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Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

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Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#241

Post by bombcar »

pdntspa wrote: post #220
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #69

I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React, no ads in my weather app; the only browser on my computer will be the browser itself.

I dont know about Win11, but in Win10, it is still there. You can see it in MDI apps and, in a few rare circumstances, I have seen the window manager seemingly crash and flash the old Win2000-style boxy design before going back to what it currently does.

Microsoft is really good at supporting the old libraries and GUIs etc (is the Windows 3.11 font picker still there?) - the problem is that modern programs aren't built to the W2K paradigm so even if you force W11 to "look" like windows 2000 all the apps will not suddenly grow title bars, etc.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#242

Post by hulitu »

wink wrote: post #97

OK, does anyone actually remember if half of the systems of the 80s really had such perfect font rendering or is this just some emulation 'current version'? The first computers I used were 486 with DOS and early Pentiums with Windows 3.11 and nothing looked nearly as nice. Some of those old screenshots look A LOT better than stuff 10 years later that I used (incl MacOS 8 or 9).

Font rendering was better. Today the fonts are scaled up or down or both and the rendering is hit or miss.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#243

Post by Aachen »

hulitu wrote: post #219
elch wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows: Settings -> Accessibility -> Always show scrollbars.

Which is ignored by most programs.

Report as bug. A surprising number of (commercial or open source) projects care about accessibility settings

Of course, a smaller but no less surprising number of projects don't. The complexity of such a report is so low, though, that one might as well try for software that you actually use

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#244

Post by fraXis »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #69

I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React, no ads in my weather app; the only browser on my computer will be the browser itself.

I would recommend WindowBlinds to achieve the "grey, boxy UI" look. As for a Windows 2000 theme out of the box, I am not sure, but I know it can make your Windows 10/11 UI look and behave like Windows XP.

There is a custom skin editor as well, so you can tailor the look of Windows to anything you choose, so you can probably get very close to the Windows 2000 look you are seeking.

https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#248

Post by c-hendricks »

xerox13ster wrote: post #195
BoppreH wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's a problem for you, you have much to gain with better window management shortcuts. On KDE I have the Windows key + left click set to drag a window from anywhere , and win + right click to resize depending on the quadrant the cursor is on. It's incredibly satisfying not having to hunt titlebar empty spaces or thin edges.

But do you see that title bar buttons are bad explicitly because you have to hunt for title bar edges? That you were more or less forced to adopt these KDE shortcuts so that you could work around the fact that they had cannibalized the title bar for a purpose it was not designed for. You were forced to change your workflow and everybody else is having to be forced to adapt because they changed a metaphor that has rem…

I wasn't forced to adopt tho, these shortcuts go back to when Windows had chunky borders in XP/7. It was just something that a lot of Linux WMs did and it's incredibly useful so I found ways to do the equivalent on all operating systems.

Also KDE seems pretty staunchly _against_ client-side decorations with buttons other than the window manager buttons.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#249

Post by unsungNovelty »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #166
vbezhenar wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want Linux. Hardware features are contained in the kernel. GUI has nothing to do with them. GUI frameworks provide features for applications to draw their UI. A selection of numerous windows managers and desktop environments allows you to choose the best GUI shell to work in. It is somewhat of a bazaar, with different components sometimes not fitting perfectly into each other and there's a constant migration to a…

No thanks, I do not want Linux. I use Linux for my home servers and at work, and I'd like to keep it that way, at arm's length. I don't know why people suggest Linux for desktop use at the first swoop. I dislike it. I dislike how janky its various GUI desktop managers are, I dislike how edge cases that are handled straightforwardly on Windows just aren't on Linux. Things like high pixel density, different audio setup…

the worst she could say is no

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#250

Post by mikestew »

rawgabbit wrote: post #198

I was still in school when OS/2 came out. I read about it in the magazines never touching it myself. I was impressed with its aesthetics but never knew with the clout of IBM why it never took off. My guess is internal politics killed OS/2 more than Microsoft?

Internal politics, yeah, maybe; because IBM certainly didn’t do much to market it. That, and bundling deals Microsoft had with OEM hardware vendors (if you want the discount, then Windows has to go on every machine). OS/2 advertised a “better Windows than Windows”. Problem was, software vendors then said, “great, now we don’t have to do an OS/2 port!”
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