GUI Preferences

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Curious..
How many homeusers actually use the default GUI (General User Interface) on their choice of Microsoft OS?

Few years back, I employed a 3rd partty GUI Classic Shell/ Openshell for both 8.1 and 10 and could not imagine life without it…I dread to think.. I rejected the smartphone-esque Windows 8 GUI followed by the fisher price look of 10 made my eyes bleed.
One of the first things I did and still do, is to install a GUI shell on those versions before progessing any further.

Windows 7 was the last by default which I liked and all the previous versions back to Windows 95b (OSR2). I STILL like the ‘classic’ MSFT GUI (win95b/ 98/ 98SE/ NT4/ 2000) call me old fashioned if you like but hey, simplicity and the option of customisation worked well.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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windbg, Myst, Charlie, BobbyB, Cybertooth

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You’re old fashioned.

Windows 11 GUI looks fine and works great.

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b wrote:

Windows 11 GUI looks fine and works great.

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do. We don’t all have to do the same things.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Myst, SueW, Charlie, Cybertooth

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I didn’t suggest banning third-party menu systems.

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Last month, I purchased a Windows 11 computer by HP, and decided to give the new UI a try.

After a week, I simply could not stand it anymore. The centered taskbar icons kept shifting position as new programs were opened, and so I always had to take special care when reaching for the Start menu icon as I was prone to hitting the wrong icon. Putting the icons flush left helped with this, but I was still stuck with icon-only items on the taskbar where I had to interpret what the hieroglyph signified. And the taskbar itself was hideously flat and tall, with no apparent way to make it sleeker. As for the new Start menu itself, I did not care to have stuff “recommended” to me.

So I embarked on a project to restore as much Vista/7 functionality to the UI as I could. Tried a number of different things and finally settled on a pair of Stardock products, Start11 to recreate the Start menu and WindowBlinds to restore taskbar functionality, which enabled me to reach this result:

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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windbg, Myst, GeeBeeDee, BobbyB, TechTango, PKCano

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A rather aesthetically pleasing effect, I like it. I take it that it’s as fast as Win 10x or 11x, I am paddling along, albeit grudgingly, with Win11 in Bootcamp. You lose more in Productivity and user experience for Computing whilst playing “Hide and seek” with settings and the odd tweak. Strangely the install on unsupported Hardware is really quite simple and very quick, if you “fool” the Bootcamp utility in to thinking its Win10, when you finally get know the tricks

So now I have a task bar almost full and desktop shortcuts all over the place.

I think M$ calls this “Progress.”

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Cybertooth

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I’m using Win 10 with the default GUI, and while have the start menu full of my stuff and utilities only, I’m a heavy user of a Task Bar and Tool Bar combo as a double row, one above the other. I use a LOT of keyboard short cuts. Short example: Win+1 through Win+0 (first 10 apps in taskbar) or Win+T then quickly arrow to the app you want.

I dread switching to Win 11. Maybe the rumored Win 12 will be more friendly.

Desktop mobo Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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TechTango wrote:

I use a LOT of keyboard short cuts. Short example: Win+1 through Win+0 (first 10 apps in taskbar) or Win+T then quickly arrow to the app you want.

I dread switching to Win 11.

Those still work in Win 11.

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Thanks.  I should have been more clear.  I know the shortcuts will work.  And the various shell apps can do a lot for start menu, too.

Desktop mobo Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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b wrote:

You’re old fashioned.

There are several users on here that are old fashioned. I am very old fashioned. If it ain’t broken, than there is no point in change it. No need for a new stuff if the old stuff works.

This is why I kept using Windows 7. I never liked Windows 8, 8.1, 10 or 11. It kept getting going from bad (Windows 8), to awful (Windows 8.1), to terrible (Windows 10), to abysmal or whatever the word that is worse than abysmal is.

This is why the environment is getting all mess up since people just keep wasting things and get new stuff rather than fix them or throw out good working stuff less than a year or less to get brand new shiny stuff. Most of my computers I had where over 10-15 years old before they failed beyond repair or could not get replacement parts any more. My old TV from the 1970’s was still working fine until the DTV changed it and broken it. DTV is very bad on the new TV. I can get only 8 channels on it and all of them are very poor reception even after getting a HD antenna for it. Before on my old TV with rabbit ears, i had about 15 channels that were good reception. Plus  5 channels that were semi-fine reception depending on weather and time of season and the position of the rabbit ears. I had about 20 channels on my old TV. DTV has only 8 and very bad reception and audio and/or picture cuts out a lot.

 

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Myst, Charlie, Cybertooth

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Microfix wrote:

How many homeusers actually use the default GUI

I do. Never changed Windows GUI since Windows 3.1

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Myst

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Microfix wrote:

Curious.. How many homeusers actually use the default GUI (General User Interface) on their choice of Microsoft OS?

I’ve never used anything other than the default GUI (*Graphical* User Interface).

One reason is that I don’t believe I can respond appropriately to user queries if my OS doesn’t match what posters use… and IMO most alternative shell additions are used by a fairly-small niche market.

I’ve used add-ons like StartIsBack at times to answer specific queries about their use, but they are only installed on my test machine for the duration of the query.

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TechTango

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I find the Windows desktop UI to be inadequate and sometimes frustrating, regardless of end-user expertise. Inexpensive third party desktop UI enhancement programs are installed to improve the UI. The Start Menu has been poorly designed for many releases; I don’t use it. I mostly disabled the too distracting dynamic content. I liked the task bar in Windows 10, which Microsoft just had to mess with, in Windows 11.

Instead of Windows UI improvement, I see deterioration with post-7 Windows releases. The good news is [desktop UI] customization is still possible with current Windows releases.

Windows 10 22H2 desktops & laptops on Dell, HP, ASUS; No servers, no domain.

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Cybertooth, RetiredGeek

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I agree that Windows 7 was the last good GUI as it used/was based on the classic Windows 95 interface that was created from extensive user testing and feedback and is what established Windows around the world as the dominate desktop OS. But since then it’s been all downhill and Microsoft no longer seems to know how to design/create a functional and productive GUI. Not surprising as they stopped listening to feedback from users (ex. they ignore the majority of it in their feedback hub) as well they really no longer respect the user as has been evident for quite some time with the behavior of their “Windows as a service” that started with 10.

It was all why I stayed on Windows 8.1 for quite a while and used Classic/Open Shell until support ended for 8.1 recently. Since then I have moved on to Linux Mint 21.1 LTS (Cinnamon version) little over two months ago now on two Dell desktop PC’s. No regrets at all, in fact I wish that I had made the switch much sooner. Mint is a great OS, very stable and has an excellent default GUI packed with a ton of features and functionality, so no need for any third party GUI software to correct anything. And best of all Mint still respects the end user with easy built-in control over updates (like Windows 8.1 and older). No worries about triggering the install of anything just by viewing what’s available or having to jump through a bunch of hoops or use third party software to try to control updates.

I still have to use Windows 10 (Enterprise) at work and wish I could install third party GUI software but it’s not allowed. Thankfully they have no plans to even consider Windows 11. Otherwise personally I’m done dealing with Microsoft’s clown show!

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Cybertooth

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Microfix wrote:

I STILL like the ‘classic’ MSFT GUI (win95b/ 98/ 98SE/ NT4/ 2000) call me old fashioned if you like but hey, simplicity and the option of customisation worked well.

The Win 95 through 2k UI was, without a doubt, peak Windows.

Microsoft spent a great deal of time and money researching the way people use and perceive UIs during the development of Windows 95, and in doing so, they learned that a lot of the assumptions they had made during the development of 3.x didn’t actually reflect how people think and process cues when they are unfamiliar with the way things are done.

As a result of all of this research, Win 95 was a tour de force in usability and intuitiveness, and it came at just the right time, when the internet (which at that time was a thing for PCs) was going mainstream. Windows 95’s UI (which was also the NT4 UI) was all about usability and intuitiveness, simplifying things to their essence, but no further (which is when ‘simple’ becomes ‘simplistic,’ hampering usability rather than helping it). It was not made to be pretty, but was a serious tool for people who wanted to do work with their computers.

Usability (on the hardware that people would actually be using it on) was all that mattered when designing the UI for 95. What a tragedy it is that intuitive, efficient UIs that work with the way human brains process information and that are designed for the actual hardware in question (no half and half phone UIs for PCs!) are now “old fashioned.” Now usability takes a back seat to branding, marketing, and matching what some “designer” dreams is pretty to look at. Time-tested and proven UI paradigms are tossed aside because they have been deemed aesthetically unpleasing. There are too many seats at the UI table now, and the concerns of the end user, rather than being the be-all and end-all of UI design, are just one of many things that factor in to the design of the final product.

That is just one of a series of reasons why I left my computing home of 25 years (as of 2015) and moved on from Windows. Haven’t missed it or thought about going back since.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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BobbyB, Cybertooth

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Ascaris wrote:

The Win 95 through 2k UI was, without a doubt, peak Windows.

StartAllBack v3.6.2

Note the absence of “Quick Access” and other “Special Folders” in File Explorer.

Ascaris wrote:

That is just one of a series of reasons why I left my computing home of 25 years (as of 2015) and moved on from Windows. Haven’t missed it or thought about going back since.

My first tweak of Windows 95 OSR2 was to enable 32-bit disk access.  With the realization that I wasn’t locked into Microsoft’s view of how I should use my PC, I’ve never looked back.  There are just too many ways of getting behind Microsoft’s wall and making Windows into an unobtrusive, efficient platform for doing the things I do the way I want to do them.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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