, much prefer a UNIX system. However I do miss working in a Windows UI. You could very quickly and efficiently do just about everything with keystrokes. I much prefer the win2k UI over the OSX UI.
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- jeditobe 12y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8666656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8666656
krylon 12y ago
I use Windows 7 at work, and I have to admit it has kind of grown on me. For once, Microsoft got a couple of things right. Aero Snap is great, and the search field in the start menu is very useful, too. But otherwise, I agree, they had a good thing going, and then they went and ruined it. I am not opposed to change, but if it is change just for the sake of change, I do not see the point.
dingdingdang 12y ago
Why is it "second class citizen"? I've used it exclusively with Win7 and it works fine (granted it does need 7 Taskbar Tweaker for best results..). I have never ever liked the Aero Peek feature of Win7: it invariably adds extra steps and mouse work to the simple task of switching between apps for no good reason (no, seeing a mini thumbnail of an app I already know is running does not make anything clearer or better). ReactOS, I will be happy to go there if I ever get the chance from a compatibility standpoint.
- overgard 12y ago
  I guess it's subjective, but in windows 7 the aesthetics are weird. The taskbar looks funny, a lot of the UI dialogs were obviously not designed with that styling in mind, and so on. In windows 8 they killed the theme completely. (Although once you get rid of metro, I actually like the windows 8 theme quite a bit).
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pavlov 12y ago
IMHO the Windows 8 standard desktop theme is a "better Classic than Classic". With the Aero excess gone, the remaining design is clutter-free. I also like the current Office UI a lot [1]. Maybe I'm weird. [1] On Windows only -- Mac Office 2011 is a mess.
digisign 12y ago
I'm generally with you, but preferred XP with the Classic theme, and stupid sidebars disabled. It had a quite a few improvements over 2k. I miss real menus and configurable tool bars. I've had to piece together a Frankenstien of gnome-classic and xfce4 tools to almost approximate how good XP was 15 years ago. And some parts of it still weren't as good as the classic Mac OS long before that. GUIs are going backwards, sniff.
unicornporn 12y ago
Where do you see screenshots? I've tried every single browser I have and I see no screenshots.

rsync 12y ago

Agreed. I do not miss working in a Windows OS as I much, much prefer a UNIX system. However I do miss working in a Windows UI. You could very quickly and efficiently do just about everything with keystrokes. I much prefer the win2k UI over the OSX UI.

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jeditobe 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8666656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8666656

krylon 12y ago

I use Windows 7 at work, and I have to admit it has kind of grown on me. For once, Microsoft got a couple of things right. Aero Snap is great, and the search field in the start menu is very useful, too. But otherwise, I agree, they had a good thing going, and then they went and ruined it. I am not opposed to change, but if it is change just for the sake of change, I do not see the point.

dingdingdang 12y ago

Why is it "second class citizen"? I've used it exclusively with Win7 and it works fine (granted it does need 7 Taskbar Tweaker for best results..). I have never ever liked the Aero Peek feature of Win7: it invariably adds extra steps and mouse work to the simple task of switching between apps for no good reason (no, seeing a mini thumbnail of an app I already know is running does not make anything clearer or better). ReactOS, I will be happy to go there if I ever get the chance from a compatibility standpoint.

overgard 12y ago
I guess it's subjective, but in windows 7 the aesthetics are weird. The taskbar looks funny, a lot of the UI dialogs were obviously not designed with that styling in mind, and so on. In windows 8 they killed the theme completely. (Although once you get rid of metro, I actually like the windows 8 theme quite a bit).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pavlov 12y ago

IMHO the Windows 8 standard desktop theme is a "better Classic than Classic". With the Aero excess gone, the remaining design is clutter-free. I also like the current Office UI a lot [1]. Maybe I'm weird. [1] On Windows only -- Mac Office 2011 is a mess.

digisign 12y ago

I'm generally with you, but preferred XP with the Classic theme, and stupid sidebars disabled. It had a quite a few improvements over 2k. I miss real menus and configurable tool bars. I've had to piece together a Frankenstien of gnome-classic and xfce4 tools to almost approximate how good XP was 15 years ago. And some parts of it still weren't as good as the classic Mac OS long before that. GUIs are going backwards, sniff.

unicornporn 12y ago

Where do you see screenshots? I've tried every single browser I have and I see no screenshots.