Hey! Power User here! Check out my 1H documentary about Evolution of Sony Ericsson Xperia Smartphones! 💚📱(kinda underrated) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H75Cl60pBsM.html
Basically, it boils down to the same reason as why Internet Explorer lasted for as long as it did: legacy code that corporations rely on. By the time IE8 flopped in 2009, it was already clear as day that the browser was unsalvagable. Yet, instead of phasing it out, they just started a new generation 2 years later with IE9. It was a huge improvement, they modernized/overhauled everything they could but obviously, it didn't garner too much fanfare. Why did they do this? Because of the ActiveX framework that was pretty popular in late '90s and was only supported by Internet Explorer. 10-15 years ago, a bunch of companies still used ActiveX controls and if they were to release a brand new built-in web browser back then they would've angered these costumers.
They should have never allowed corporations to get away with the idea of "That will cost me money, I'm going to use the old stuff regardless" and just said "F*ck you, switch or die" from the start. In Linux, you are getting updates constantly and sometimes, software is retired. But since it effects everyone there is a solution available in a few days to a couple of weeks and then you can safely switch. If you, for some reason, choose to not go with the update flow, your left on your own to fend for yourself. It's a choice you can make like it is a choice to cut off your legs. This way no one gets to be smug and lazy while technical debt accrues that at some point becomes so overwhelming that no system administrator or software developer can ever have a chance of comprehending it, merely being able to patch and botch it to barely run. Which is then the common theme until all company data including customer credit cards and trade secrets are leaked onto the dark net. Yay.
@@GermanTopGameTV " They should have never allowed corporations to get away with the idea of "That will cost me money, I'm going to use the old stuff regardless" " WTF who are they ? If the users are paying for the software and they want their old programs to keep working, its not like the company is getting away with it, but doing what the customers want. How's hard is to understand that ? What's wrong with you. It seems that whenever there's bullshit like "in X" we do this way, it seems like people saying such things never developed software in a commercial setting. Its not that you get away with using old stuff, is just that there's no other way because you actually have a budget, a specified number of hours of developers (who have to be paid) to be spent. So you change only the minimum required for the result you wanted. "and just said "F*ck you, switch or die" from the start" Oh, I see, that's projection, it usually comes from open source software (not the linux kernel) that just drop support on the faces of their users. Basically if you use open source software you are the support. That's why the Desktop Linux never gets traction into anything serious. And linux is going to always be just an appliance, a Kernel that run an actual system that's maintained by someone else (for example, Android or Tizen or some IOT crap, or OpenWRT , lots of examples ). Do you think Google isn't doing exactly the same thing with Android ? They only get away with doing minimal changes because, but because their User Interface is less coupled to the rest of the system, as its a more modern system, they are able to revamp it to look like shiny and new, but its the same old thing. The user Interface is entirely run in user-mode, ironically. Which is opposite to Linux/Windows that are monolith systems. Linux interface runs in user mode when you use Wayland, but its a hell of a mess, which is even worse than the Win32. Good example... linux desktop is a joke. A serious linux system is the Surface Flinger in Android, that could be a basis for an actual serious desktop operating system that uses the linux kernel. " software is retired. But since it effects everyone there is a solution available in a few days to a couple of weeks and then you can safely switch. If you, for some reason, choose to not go with the update flow, your left on your own to fend for yourself. " you're basically screwed if you decided to not go with the flow, so much for user liberty... well, you could spend your own time maintaining software with your own free time for free, because screw the user. That doesn't seem like a free choice at all. When software is retired in the open source, support is gone for good, and that happens way too often, that's the entire reason why Red Had exists. People blame Windows for that, but their APIs and things keep working for decades before being retired. In open source, it can happen any day, and your only option is to fork and maintain crap yourself, because that's your business, to maintain decrepit software instead of having an actual life. And corporations are evil for actually properly managing time and money of their users... " This way no one gets to be smug and lazy while technical debt accrues " The only smug person here is you. The video is talking about "design debt", not technical debt. If you think you can manage Microsoft's technical debt better, why don't you apply ? what a condescending behavior. I bet most people like you can't work on a system with 25M lines of code, that you call "technical debt", but in fact those are the actual features the business users are paying for, not the user interface. The user interface is only for show, which is why they don't go and fix it 100% all the way. " that at some point becomes so overwhelming that no system administrator or software developer can ever have a chance of comprehending it" All software is like that nowadays, I bet you never worked at any corporation. Even Linux with its 10M lines of code is that way. Ironically Minix is a better and simpler system to study as a student than Linux. What a joke of a system administrator... " merely being able to patch and botch it to barely run." bullshit, you don't know what you're talking about, you deduced all of that only from visual inconsistencies in the user interface. what a joke. "Which is then the common theme until all company data including customer credit cards and trade secrets are leaked onto the dark net" Well, you were the one saying about how corporations were such evil and lazy, its their trade secrets, so what does it matter if they leak ? If you would actually work with information security, you would know that it takes more than just a smug attitude to make things actually safe. Most of the attacks happens at the human level, its all social engineering. Sometimes there's some 0-day used, but those are not most of the attacks that happens daily. I bet you wouldn't be able to work in actual information security in a company that works with Windows. It can be secure, and I say that because I literally used to run a credit card company on Windows Server 2016 and I never had incidents, except one time I had to put a captcha to slow down the carders trying to test if their cards were good against my point of sale system. But don't take my word for it, go ask SwiftOnSecurity. Credit card leaking is rare, most credit card numbers you can buy are actually scrapped by carders in the field, not from databases of corporations. What a bunch of bollocks. What a ridiculous attitude, credit card leaking would happen even if you used Linux and Firefox if your website had simple security problems like XSS that has nothing to do with operating systems. Linux zealots are always funny online.
@@GermanTopGameTV did u ever loose a software that performed a function u need and there was no replacment uvailable? Backwards compatibility is here for a reason, and if the software is designed right with modularity in mind its easier to maintain You have to understand that a lot of software was written for windows, some get updates others dont Imagine your insulin pump (that u cannot just buy a new one, because its special to ur condition, and newer does not exist) stopped working because the software it uses to cumicate with ur doctor would not work on new version of windows What would u do? U would use older version of windows
There is not only inconsistency in design, but also in menus. When you searching for some setting in windows, usually you first open menu which looks modern, but pretty much don't have any options. But there is usually button called something like "additional settings" or "view more options" which sends you to other menu from like Windows XP. This is so weird and confusing. Every time you need to change something, firs you need to step through some useless menu. That's really looks like they spending all their budget on the design of the desktop and start menu
i think the purpose of this is because the computer-illiterate average consumer (i.e. your average grandma) only needs the big, fancy buttons on the settings app. since this is who they market to, this is what they use. your average informed windows user, on the other hand, needs options that work better on a compact dialog, and they aren't really the target market, so they're left with the barebones and legacy win32 dialogs.
@@aiexzs Which could have been solved with a "Pro Mode" toggle, which would allow power users to revert behavior to that of older Windows which grandmas couldn't find anyway.
@@balmashev93and sucks. I avoid these new setting menu all time. But Microsoft is trying killing it. For managing printers i used "control printers" in run menu for fast printers management. Now i need to navigate menus for that. It just sucks. Thank god other commands still works like "appwiz.cpl" or "ncpa.cpl". I work with computers all day i dont have the time to click on "pretty menus" made for dumb users.
If they REALLY wanted to fix this stuff, they could’ve done this since 2012 with little effort, since all these “old” stuff are made with flexibility in mind. You can get the new fluent design, dark mode, and even mica on all the old win32/WPF components, with no problem. Changing rgb values, icons and bitmaps doesn’t break anything.
They already did. It's called Project Reunion and Microsoft has been using it to make old Win32, WPF, WinForms apps have new features found in WinRT. It can be found in Notepad, Paint, and even Explorer on Windows 11 now.
Reskins don't beak anything and as a matter of fact, new skins DO work system-wide. You don't see old apps using the old XP titlebars. However, something as trivial as moving the buttons around in a window can break some macros that some random bespoke software in some random Fortune 500 company rely on.
@@nitrous1001 it already existed since 2001, it’s called msstyles. And it can be found on every win32, winforms, WPF app ever made. If they used that system rather than reinventing the wheel each time for no reason, we would have a much more coherent design, since we wouldn’t have yellow tooltips, aero basic frames, windows 10 tabs design, sans serif, broken dpi scaling, broken dark mode, etc., since the msstyle is responsible of drawing every window element
@@Liam3072yet we see apps using the 95/xp tooltip design, Aero Basic frames (MDI child windows), Sans Serif and not Segoe UI, Windows 10 controls, etc All of these are controlled by strings or bitmaps in the theme file, changing those would break literally nothing. Why? Because you can try it by yourself too and nothing breaks. And mind you, nobody said to move buttons around or stuff lol
Most of those unchanged tools like group policy editor and reg edit haven’t changed because consumers don’t use them and because help desk level threes would flip their lid if they had to adjust to changes
They go with the correct approach of "if it works, don't fix it". The only problem I have is, that the control panel is still from Win 7 with its design, but less features, and doesn't fit the design of the current OS, for instance Win 10.
I want to stress how huge this is. It doesn't go back just 20 years, but I just the other day ran a program from 1993 on my Windows 10 machine. That's a program compiled 30 years ago. Most people never need to touch stuff this old, but it's a life-saver when it's necessary. I'm shocked how early Apple dropped support for 32-bit apps.
It's Uber compatible. When you are writing an OS that controls MRI machines or Air Control towers and you can still upgrade with zero code changes. The responsibility upon them is more than most of us will ever know.
@@judewestburnerSo that's why simple ransomwares designed to target regular Joe PCs end up bringing down oil pipelines, hospitals and ATC. If you are building anything mission critical on top of what is ultimately a consumer grade OS you are asking for trouble.
I disagree. An operating system kernel has very little to do with UI. In fact, this is demonstrated within your video when DOS-based Windows 3.1 is compared to NT Windows: They share the UI but the underlying kernels are vastly different. An OS kernel is responsible for things like Filesystems, Drivers, Hardware support, CPU scheduling, but in most cases not UI design. The fact that Windows 95 design is still part of Windows is due to the fact that they ported the win32 shell over to NT. The design inconsistencies in Windows are more due to the fact that Microsoft keeps reinventing Native UI every couple of years now, so you have Win32, WPF, .NET XAML, UWP, WinForms, WinUI 2, WinUI 3, MAUI, Visual Basic and whatnot. Furthermore some Apps are nowadays developed cross-platform using Web technologies (like VS Code) and therefore do not necessarily share the OS native look and feel. While the do care about backwards-compatibility, this is mainly regarding operating system APIs that only Developers of Applications interact with but not directly the end user. Also the argument that the do not want to alienate users or change system administrator workflows is only an excuse, as they removed functionality from Control Panel and alienated Users with the centered Windows 11 Start Menu and featureless Taskbar. The fact is, they do not care about making a consistent UI. They change the UI enough in order to justify marketing it as the new version of the OS. Most people do not care enough about a consistent UI as long as it usable. The main reason why they change the OS interface is in response to a perceived threat by a competitor. (Be it tablets (windows 8), VR (Paint 3D, ...), Chromebooks (windows 10 S), AI (Windows Copilot), Mac OS (Rounded corners, Start Menu), RISC Computing (Windows on Arm), IoT (windows IoT),, The modern Web replacing Desktop Apps (Edge), Linux (WSL). While I think a consistent UI in Windows would be achievable while preserving backward compatibility, it may not make sense for Microsoft as a business if they can achieve more investing their efforts elsewhere. Microsoft simply prioritises features like AI, Cloud integration, Search or makes investments outside of Windows like their web services (Azure, ...) or server chip developments.
This. Microsoft could keep the same kernel to support old af apps, but give a damn update to the icons. They are mediocre and lazy af, being the only reason I don't go full Linux/Hackintosh the games I can play on it and, sadly, some apps that I need to study.
If we talk about UI, and only UI, I prefer Vista over 7. They are very similar, especially if you turn aero on, but I’m a lover of Vista’s black taskbar and gadget side bar
Those legacy components are often more functional and reliable than their modern replacements. (looking at you windows media player) Also having old components isn't necessarily a bad thing, its when they are not updated/replaced. The BSD kernel used by MacOS and Playstation OS, and the Linux kernel are even older than NT. Reworded my comment because readability.
@@snowwsquire there was also a linux desktop kit for the PS2, which transformed it into a partially functional desktop PC, if you had the HDD expansion.
that goes back to NT itself; windows 1 and 2 were DOS-only and had no NT equivalents, windows NT as we know it started with the equivalent of 3.1. in other words, these chunks have been added all the way back when winnt development started
Backwards compatibility has little to do with outdated UI elements in the operating system. These topics are separate. For old apps to run normally, you need to keep supporting the old APIs that they use. This has nothing to do with keeping the outdated UI elements in the operating system. My impression is that Microsoft doesn't think that making the UI fully consistent is worth the time and effort it would require. Because let's face it, Windows is no longer an operating system for professionals. It's an operating system for casual users. And a casual user won't ever encounter those old configuration dialogs. So why spend time and effort on making some obscure system app pretty when you can spend it on disfigur... I mean, improving the Start menu even more?
Exactly, while the start menu of 11 is great(with recommended section turned off), the fact that years ago people who used program manager on 3.1 had no big issue while switching to control panel, why the same transition could be made to settings with complete features and not disintegrating piece by piece. If you the right way, people would change to anyway. While the similarity of vista and 7 is understandable as they were only 2 years in apart, they messed the UI with Windows 8 so bad, that to this day they're figuring out how to make stuff right. Windows 10 could've been the one to make things right if it wasn't released as a damage control version, because 8.1 just brought the start button back and the os was untouched fr.
Well, macOS is also "for casual users" and always cared for a consistent UI. Even when it got redesigned to the flat era, everything was updated consistently. Microsoft is just lazy with all the legacy GUI elements. I even remember a Programm called "Vize" or later "7iize", that replaced all the old leftover Windows 9x and XP icons in Windows Vista/7. This program was made by just one dude and good proof, how simple and quick this can actually be handled.
@@LegioXXI win32 is the least of microsoft's priorities, it's so rarely seen by the average consumer that i don't think they're going to go out of their way to change something that already works fine and would piss off the assholes found on reddit and stack exchange
The problem: The Windows API is very low level when it comes to GUI programming. You must position your widgets manually. Also, it does not load the font from the current desktop theme by default. These two combined means that the actual representation becomes part of the API, because some laze developer relied on a button to have a particular width. This is called Hyrums Law.
Excuse me, not professional? Where are you pulling this source from? There are plenty of managers including Head of the fking department using window like the M16 in my old workplace. You are speaking nonesense, fucking Ubuntu and Linux system has more consistence Ux/Ui Interface than windows and the distro is open source. It's not about the fking pro user, it's the fact that Microsoft has done a shit job in their works.
As a long time mac user, there was a period of time when the Mac OS X had visual inconsistencies. It took Leopard and Snow Leopard to unify, tone down visual items like pinstripes, brushed metal, transparencies (in the early classic Mac OS X sense), even items from Rhapsody/NeXT era.
Large global banks in some areas still use applications written in COBOL (and other archaic forgotten languages) in the 1960s and 1970s on their z/OS mainframes. So Windows still has room to grow.
UI from Win 95 to Win 7 was pretty much the same, and that's what made it so great. It was consistent so people who used previous Windows releases could easily find stuff. I remember how seamless was my switch from XP to 7.
Indeed, but, as i found out you really need to be careful on budget laptops w limited harddisc space. I bought a 32gb Windows10 laptop figuring i could always hook up a 2nd drive for storage. I didnt realise how much new shit Windows10 piled up in the OS. Talk about bloated! Unusable but mea culpa. Im thinking of going back to XP. I still have the old installation discs..
The last windows versions with a unified theme were Vista and 7. Everything past that puts a modern coat of paint on hidden old things, which they couldn't focus on in the span of the 2 years it takes to finish a windows version.
@@hemangkorane1797 When Vista came out, typical PC spec was Athlon XP/Pentium 4 (without HT) with minimal 512MB RAM and Radeon 9800/GeForce FX, tech from 2002.
@@hemangkorane1797 Vista and 7 had the exact same performance. They had the exact same Kernel and system requirements. The main difference are 2 years of time passing, which allowed the soft- and hardware world do adjust to Vista (and therefore 7). The drivers 1 year after Vista's release alone increased much performance. If you don't believe me, just install the two systems in a virtual machine, give them the same hardware power and perform the same tasks.
@@hemangkorane1797new hardware provided Win 7 users with excellent performance. If Win 7 came out instead of Vista, 7 would have had similar feedback on several fronts: old Windows drivers dont work (RIP compatibility), you need modern enough GPU, preferrably dual core CPU etc.
Vista too was essentially "modern coat on old things" and even in Vista you had a lot of outdated components that looked slightly off. The different thing about Vista is that it was MUCH better at hiding old stuff and making the overall design that actually looks mostly right and consistent
it went downhill when they tried to macimize windows, revolutionize it instead of evolving it, as seen with vista and 11, the more revolutionary the new design is, the worse outcome you'll get, nobody complained about consistency back in the 90s cause all windows releases looked almost the same and now that they're changing the design language of windows every 5 years it's easy to forget about all the old stuff, focusing instead on the most used programs and stuff, and to even keep up with it (there's still a lot of apps in the ms store that use the windows 10 design, even some developed by microsoft)
Windows vista was great. Windows 11 was mid, but not bad. Windows 8 and 10 are inconsistent as 💩. The inconsistency all started with windows 8. So I point the finger squarely at windows 8.
Wrong, windows’s aesthetic evolution has been good, w11 included. Even with vista, its aesthetics were never a problem. An operating system should be able to easily adapt to evolving visuals by having a proper automated pipeline to reuse the assets, and Microsoft is not doing a great job at it, and I bet most of compatibility crap could be overcome if there was a proper desire
Love it. Please keep talking about Microsoft. To me, it is fascinating how bad some of their software can be and they instead of fixing it they jist say they have a new piece of software coming out next year to replace the one that people complain about. However the version had half the feature parity as the old one. It’s so frustrating. They keep trying to reinvent themselves making new software with less features. Why?
@@_loss_I feel pretty confident in saying most people believe Apple has the best software design of anyone. At the very least, they certainly put more effort into software design than most.
@@hunterjay8331as a Linux user I disagree, I feel that Linux is much more stable, and really care about the users as most distros are free, whereas apple has to profit they have to make sacrifices. But windows definitely has its issues, that's why I have up on it ages ago
@@retzerR I love Linux and it’s amazing the sheer amount of choices and customization you can do with a Linux machine. Though, I don’t think just because Apple software isn’t free doesn’t mean they care less about the user. If anything, I feel it’s why they care more, because they need to keep sales up. Both have their purposes, and if I weren’t using a Mac I’d certainly be using a Linux machine. However, I’ve yet to see any Linux distro feel more polished and integrated than macOS and its accompanying ecosystem. But different people have different needs of course and my choice isn’t for everyone.
@@retzerR And yeah, I can’t imagine why anyone is using windows unless there’s a specific app or game that just won’t run on anything else. If you want a polished user experience or something you can really tinker with, Mac and Linux are far better options for most I think.
Honestly, I would prefer they make as few changes as possible to the UI where it works fine already. No sense in changing things for the sake of changing them.
As an IT Technician, i have to say that fiddling through the settings menu in Windows 11 instead of using the old control panel is a chore. I gotta say this video is really good, and that's also an observation i've made with how windows is really put together. Apart from a few typos here and there, nice work!
Exactly why I prefer to work on networks, firewalls, and *nix servers. I'm done with things like setting up a print server on Windows with AD integration. Also, the software that keeps breaking after every major update is a pain in the butt, despite the backwards compatibility. There are so many more things about I loathe about working with windows, but I'm sure everyone is already aware...
Windows 11 Settings aren't as good as the old control panel, but it's more intuitive to use than Windows 10 settings. Using the search usually helps get around not knowing where everything is yet for the Windows 11 settings.
@sandman_857 Aimp is so lit! Love that new versions are compatible with old themes! And you can control your music with smartphone via monkey mote! Also the variety of supported file extensions is huge, I'm using it for internet radio players as Soma.fm
this is the only reason i use winamp to this day is this theme right here "Pure Inspired Glass for Winamp" i have been using it for over 10 years and nothing comes close to truly how nice it is
It is possible to modernize the appearance of those aspects of the Windows UI without breaking compatibility, but it would only be on a superficial level (not a complete redesign) and would potentially lead to some amount of increased system instability as a result of the hackish methods necessary to implement it.
They started doing it with Windows 11 and in Windows vNext we're going to see some of those changes in full swing.
11 месяцев назад
Nothing's preventing Microsoft from reimplementing their built in programs using modern frameworks. They did it for task manager and the settings panel, so why not the run dialog, gpedit and regedit? I think the main issue here is that Microsoft is massively overhauling their style every release, so there's no time to invest in bringing everything up to date. As for the context menu (and the properties dialog) i don't know if they'd be able to pull something off in a backwards compatible fashion, but it would be quite impressive if they did, given the amount of programs that hook into it.
I mean, it's nice to have backwards compatibility. But the inconsistencies are partially purely visual, like an ICO showing old content instead of putting new content into the same pixels. That doesn't break compatibility, it just makes the look more consistent. And retrofitting dark mode to Win32 would also be possible, just let the app decide what elements go where and then the OS decides if it uses a dark or light color palette.
My biggest issue with the inconsistency of the UI is inconsistency of the use of dark mode. Noting is more satisfying than booting into a nice, beautiful dark mode desktop, going into the Settings app, also in dark mode, to make an adjustment to something, not finding what I need, so I open up the “more settings” (or Advanced Settings) option, and BAM! Bright ass white box on my screen.
Honestly with Windows 11 it seems they try to unify the interface more and more after each updates ! For example the paint app that basically was the same since ~Windows 95 release is really fresh and clean in Windows 11, with dark mode support etc... same goes for the task manager and some other things. W11 was garbage at release, it was basically a more broken W10, but since then it evolved a lot.
I just wish the new releases had the option to run the older GUIs. Being able to run a Win 7 or Win 10 style desktop in Win 11 or the future Win 12 natively would be amazing.
This will be a feature that will be extremely hard and expensive to maintain. Even in Linux and FreeBSD that are designed with modularity in mind it's not that easy to, for exampe, run and use KDE 2 on modern system, you'll need at least some patching in order for this to work properly. I believe that insides of Windows are extremely messy, making such project even more expensive
@@akeem2983 This is true but it would put a significant amount of the criticism many have regarding new releases of Windows to rest, as the layman tends to prefer familiarity in their user experience over a new layout every release. Also, it's not like Microsoft can't afford it. Unlike many of its open source counterparts, they have generously large coffers to pull from.
@@blinkenlights Microsoft definitely can afford it, but it doesn't mean that they will. Only if it will be proven to make more profit than expenses, otherwise it will be too risky of a decision and spending those resources on something safer will be better
@@akeem2983 Yes, I know how corporations work. My point was that killing some of the biggest criticisms would potentially be profitable enough, and would garner some good PR.
Simple answer: compatibility. Having all of the old stuff still in Windows meant that pretty much every single old thing worked. You could still run 16 bit MS-DOS apps in Windows 10 (assuming it was a 32-bit version of Windows 10). Apple on the other hand takes the exact opposite approach. You can't even run any 32 bit apps if your Mac has an Apple Silicon chip (even though arm64 is more than capable enough to simulate x86 and x86-64.) Microsoft has been focusing on revamping everything in Windows 11, though. Yes, old stuff still shows up if you wander too much through the nooks and crannies of Windows, however, the best example of the revamps is that they removed a lot of stuff from Control Panel and migrated it into the settings. I personally think Microsoft could do a better job at revamping, though. My best idea would be removing every old thing (like stuff before Vista, whilst keeping and revamping the necessary ones like the run box) from Windows, writing WinNT from scratch, and adding an optional "compatibility feature pack" that'll be enabled by default on Enterprise and Server versions.
What do you mean writing NT from scratch? The kernel? It's probably the most modular, least problematic part of the operating system. It's the stuff on top of it that the issues come from. No reason to fix what isn't broken. That's a LOT of effort for no gain. Dave Cutler is a smart guy and knew what he was doing.
"They can't improve the inconsistency of their tools because it would break backwards compatibility" Just update the tools without removing the legacy graphical lib?
The transition slides at 3:55 is bit misleading. Windows Me was last of the versions built from the Windows 9X kernel. Windows XP was then based on the NT kernel and branched off of Windows 2000. Otherwise, great video.
I've never heard about the "Windows 9X kernel" :). That said, the Windows 9x line was a bit weird; it had the preemptive multitasking capabilities of NT but was also still built around MSDOS🤷♂
I would refactor all the dll-files which contain icons in that way, that they use external image files. That would make it much easier to exchange them for something more modern.
I agree that Mac haves objectibly a better design but sometimes Apple tries so hard to make their OS look clean and minimalistic that they sacrifice the users capability of knowledge of what is actually going on in their computers.
I agree. As a windows user this is exactly what it comes off as, and it makes their products look more like toys you screw around with than an actual usable computer
The thing with Windows NT that I didn't see communicated here is that, actually, it _was_ completely different. Hitherto, Windows had only existed as a program you ran under DOS, with its core essentially being wrapped around whatever DOS it was running on top of. NT, however, introduced a cleanly-32-bit OS which does _not_ run atop DOS. Its core has no need to wrap around anything. And yes, Windows 95-ME are self-contained too, but they're just pretending to stand alone. Really, they'd just quietly bundle a new version of DOS and autostart the Windows environment on top of it at boot time. In fact, 95 & 98 even give you the option to just boot DOS! How do you switch back from that? If you've used versions 1-3 of Windows, you already know how. It was XP that finally moved _everyone_ over to NT, with its new Compatibility Mode feature most likely made knowing that old games, especially from the 95 era, sometimes completely ignored the notion of being NT-compatible.
While I'm not the biggest fan of the inconsistencies I do much prefer windows for a reason. It works for the most part, Its mostly familiar and so much of the software I use ranges from the newest of the new to old as hell. I have some stuff from 1999 running on my machine, this also includes games. Recently I have found the vast majority of stuff from the Vista era onwards to more or less work flawlessly on windows 11 providing there is no DRM. Thats nearly 20 years of stuff just working out of the box.
I don't think the kernel is the reason for inconsistency, kernel is literally where the translation from code from a program, or basically anything than runs code, OS as well, to binary to the hardware to understand. Microsoft just don't care abou visuals, because some of it is not commercial viable! How many "average user" uses those things? As example os viable changes is the new task manager, nowadays anybody uses for most porpoises, the famous crtl + alt + del!
Like other guy said, it isn't. NT is actually really well done and very modular and solid. There's more to an operating system than the kernel. I think it's the API that's the source of a lot of the problems.
Microsoft has actually started refreshing Windows beginning with Windows 11 and some components which have been there since 95 are on their way out like legacy Windows Shell which was powered by Explorer. Then we have PowerToys which is essentially a playground where some of the utilities are in fact possible replacements for legacy components or improvements and they slowly iterate them over time. The also do platform improvements. Also, since Windows 10 what you've said about macOS also applies to Windows. The Windows updates which have been released every 6 months or every year ARE new operating systems with kernel and code changes. They recently just adopted a tactic of marketing bigger updates as new products like they did with Windows 11, but you still get them within the same licence.
I have a 2016 notebook and did not upgrade windows 8. windows 10 came bloated and super slow, the best thing is to use the OS that was lauched in the time your machine was made to work with
@@iplyrunescape305 It works amazingly well super fast and stable with windows 8 in an ssd. I have a debian lamp web server in a dualcore with 2 gb. works amazingly
The thing with these videos is they are like well they did not rewrite each operating system from scratch. The thing is do you expect them to? Not a single company does macos never gets fully refreshed they just incrementally update features in releases just like windows.
While what you're saying is essentially true and worth noting, I don't know what's up with the obsession on how it's the 'same' kernel every time - this is literally the case with other operating systems too? Not every new Ubuntu version uses a different kernel, just newer versions of the Linux kernel. So does Windows - they of course update and change their Windows NT kernel. NT 5 for XP, NT 6.0 for Vista, NT 6.1 for Win7, NT 10.0 for Win10, and so on. This is neither unusual nor bad in and of itself. Literally the only difference to macOS/Linux distros is that Microsoft decided to make us pay for newer kernel versions, while the others let you update them.
It’s important to note that windows 95, 98, me were not based on NT, instead being 9x. They had their own NT alternative operating systems. Also I don’t see macOS as having updates, instead, I see it as new versions each year - Lion is a very different ‘update’ to High Sierra to Sonoma.
Let’s just remember: 16-bit support was taken away from windows a long time ago, & 32-bit support is inevitably going to be taken away, PLUS, even before that happens, not all old software actually runs well using modern windows.
Truth? More like a poorly informed opinion. Windows is inconsistent because MS does not care enough to put money and effort into fixing it. And why would they? The last time windows was visually consistent was during 9X era (best-designed UI ever, btw), but even then third-party apps were a mess. Nobody was bothered by this for over 20 years so putting this as a major goal for the design team won't give you a promotion. A new, partly implemented design language? That's the ambitious stuff MS loves!
When it comes to the ui, it's a matter of personal taste i guess. I wish they never invented the metro and stayed with the classic win2000 ui and pixel art icons.
I don't mind that. At least the past is consistant and it still works. It is harder to seaarch for the same setting in completelly different places or to search for new icons.
Want another old design that shows up? open a explorer window, restart it in task manager, the immedietly try to alt-tab, the thing that shows up looks like it belongs in windows 95 (tested in windows 10, idk in 11)
Tbh, I like it. Yeah, you heard right. I like this Multi-Version Layout. Brings back nostalgia. Feels like I am still using a Microsoft product. I can't be the only one right?
something iwanted to see touched on in this video is why some software strangely seems to use title bars from windows 95 i believe and some uses vista title bars
If it was that easy to write a new operating system from scratch that was compatible with older software, many would have done it. Microsoft is just maintaining older code
I think the biggest problem of Microsoft is that they made Windows free,i know it sounds a lot better (also Apple did it too :)) but because it is free the experience is much worse.There are ads,pushes to Ms Edge, automatic updates and most importantly Telemetry which cheapens the experience for the everyday user
4:56 Except they ARE stand-alone products with some incompatibilities that you suffer when upgrading. Its all about marketing. No one is going to keep designing entire new operating systems from scratch. All operating systems, like OSX and Windows are much more like distributions (to use a Linux term) of the components they're made of, some parts get updates, some don't.
This is an operating system not an art piece, it HAS TO stay consistent with newer versions because it is a tool for work not a toy to play with. The issue is the removal, changing, and relocating things for no reason. In a good OS you would just instinctively know where everything is, so not changing it is good, change for the sake of change is bad.
"They really care about the aesthetics of the Operating System" I'm just wondering if there's anyone, anyone at Microsoft who uses dark mode has ever tried to copy a file or open a file/folder's properties...
My problem with Microsoft changing things is 1st the users would call me and report issues about not finding things and guess who gets a nasty report? 2nd I have stuff to do and when things break they break good. I don't have time to log into the Microsoft store to do X or read up on how they made a security patch for things like "print nightmare" and to find a different solution that may or may not work in our environment. I need nothing short of the ability to edit every setting and file as a super duper user! Even under Azure I found myself dealing with worse and worse code level bugs and security roles that don't any sense. Microsoft keeps chipping away and changing things to the point that they just need to either go out of business or offer an different version of their software for certain users. What's worse is that some of my colleagues over the years just agree with whatever changes Microsoft does and they gas light you on it lol. It's really scary how bad Microsoft has gotten over the users.
They should use ARM as an excuse to ditch the legacy and gradually get people moved onto ARM processors which can compute more with less electricity and heat. This leads to laptops with longer battery life too.
In my experience, Wine on Linux has better backwards compatibility with legacy Windows apps than Windows 10 has. I haven't tried Windows 11 yet, but I doubt it's any better in that regard... Also, they could keep the same old components while redesigning the UI linked to them. They just have a combination of other priorities and rather bad UI and UX decisions, as other comments have pointed out already.
It's not complicated. One version is based on the previous one and if that element is fine there's no point spending the Dev effort to update it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it
What really annoyed me was the introduction of the Ribbon. It’s way slower to use than a menu, and keeps changing so you never quite know where something is. They seemed to have introduced it for touchscreen control, but menus work fine on touchscreens. Big backward step they should reverse.
Great video, but I just don't buy this explanation. It can't be this complicated. Microsoft is just lazy. It's very easy to find Windows Skins online that "fix" many of the design inconsistencies. It has nothing to do with software compatibility. How hard can it be to just draw a window dark grey instead of white?
It's just being sloppy and not caring enough to have this fixed. They do surface level refresh and it shines through. What does "backwards compatibility" have to do with UI? There are things like dos support, WOW64 (32 apps running in subsystem) but that's backend stuff you won't see unless something breaks. Maybe I'm wrong and this OS is so badly written that UI goes down to kernel code, but for the very least it shouldn't. Hell - there are simple apps that completely change the way your OS looks by injecting themselves into it forcefully... What a bunch of crap this video is. Have to applaud them for windows 11 at least - you can actually see some effort with this one. Some actual nice design which wasn't present since windows 7 (there are parts that actually beat macos if looked at in the vacuum, which is nice for someone like me who actually stares at monitor all day and is an esthete). They actually adjust some legacy apps like explorer to look on par which probably is not easy after so many years of neglect. I don't care about GPO/Service editors sticking up - the thing that bothers me with windows is when the user facing applications stick up or have plainly awful design.
Legacy components should be kept as legacy components. What would Microsoft gain by overhauling the registry editor or the group policy editor? Nothing. It's a waste of time in my opinion and an overhaul would remove the familiarity contained within the legacy components. The legacy components are rock-solid as well, they just work and do what they're supposed to do. I really don't mind the inconsistencies.
ignoring the convoluted settings, personally I find windows window UI still better than any linux DE in all monitor resolutions, it just works without tinkering any dpi or making window smaller to make it readable
4:13 No it does not. Just because something works in similar manner and have some leftover code from a past does not mean it is basically same as some old invention. It's like said Ford Model T is basically same as Ford F150. They both were produced using a moving assembly line. Have wheels and engines that works based on same principe. They are somewhat shaped alike. They are basically same thing. This video is full of oversimplifications if not blunt lies dress up as truths. If someone would tell me yesterday, that I, as a full time linux user will defend windows from a critique in a tech discussion would be at least doubtful, but here we are. It seams like stupidity is a kryptonite of mine. Have You seen how many crazy old code there is in Linux kernel. So Linux kernel 1 is same like 6.x? Idiocy.
