So basically ever since I first tried Windows 7 I held it as the “Gold standard” for desktop OS’s. Half my tweaks to Windows 10 were trying to get it as close to Win7 as I possibly could.
When I finally start experimenting with Linux early this year KDE quickly got me to reconsider my “Gold standard” and finally switch my main machine fully to Linux.
No regrets and certainly ain’t switching back even if Microsoft gave me updated Windows 7 with every extra feature I wanted back then.
I’ve been a Linux user for a decade and a half now, but still use Windows on my corporate laptops. Honestly, it’s baffling how Microsoft seem to consistently manage to miss the mark with the UI design. There’s lots to be said about the underlying internals of Windows vs Linux, performance, kernel design etc., but even at the shallow, end user, “is this thing pleasant to use” stakes, they just never manage to get it right.
Windows 7 was…fine. It was largely inoffensive from a shell point of view, although things about how config and settings were handled were still pretty screwy. But Windows 8 was an absolutely insane approach to UI design, Windows 10 spent an awful lot of energy just trying to de-awful it without throwing the whole thing out, and Windows 11 is missing basic UI features that even Windows 7 had.
When you look at their main commercial competition (Mac and Chromebook) or the big names in Linux (GNOME, KDE, plenty of others besides), they stand out as a company that simply can’t get it right, despite having more resources to throw at it than the rest of them put together.
To me it’s absurd how Microsoft gets beaten by a free desktop environment when windows is like their main product. They have billions of dollars. How do they manage to not do better?
What drives me crazy is how they can’t update all their configuration interface to the same standard, if you go deep enough you still fine things that are unchanged since Windows 98
I hate to say this, because I know how cringe it is, but… Windows 7 actually removed a lot of features that made Windows fun. And yeah, I’m talking about ricing and I’m unironically saying ricing is valid.
The mid 2000s was an awesome time to be in the ricing community - between litestep, blackbox, foobar2k, rainlendar/rainmeter etc, you could actually make your experience look however you wanted.
And, litestep in particular, for me, was a gateway drug to openbox and therefore Linux - when you finally hit The Windows Wall, where, to go any further, you had to step into Linux, Ubuntu was there, and then Mint, and then…idr what.
I still have my 2007 Ubuntu installation cd that they mailed to me for free. Sure, you could just make your own installation cd rom, but, if you couldn’t, they would happily mail you one - or, as in my case, you felt motivated to evangelize, they’d send you a bunch that you could give out to people. I gave mine to friends and left some others at the local anarchist bookstore (I don’t remember the name of it but this was Washington DC just north of Chinatown).
Windows 7 was a big step backwards. You could still do a lot of ricing, but less - and it was very clear from the direction that Windows 7 went, that whatever came next would be worse.
Oh shit, I remember LiteStep and spending hours and hours to just fiddle with how my desktop looked. I personally felt Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of MS OSs (except so many games etc. wouldn’t run because rightly the OS reported it was Windows NT and a lot of games shat themselves at that)
Idk if I would say it’s looks > usability, and it’s certainly not gaudy… There are theming styles that are much more unusable and gaudy than the “riced” look.
It’s an aesthetic that idealizes a kind of barebones utility, and while it often will lean towards the look over the usability, the look itself is like a “beautiful utilitarian” - minimalistic, uncluttered, etc.
So basically ever since I first tried Windows 7 I held it as the “Gold standard” for desktop OS’s. Half my tweaks to Windows 10 were trying to get it as close to Win7 as I possibly could.
When I finally start experimenting with Linux early this year KDE quickly got me to reconsider my “Gold standard” and finally switch my main machine fully to Linux.
No regrets and certainly ain’t switching back even if Microsoft gave me updated Windows 7 with every extra feature I wanted back then.
I’ve been a Linux user for a decade and a half now, but still use Windows on my corporate laptops. Honestly, it’s baffling how Microsoft seem to consistently manage to miss the mark with the UI design. There’s lots to be said about the underlying internals of Windows vs Linux, performance, kernel design etc., but even at the shallow, end user, “is this thing pleasant to use” stakes, they just never manage to get it right.
Windows 7 was…fine. It was largely inoffensive from a shell point of view, although things about how config and settings were handled were still pretty screwy. But Windows 8 was an absolutely insane approach to UI design, Windows 10 spent an awful lot of energy just trying to de-awful it without throwing the whole thing out, and Windows 11 is missing basic UI features that even Windows 7 had.
When you look at their main commercial competition (Mac and Chromebook) or the big names in Linux (GNOME, KDE, plenty of others besides), they stand out as a company that simply can’t get it right, despite having more resources to throw at it than the rest of them put together.
To me it’s absurd how Microsoft gets beaten by a free desktop environment when windows is like their main product. They have billions of dollars. How do they manage to not do better?
Because they dont have to.
TBF it isn’t really - only about 12% of their revenue. It’s more of a means to lock people into their other products.
Well, that’s the thing, it’s the core part of their entire business. The glue that sticks everything together. Or at least used to be until Azure.
What drives me crazy is how they can’t update all their configuration interface to the same standard, if you go deep enough you still fine things that are unchanged since Windows 98
Needs more system settings, there’s only three.
Almost all my desktop gets used for anymore is gaming. The windows only anti cheat shit leaves me not messing with splitting what I boot up for.
I hate to say this, because I know how cringe it is, but… Windows 7 actually removed a lot of features that made Windows fun. And yeah, I’m talking about ricing and I’m unironically saying ricing is valid.
The mid 2000s was an awesome time to be in the ricing community - between litestep, blackbox, foobar2k, rainlendar/rainmeter etc, you could actually make your experience look however you wanted.
And, litestep in particular, for me, was a gateway drug to openbox and therefore Linux - when you finally hit The Windows Wall, where, to go any further, you had to step into Linux, Ubuntu was there, and then Mint, and then…idr what.
I still have my 2007 Ubuntu installation cd that they mailed to me for free. Sure, you could just make your own installation cd rom, but, if you couldn’t, they would happily mail you one - or, as in my case, you felt motivated to evangelize, they’d send you a bunch that you could give out to people. I gave mine to friends and left some others at the local anarchist bookstore (I don’t remember the name of it but this was Washington DC just north of Chinatown).
Windows 7 was a big step backwards. You could still do a lot of ricing, but less - and it was very clear from the direction that Windows 7 went, that whatever came next would be worse.
Oh shit, I remember LiteStep and spending hours and hours to just fiddle with how my desktop looked. I personally felt Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of MS OSs (except so many games etc. wouldn’t run because rightly the OS reported it was Windows NT and a lot of games shat themselves at that)
What is “ricing”? Sounds like you might be talking about theming?
Yeah, ricing is slang for the r/unixporn kind of themeing. It comes from car culture, where RICE stands for “race-inspired cosmetic enhancement”
Fwiw rice is a backronym, it originally comes from just “rice burners” which were the kind of cars & motorcycles that got “cosmetically enhanced”
Yikes, I think I’ll just stick to “themeing”
Ricing is usually used for extreme, often gaudy theming and personalization, with emphasis on looks rather than real usability
Idk if I would say it’s looks > usability, and it’s certainly not gaudy… There are theming styles that are much more unusable and gaudy than the “riced” look.
It’s an aesthetic that idealizes a kind of barebones utility, and while it often will lean towards the look over the usability, the look itself is like a “beautiful utilitarian” - minimalistic, uncluttered, etc.