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Thought I’d start a visually nostalgic thread as I’d been doing work
on our repurposed netbook XP SP3 yesterday.
Spent a few hours on the system and must say, XP just works, NOTHING gets in the way, as it should be for an operating system.
Feel free to add yours, whatever the legacy OS..
@Microfix, that is one sight for sore eyes! It’s light-years ahead of the flat and drab Windows UIs that the folks at Microsoft have been excreting beginning with Windows 8.
The next PC I set up will sport this desktop. IMHO, this Longhorn-era design is the most stunningly beautiful desktop ever made. I’ve never understood why Microsoft didn’t stick with this look. Of the many things I love about it, the Minimize and Restore Up/Down buttons are my favorite.
I’m hoping the designer will issue an update to make it work on Windows 11.
Meanwhile, this is what I’ve been running on my Win11 machine:
Well, they ARE the desktops from legacy OSes! 😉
But if you prefer desktops of currently running legacy OSes, those can be arranged too. 🙂 Here, for example, is my Vista laptop:
The hardware is long gone but the Windows 2000 legacy system lives on in a VM –
Must admit, I had great times with Windows 2000 Pro over Win ME which was just deflating compared to Win98 SE. Win2k was a solid performer for my home use over anything. Can’t imagine there will be many Windows ME screenshots..
Looking at your Win2k screenshot has gave me a hankering to dig that CD out and stick it on the old laptop with SP4/ drivers etc integrated. 🙂
Here’s a screenshot of the Windows 8 Developer Preview desktop:
Note the glaring lack of a proper Start orb in the lower left corner. The Windows logo there served to bring up the horrifying tile-based Start Screen, of which I can’t bring myself to take a screenshot—ugh!!!
But note, too, the continued presence (though already diminished) of Aero Glass blur in the window title bars, and of the 3D buttons for open windows down in the taskbar.
It’s been a long time since I worked/played with the Developer Preview. I do have Classic Shell installed on it and I can’t remember if any of the taskbar esthetics are native or thanks to Classic Shell.
It looks great to me, I would not know it was Win 8! One thing that’s a personal preference of mine is to get rid of those ugly arrows stuck in the left side of the desktop shortcut icons. I have used Windows Power Tools, or I modify the Registry. Let me know if you want registry info., it’s not much.
I’m seeing a Start button down in the left. I assume it works.
Yes, I’d be interested in learning how to get rid of the arrows! (Not that I fire up the Developer Preview all that often, but it’ll come in handy for my other computers 🙂 )
That button in the lower left corner brought up the Start Screen, which would fill the monitor’s real estate with huge tiles for services, “Metro” apps, and programs. Windows 8 booted to that Start Screen and, to get to the desktop, you had to then click on one of those tiles. The Start Screen was the “real” interface, and the desktop was treated as just one more application that you could get to that way.)
If you ever opened a Windows 8 “Metro” app, it was a PITA to close it, there was no self-evident way to do it. It was hard to even shut down the computer and this last time I just resorted to Ctrl-Alt-Del instead of hunting for a way to do it via the UI. (Can I tell you how much I loathed the uncustomized Windows 8 UI? 🙂 )
Yes, I’d be interested in learning how to get rid of the arrows! (Not that I fire up the Developer Preview all that often, but it’ll come in handy for my other computers
This little registry tweak has worked for me in Windows going from Win 95 to Win 7. I should be clear that this is not meant for your developer program.
Use Registry Editor to go to the Registry and go to HKEY_Classes_Root\Linkfile. Rename “IsShortcut” to “IsnotShortcut”. That’s all you have to do. The arrows won’t show but the icons stay the same and are unaffected otherwise. This has always worked for me, but I haven’t tried it in anything newer than Win 7. Oh and disregard those quotation marks.
I forgot to mention that you will probably have to reboot the computer.
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
Is what I have no ‘i’ between l and n.
🍻
Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.Developers! Developers! Developers!
BTW, I have used Classic Shell/Open Shell from day one.
My Win8.1 installations don’t look like that.
I had to “summon” those images from the depths.
And here’s another blast from the past for Developers –
One more Windows 8 screenshot, this one from the Release Preview (immediate precursor to the RTM version):
The Start button is not native, I added it for OS usability. Notice that, even at this late stage, the window borders still feature Aero Glass transparency. I recently read on Paul Thurrott’s site that removing Aero Glass was “a last-minute decision”, a report which jibes with my observation of the various preview versions.
Another walk down memory lane with Windows Vista (x64)
Fired up Windows 7 Pro today (patched to EoS and Feb 2020 background patch)
I prefer the Aero GUI to the flat, dull, boring and simplistic wordpr-esque panels of modern whatever-floats-your-bloat operating systems.
Beautiful. And that image doesn’t even showcase the Aero Glass transparency that gave 7, Vista, and some versions of Longhorn their special esthetic appeal.
Well done for spotting the deliberate!
(basic theme for HP) Switched it back to aero after the screendump 🙂
Windows 95c (OEM) in 2025 🙂
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