Will Windows 9 reintroduce the classic theme?


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Hi,

 

Will Windows 9 reintroduce the classic theme?

 

It's just so ultra clean and simple, allowing me to go about my work without getting distracted by the latest fad whether it's shiny 3D buttons, gradients and transparent this or that. Felt like Windows lost its soul after MS took it away.

 

Been using http://xxinightxx.deviantart.com/art/Windows-Classic-Vs-8-1-Update-1-457573957 so far but it has its shortcomings.

 

Many thanks!

 

B.D.

Mobile app developer

Hi,

 

Will Windows 9 reintroduce the classic theme?

 

It's just so ultra clean and simple, allowing me to go about my work without getting distracted by the latest fad whether it's shiny 3D buttons, gradients and transparent this or that. Felt like Windows lost its soul after MS took it away.

 

Been using http://xxinightxx.deviantart.com/art/Windows-Classic-Vs-8-1-Update-1-457573957 so far but it has its shortcomings.

 

Many thanks!

 

B.D.

Mobile app developer

 

 

Does it really affect your productivity for a button to look slightly different?

Hi,

 

Will Windows 9 reintroduce the classic theme?

 

It's just so ultra clean and simple, allowing me to go about my work without getting distracted by the latest fad whether it's shiny 3D buttons, gradients and transparent this or that. Felt like Windows lost its soul after MS took it away.

 

Been using http://xxinightxx.deviantart.com/art/Windows-Classic-Vs-8-1-Update-1-457573957 so far but it has its shortcomings.

 

Many thanks!

 

B.D.

Mobile app developer

No, I don't think that Microsoft will bring back the Classic theme. This article explains why Microsoft made the decision to keep the Desktop Window Manager enabled at all times in Windows 8. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848042%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

No, I don't think that Microsoft will bring back the Classic theme. This article explains why Microsoft made the decision to keep the Desktop Window Manager enabled at all times in Windows 8. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848042%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

 

 

LOL, they said you can use Windows Flip in Windows 8, but that was removed in Windows 8. :rolleyes:

It's just so ultra clean and simple, allowing me to go about my work without getting distracted by the latest fad whether it's shiny 3D buttons, gradients and transparent this or that. Felt like Windows lost its soul after MS took it away.

This is prety much a description of the current Windows 8 Aero theme. It doesn't has 3D buttons, gradi?nt and transparent parts either. Except for the taskbar, that is, but still.

latest fad whether it's shiny 3D buttons, gradients and transparent this or that.  

They weren't shiny, but Winodws 95 surely had 3D buttons.

 

Windows 8 on the other hand has almost no 3d buttons, gradients or transparency. So they've pretty much already done what you're asking for, only possilby in a more colorful fashion than you'd like.

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LOL, they said you can use Windows Flip in Windows 8, but that was removed in Windows 8. :rolleyes:

Windows Flip is the name for Alt + Tab and Windows Flip 3D is the name for Win + Tab. I've said many times before that Microsoft has trouble naming things, and this is no exception. It's not that there is anything inherently wrong with the names, it's just that they are likely to cause confusion. Windows Flip does live on in Windows 8, but not Windows Flip 3D. You already knew this though, it's just that it is easy to confuse the two names with one another.

FLIP.jpg

Windows Flip

flipshot.jpg

Windows Flip 3D

Classic is what you normally see in Enterprise, and it gives Windows a bad, ugly perception. With Windows 8, they eliminated the ugly basic battleship grey and Windows 7 gradient heavy, washed out colored basic themes. 

Those of you who liked Windows Classic, such as myself, I might recommend trying the Aero Lite theme. It's hidden by default, but easily reenabled. It looks like the standard Windows 8 theme, but the taskbar is opaque and what little drop shadows exist are replaced by 1px black lines. I quite like it a lot, it gets out of the way the way Windows Classic did, and yet it still gets all the DWM features, making it more useful at the same time.

 

EDIT: It has some minor layout bugs compared to the standard theme, but that doesn't bother me too much.

I guess it's with some sense of nostalgia that I want the classic theme back, similar to how I feel when I see MacOS Classic or SGI Irix.

 

There's also a wave of calm that sweeps over me when I see a UI that doesn't try too hard to fit in. That doesn't try to please the endless hordes of hipsters and gamers whom, while they certainly love to hate on others, wouldn't know how to design something proper themselves even if their lives depended on it.

 

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for properly designed flat interfaces, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of nice ones in Windows 9 -- but the classic theme is an important part of human history, and users should at least be given the option to try it even if it's just for historical / educational purposes, or simply nostalgia.

 

Perfection is achieved, not when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to take away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

 

B.D.

Mobile app developer

http://anti.as/

 

irix-3.3-img2.gif

 

Apple_Macintosh_Desktop.png

 the classic theme is an important part of human history, and users should at least be given the option to try it even if it's just for historical / educational purposes, or simply nostalgia. 

So fire up a Windows 95 VM. ?\_(?)_/? 

Windows Classic also isn't worth bringing back unless they can make it hardware accelerated. As stated, Aero Lite is able to serve the same "fallback" purpose while having full GPU support.

 

I would imagine, though, that one could patch Uxtheme.dll and then create a theme that mimicked Windows Classic.

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