The State of Windows 

Fun fact: The dial modem dialogue box is here since Windows 95 and has never been touched since

I feel like Microsoft has huge management issues. There are definitely some extremely talented people willing to rewrite all of the code from scratch, but their managers have different priorities. I think that's one of the benefits of opensource, it's not really plagued by corporatism.

Microsoft should focus a little more on this issue. Luckily people started noticing this and thanks to that there are now several improvements to insider builds, like the redesigned notepad or updated volume flyout, although it would have been better not to rush the launch and ship the os when it is really ready. Since Windows 8 (a decade) they want to modernize the UI but the only thing they have achieved is more and more inconsistency in each new system and duplicate apps. It's disappointing to see basic parts of the system that don't respect the dark mode or not being updated since Vista :(

Also, the low battery screen is from win 8 and covers your entire screen

Employees: We need new features and looks for our new windows! Microsoft: Okay just code some extra stuff into our existing OS and we'll call it a day. Here's your paycheck.

I think that of instead of putting ads into their paid software, Microsoft should focus on updating the UI.

I think code reuse is ultimately fine if it leads to a better experience and allows devs to fix and update core systems more heavily, but from my experience Microsoft isn't very interested in doing that either. They very much want to repaint over everything and act like it's brand new while only tweaking a few things in the background. I feel like when it comes to UI stuff in particular is just that Microsoft has never really been a forward facing company and doesn't really plan for the future. So many default apps are written in such a way that they handle their own look and feel independently, rather than using a core theme engine. This is also why Windows doesn't really support themes in any meaningful way. Unlike linux apps that either utilize gtk, kvantum, or libadwaita and can be themed at a system level. But Microsoft doesn't seem interested in going back and refactoring their code base, (probably because it would possibly break backwards compatibility or just be too expensive to actually do at this point), while continually applying more and more coats of paint with every release. This is a problem that is only going to get more and more difficult as it's ignored.

It's a mystery to me how you can intentionally keep legacy code and just add new features without making the whole development process extremely tedious. Not to mention the wasted space, the old assets must be taking up gigabytes of storage space

I've noticed this ever since I used my first Windows PC. It ran Windows 98 even that had remnants from Windows 3.1. I first used a Windows XP laptop when I was about 6 years old. I remember using Microsoft Works on it (the crappy cheap word processing and spreadsheet suite) and seeing how much it looked similar to Windows 98 interface I'd previously used. Even young kids know what they're doing - they don't fool anyone.

It's worth noting the latest insider builds have fixed things like the dated volume UI, and will probably ship in 22H2. But it's such a disgrace that the OS has essentially shipped unfinished this way and we're expected to just accept it for a year until they "patch" it like a AAA game.

Prior to 8, I believe Microsoft used the approach where they'd add onto or change existing windows features. Meaning that they'd either completely rework something (windows update) or they'll update (control panel). After Windows 8 however. They essentially started to become lazy. Instead of updating features of Windows so things stay consistent. They started essentially layering new features ontop of Windows. A few of those Windows 7 remnants can be found as far back as Windows NT, but since MS use to update the grathics system wide back in the day. It was far less noticeable.

In my opinion Windows 7 was like a nice and polished house with all the tools you need organized very well. Newer versions are like if someone went to that house, took half of the tools and threw them in a giant pile in the corner of the basement, because they want the house to look "clean". And then they lock the door to those tools and buy shitty replacements for *some* of those tools. And then they rip out and burn every curtain, table cloth or anything that looks nice to make it more "minimalistic". Thanks for reading my rant

Microsoft be like: Guys, I have an idea for Windows 11, lets have rounded corners and new icons, that will work!

well, it's always been like that, Microsoft stacking a new version on top of the older one. i think it's been like this since the development of XP.

Windows 11 is a mixed feeling for me, however very relieved to see they're actively improving it to make it actually separate from 10. Doesn't excuse the fact that they didn't delay it though

There are some stuff in this video that either have already been fixed or have a fix coming : - 1:20 The calculator did get updated to match Windows 11's design. I don't know why Windows 11 comes with the old calculator pre-installed but it should get updated to the new version automatically shortly after you install W11. - 2:31 That flyout has been redesigned for the upcoming 22H2 update. It should have been redesigned way earlier but at least they have worked on it. Can't say the same for the Wi-Fi flyout though - 5:30 Task Manager has an updated version coming too with dark theme support, Mica elements, the accent color being used instead of orange and layout changes. - 6:02 Same goes for the volume and brightness flyouts; their design and even position have been changed. - 6:35 They updated the design of this dialog but scrapped the redesign for the time being, apparently due to the feedback saying the updated dialog was slow or buggy - 8:06 This has been changed too. The new animation is kinda similar to the old one but also quite different - 12:31 MS Paint has been updated and the updated version is available to everyone already. It's functionally the same program but its design is quite different and Microsoft has promised to update it further to add stuff like dark theme support Windows 11 was released in a pretty dumb state but at least Microsoft is actually working on fixing some inconsistencies this time around instead of completely ignoring most of them like they did back in the Windows 10 days

The spinning dots in the boot sequence actually become a spinning line in later versions

1:57 Only GD players and NK fans will understand

Here's why a lot of people (including me) are considering Windows 7 as the last good version of Windows before MS destroys everything starting with Windows 8.

4:12 Heyyy Microsoft, why is the QR Code BLUE? And why does the text also look BLUE? Don't tell me they used a terrible paintbucket tool. 7:20 Win7 Style Arrows! 8:37 Win7 Basic because that's what it's built on. 10:15 That's the same tray as in Windows 10. 11:05 No change at all. 11:14 Wow that just looks like a typical Win7 progress bar except it's not got that fade. 11:21 Haha pretty sure the clock is the same 11:29 Sheesh, those icons! 11:45 3D textboxes! Look like they were made out of Python Tkinter or smth 13:06 Gosh, that looks so 1990-esque!

I use magnifier day to day on w11 because of visual disabilities, I really wish they did whatever mechanism they use for it better, because if the cursor is overwritten by anything like a game or an editor if they do custom rendering, it stops following my mouse altogether and it gets really frustrating. There's a lot of weird fucked up quirks with it and it's kind of upsetting that they don't give much support for it, but I've come to terms with that a long time ago.

5:28 Actually in the Beta and Dev channel, with the new releases the task manager has undergone quite a big change, now featuring a dark theme, and a vertical bar instead of the horizontal one - - Edit 6:14 The volume rocker is now horizontal in the low centre of the screen, just above the taskbar

Lets not speak about the memory leak that causes by dwm because the "new" animations and cricled windows and some transparent things. Also the photos app is have a memory leak too. Thank you Microsoft for releasing a half complete beta os with a lot of memory leaks.

I actually got so frustrated with 11 that I reinstalled to Windows 10 on my laptop. I'd do it to my desktop, but it's too well setup for that. The age of everything is connected has given companies a way to simply shove out a broken product and patch it all up later. They didn't have that luxury before the Internet was as prevalent, so if say WIndows 95 was broken on launch, that would ding the reputation of WIndows, so they had to get it right or the consequences would be dire. Today, they just press buttons and the update is automagically distributed.

Why can't they just take the route that DE's like KDE Plasma take and just let me customize window appearance and whatnot? Nobody would complain about the awful changes (since you can easily revert it) and they're ALREADY DOING THIS WORK ANYWAY.

me and my father have always been saying this for maybe two or three years. I believe there's still even some stuff from the DOS era too that might be there if you look hard enough.

Well, to be fair, they could've turned WordPad into a straight-up Office advertisement, but they didn't, and I commend them for that.

note: many of them are fixed in later versions of Windows 11 such as 23H2, like the menus that pop out on the lock screen.

None of these are "mistakes" or "incompetence" on Microsoft's part. They themselves have said that Windows has become just a tool to enforce subscriptions, data collection and ads on their users, like mandatory Microsoft account, telemetry that you can't disable, ads on folders, Candy Crush, Edge being default even if you don't want it, XBOX Game Pass, OneDrive, Microsoft Office... the list goes on. Why would they waste their resources on making a good operating system, if they'll use it only to get people to pay for their stuff? Anyway, I upgraded to Linux when Windows 11 first came out, and now my computer is better than ever. I strongly recommend it to everyone.

Here’s the most probable reason why they didn’t update these leftovers: $atya Nadella is focusing on making Windows more Window$ with M$ $tore, UWP and touchscreen-friendly UI (which simply makes people buy $urface) instead of removing things from older windows versions

4:14 I remember I would spam F11 and it would glitch into a loop forever and you can see 7 basic (wish It was a theme)

It's been this way the whole time. Yes, it's more obvious in Windows 11 (especially since Winver reports it as Windows NT 10.0 still, that's the killer.) But from the things you've shown in the video, then Windows 11 is just Windows NT 4.0 with a prettier UI. It's also XP and Vista and 7 and 8 and 8.1. The Windows 7 Basic theme still exists in 11, as well as the Windows Classic theme. And also Aero Lite from Windows 8. Guess Microsoft is just finally seeing the effects of having layered on top of an OS since 1996...

I find it funny that Microsoft is happy with the "Dark Mode"... how hard it it to update your UI so all the things in the OS works properly with dark mode? I can't use Windows anymore, it's just so low effort and looks like crap. While not perfect Gnome and KDE are quite a bit better than that mess.

And several of those you mentioned have been updated to match Windows 11 design on latest Dev channel.

When Enderman uses NK - Nine Circles as his first song of the video.

Fun fact: At 11:20, in Windows 11, if you look closely at the clock, you will notice that the background square of the clock image is a slightly shade of white to the background of the window. The clock is pure white, but the window background is slightly darker.

4:08 I also seen Windows 7 glimpses when resizing certain windows!

With Windows 11 Microsoft had the chance to rewrite Windows completely; since Windows 11 won't run on "older" computers anyway (or is what MS intends) i can't see a reason why not do it.

Thanks for including the track names! Most of those were really dope

4:38 I like how the edges are badly antialiased so you can see blue in them

Some of these I can forgive like the volume rocker and the prompt to chose a default program, but some of these like the control panel still being there. It's been 7 years Microsoft, just finish moving all of the settings and remove it already.

idk if anyone else has noticed this, but theres two types of dialog boxes. one that has the new style, and one that looks identical to the win 9x style, just with a modern color

As per usual. Interesting content, genuine Microsoft failures, great music. Could not be better, Andrew. Amazing vid.

4:03 It's a Vista's one, not even the 7

Windows 11 literally has no reason to even exist, and it appears to be a rushed hatchet job to make it look like Windows isn't stagnant. It's just Windows 10 but with a new theme and higher system requirements to plan the obsolescence of computers.

4:10 this happened to me multiple times while using a lot of resources, with out even trying I found out that windows 11 is just re textured windows 7 with a few "improvements".

If you start explorer.exe from the login screen in Windows 11, the Windows 10 taskbar comes up.

Stayed true to Windows since Vista. Moved onto 7, skipped to 10, and upgraded to 11 in 2021. It made my (honestly sad) Ryzen setup cry so hard that I finally decided to pull the trigger and use Linux full time, after previously only having it as a dual-boot. (people telling me to call it GNU/Linux can kiss my...) Biggest breath of fresh air since downgrading my 2012 XPS 13 to Windows 7 from Windows 10 (RIP that laptop)

4:38 The QR code is still windows-blue...

I’ve seen some of these old designs so much to the point I forgot they were from old OS

So happy this video is back!, Good luck on your channel, I hope it doesn't get terminated

I'm happy that Microsoft has decided to listen and actually patched most inconsistencies in the past 2 years, not to mention how they added a lot of new features. Now Windows 11 feels even more unique and detatched from 10.

backwards compatibility for consumers is just a bonus the thing is, some companies are relying on software that sometimes is just as old as windows is

I hope somebody makes an edited Desktop Windows Management with the windows 7 basic theme I think it would look so cool.

When I'm writing this comment, about 40-60 percent of the video is now outdated, some of the legacy apps liks the phone, modem etc which no one uses anymore are still untouched but paint, volume keys and most other things shown here have been updated now. A lot of windows 8 UI features are also removed now. But not completely yet.

all the microsoft OS's just had the greatest collab of all time.

There's still dialer.exe which is leftover of Windows 95! Also MTP file transfer is one of the most annoying things out there

Id rather have microsoft not touch the non UWP programs as the ones that have been touched are hideous and too simple.

6:08 That was there since some of the later betas of Windows 8, so it's been there since around late 2011 - early 2012 And "Smart Screen" as well, one of my most hated features, it's pretty much useless anyway, I think it has to go already

11:21 Love how the Date and Time dialog clock design originates from the pre-reset Longhorn builds... To be fair, they've come up with a replacement, but it's odd they kept this deprecated feature when happily deleting other applets like the Taskbar settings dialog or Windows Help

Personally I think it's cool that there are older bits retained in newer versions

I know if you dive very deep you can find user select dialogue from Windows 3.1 It's just mind-blowind

I agree about Control Panel. Everything was very well organized and laid out, you could find everything you needed, now theres tons of tabs and stuff and I can never find anything.

A good one is any of the active directory admin programs. Active directory users and computers hasn’t changed since windows 2000. Like you said, anything even slightly out of view gets neglected.

Top secret tip: Just switch over to the Linux side of things and you're good to go!

I'm wondering, since Windows 11 contains all the ancient windows versions, is there software that turns windows 11 into any lower version by disabling all the new stuff

Every second version of Windows is initially a disaster that takes a long time to fix.

When you go into ODBC Data Source Administrator (32-bit), click the Add button, then select the first item from the list, uncheck Use Current Directory, and press Select Directory, you'll get a Window taken straight from Windows 3.1

That on screen keyboard on Logon UI is an older version but I think it comes up with the newer one on a touchscreen device.

On the dev build of insider preview, they actually changed volume and brightness controlls.

Everybody complains about backwards compatibility layers in Windows then they plug in their 20 year old USB device and expect it to work perfectly (and it usually does). Windows' spaghetti code has made it amazingly versatile and future proof. And I know that you know that a big reason for the backwards compatibility is for enterprise users; it's not as simple as "developers are lazy". The amount of times that Windows backcompat has saved me cannot be counted on two hands, and the times where it's annoyed me can be counted on one.

Quite a few of these things are being fixed in the Insider Builds. New task manager, LogonUI accessibility UI is now properly styled (albeit the network panel is still Windows 10), volume flyout is now styled. Might be worth taking another look on the next major update. Albeit a lot of the crud/legacy will likely still remain.

4:20 There's a windows vista program I use that bugs out the window manager when I resize it and uses windows 7 basic, which allowed me to see this long ago, the program is called GlovePIE and is a Programmable Input Emulator that somehow still works good enough. I also thought that you had forgotten about the mouse menu until you said there was going to be a part 2 for vista and older.

Do you really expect Microsoft to change the UI of every single app for a new release? That's way too much work IMO. Consistency is good, but it'll take a while to get there.

Something to mention is "phone and modem applet" is from as far back as Windows 98 (Not sure if it were in NT 4.x, likely as it were a "networked Windows OS", certainly in Win 2000). That applet was essential for dial-up connections and typically showed on startup when running hyperterm.

alright gotta be honest, while this is a very interesting topic that I would love to watch passively while I work, the subtitles absolutely kill me on this. Please make a narrated version of this.

After Windows 7, Microsoft has been just very lazy with their operating system.

I'm pretty sure they've carried that OOBE menu somewhere from Windows 10. That menu, wherever it's hidden, is a remnant from Windows *3.1!*

So happy that the video is back! Hope they won't delete the channel.

Well that registery one's looking intense. (XD) Also, congratulations for 250K subs!

8:05 those dots have irked me since their initial design, as they both appear and disappear off-centre, and in a slightly different place

Fun fact: Most of Windows xp system programs works well on Windows 10. I have perfectly working version of XP task manager, all games etc. Unfortunately windows 7 must have some bullcrap in every program that prevents it from starting on everything, but 7. I can run win 7 taskmgr on win 7,but can't run it on 10 no matter what I do. 🤔

Man, Enderman just really loves using popular Geometry Dash songs, doesn't he?

ok this is a little of topic but how do you do that start menu at the start? looks very modernized

Yeah, the newest update just bricked my Settings app (ms-settings:). Can’t change anything about my pc outside of options that are completely reliant on control panel :/

Oh... They really didn't change anything and brought nothing new except useless 'builtin' features and design elements which are just new layers... I rly would like to see what stayed here from older os'es. Also, it could be very interesting, if you made a video 'bout all the mess they did to control panel.

On the lock screen, if you bring up the projection panel with Win+P, it is also in Windows 8 style.

Since Win11 is Win10 underneath, perhaps there's a way to port the new CPU scheduler into Win10, to enable proper Alder Lake support?

To be fair Windows 11 was supposed to be a big update to Windows 10 until the marketing team at Microsoft came to the conclusion that releasing a new OS would be better

Microsoft should've stuck with Windows 10 as the final os and improve it overtime

I noticed that the accessibility one on the Lock Screen has been fixed on my build at least (running Dev channel) Edit: Task manager is also new, volume is also new, dots are no longer there, and paint has been updated too

How did you make your taskbar look like windows 10, but have the OSX Style Fly out?

12:08 Remote Desktop Connection has a new app. To use, Press [Windows] + [CTRL] + [Q]

Thing: The Insider builds are the REAL state of Windows 11, and it looks more finished (obviously).

Some of the Windows 8/10 Remnants were eventually replaced starting in 22H2 (task manager, file explorer, volume, etc.)

in fact, there are two different onscreen keyboard applets! the one that is accessible from the lock screen is the classic that hasn’t changed too much since its beginning, then there’s also the touch keyboard, which is more updated, it includes emoji, special symbols etc

Why do you want change? Have you seen what microsoft has done to mspaint? Absolutely horrendous

22H2 is coming soon, which will make Windows 11 feature complete. This is _Windows as a service_ . A product that is always in testing, improved with updates over time.

one old Remanent you did not mention was the microsoft management console which can only be accessed now from services

The volume and brightness rockers and task manager changed in insider previews. Except that one I agree. Its like win 10