[VerifiedReports]

Yep. I always cite XP as being Windows's peak, but I forgot that it shipped with their insulting Fisher-Price motif enabled by default. Step 1 was to switch the UI to "classic" (essentially Windows 95) mode, and all was well.

Windows 95 is a great case study because with that release, Microsoft did more for GUIs than Apple did through the entire decade of the '90s... and beyond.

All of it is now out the window (pun invited). It's a race to the bottom between Microsoft and Apple, with Microsoft having a HUGE head-start. But Apple has really stepped up to the plate with Tahoe, crippling it with big enough UI blunders to keep them in the enshittification game.

[pndy]

XP in early betas released had that slightly upgraded 9x interface called Watercolor [1] and if they'd keep it, surely majority would pick it up over plastic Luna.

Early experiments with totally new theme were rather unpleasant [2] and Watercolor was abandoned in favor of more familiar 9x looking theme as an option. W11 still comes with that old 9x widgets look - slightly flattened because of that trend but it's still there buried beneath for compatibility reasons. And I'm pretty sure they won't escape with that like Apple did with Aqua away from Platinum.

[1] - https://betawiki.net/wiki/Watercolor

[2] - https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_XP_build_2416#Gallery

[jonhohle]

I always installed Watercolor on a new computer. It's still beautiful and definitely the look they should have chosen and played to their strengths.

I think they were so caught off guard by how incredible Mac OS X _looked_, that they didn't realize it wasn't just veneer, but a genuine evolution and improvement of how Mac OS _worked_. This became Apple's competitive advantage for over a decade as Microsoft chased different styles while consistently botching how it would impact usability.

[cosmic_cheese]

I really liked XP (and 7) because for me, having a capable theming engine built in that didn't take a ton of extra resources or cause instability (unlike Stardock's WindowBlinds) was a real value add. There were some absolutely gorgeous third party XP/Vista/7 themes on sites like DeviantArt that worked extremely well within the limits of the engine, had a unique look and feel, and were just as usable as the "classic" theme.

When MS gutted the theming engine with the release of Windows 8 (flat rectangles only) I was devastated.

[DaiPlusPlus]

The engine itself isn’t gutted - it’s full of functionality that was never lost. MS just (correctly) reasoned that transparency effects in the UI - introduced in Vista simply to show-off the capabilities of the DWM compositor - ultimately detract from a good UI.