Windows 95 has some legitimate problem but one thing that was nice is that Microsoft (and Apple) were doing Skeuomorph, so training users to use it was a joy. It was designed to be easy to learn. Today they don't really care how users are trained, and just assume they'll figure it out.
PS - Yes, Skeuomoric concepts age out, like Floppy Disk-Save Icons, but the concept still has merit. It can help "ground" the experience.
They were not doing skeuomorphism. They were using simple visual clues, like "bevels" on buttons, to convey the existence of a control and its state. They weren't disguising controls as "paint" on "felt" on a gaming table, as Apple Game Center did at the peak of their cheesiness.
The overreaction known as "flat" design (AKA no design) has fortunately started to recede. Still... some derelict "designers" are still deliver Advent calendars instead of usable applications.
I hate to think how much has been written on whether icons need to be updated because the picture isn't literal to the device it uses now, compared that link broken years ago and being more abstract representing a concept. I wonder if in a few years when some cars may be driven by hub motors will there be some moaning that the icon in an engine check light needs changing.
There's so many options on what icons could be for the thing they represent you'll never please everyone, why is forwards a right facing arrow and backwards left facing? (Is this swapped for right-to-left languages?) Why not representing Z-depth away/forwards towards/back? What does reload have to do with rotation?
I have. Blame the drivers, not the OS. Vista wasn't great for the same reasons. Sure, Windows 11 mostly doesn't have driver problems, but that doesn't mean the OS is great. It's largely irrelevant to the point being made.
It was unstable but it was nice to use. It introduced a lot of UI elements that are now taken for granted. I remember starting to build a window manager that replicated the win95 look.
I remember those days. Thankfully Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 had a Windows 95/98-style desktop but used the rock-solid NT kernel. Unfortunately they were not marketed to home users.
I feel similarly about the classic Mac OS: excellent interface and UI guidelines hampered by its cooperative multitasking and its lack of protected memory.
Windows XP and Mac OS X were major blessings, bringing the NT kernel and Mach/BSD underpinnings, respectively, to home computing users.
I have. Also windows 98, Me (I loved it), NT 4.0, 2000, 2003 (as a workstation), XP, 7, (loved 7; skipped Vista, skipped 8), windows 10 is my last one.
I really really liked windows 95. It rarely crashed on me even though I used and abused it extensively. It lived running smoothly, tolerated tinkering and uni files shenanigans.
The i loved 7. To me it was a pinnacle. All comfort, no crap. Win 10 was less convenient (even if safer), and it was a constant struggle with the subversive, hostile vendor.
Windows 95 is closer to the ideal, I agree with GP, although to me the closest is Windows 7 tbh.
I was doing tech support through the Windows 95/98/ME period and it was hell. Everything either crashed the OS or required a restart if you touched it.
When Windows 2000 rolled around and I saw how stable it was, I went out and bought it to put on my gaming PC. Another friend from work laughed at me and told me how terrible "Windows NT" was for running games until he saw how smooth Starcraft ran on it.
This was back when you'd hook up a new printer or other device to a Windows computer, and it would detect it and prompt you for a driver disk. During that same era (and well past it, into the 2000s) if you plugged something into a Mac... nothing would happen. You had to go hunt down a driver for it and initiate the installation process yourself.
Windows 95 has some legitimate problem but one thing that was nice is that Microsoft (and Apple) were doing Skeuomorph, so training users to use it was a joy. It was designed to be easy to learn. Today they don't really care how users are trained, and just assume they'll figure it out.
PS - Yes, Skeuomoric concepts age out, like Floppy Disk-Save Icons, but the concept still has merit. It can help "ground" the experience.
They were not doing skeuomorphism. They were using simple visual clues, like "bevels" on buttons, to convey the existence of a control and its state. They weren't disguising controls as "paint" on "felt" on a gaming table, as Apple Game Center did at the peak of their cheesiness.
The overreaction known as "flat" design (AKA no design) has fortunately started to recede. Still... some derelict "designers" are still deliver Advent calendars instead of usable applications.
I hate to think how much has been written on whether icons need to be updated because the picture isn't literal to the device it uses now, compared that link broken years ago and being more abstract representing a concept. I wonder if in a few years when some cars may be driven by hub motors will there be some moaning that the icon in an engine check light needs changing.
There's so many options on what icons could be for the thing they represent you'll never please everyone, why is forwards a right facing arrow and backwards left facing? (Is this swapped for right-to-left languages?) Why not representing Z-depth away/forwards towards/back? What does reload have to do with rotation?
I have. Blame the drivers, not the OS. Vista wasn't great for the same reasons. Sure, Windows 11 mostly doesn't have driver problems, but that doesn't mean the OS is great. It's largely irrelevant to the point being made.
It was unstable but it was nice to use. It introduced a lot of UI elements that are now taken for granted. I remember starting to build a window manager that replicated the win95 look.
I remember those days. Thankfully Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 had a Windows 95/98-style desktop but used the rock-solid NT kernel. Unfortunately they were not marketed to home users.
I feel similarly about the classic Mac OS: excellent interface and UI guidelines hampered by its cooperative multitasking and its lack of protected memory.
Windows XP and Mac OS X were major blessings, bringing the NT kernel and Mach/BSD underpinnings, respectively, to home computing users.
I have. Also windows 98, Me (I loved it), NT 4.0, 2000, 2003 (as a workstation), XP, 7, (loved 7; skipped Vista, skipped 8), windows 10 is my last one.
I really really liked windows 95. It rarely crashed on me even though I used and abused it extensively. It lived running smoothly, tolerated tinkering and uni files shenanigans.
The i loved 7. To me it was a pinnacle. All comfort, no crap. Win 10 was less convenient (even if safer), and it was a constant struggle with the subversive, hostile vendor.
Windows 95 is closer to the ideal, I agree with GP, although to me the closest is Windows 7 tbh.
I was doing tech support through the Windows 95/98/ME period and it was hell. Everything either crashed the OS or required a restart if you touched it.
When Windows 2000 rolled around and I saw how stable it was, I went out and bought it to put on my gaming PC. Another friend from work laughed at me and told me how terrible "Windows NT" was for running games until he saw how smooth Starcraft ran on it.
Yeah, Windows 95/98/ME were terrible.
Nonsense. And 98 was even better.
This was back when you'd hook up a new printer or other device to a Windows computer, and it would detect it and prompt you for a driver disk. During that same era (and well past it, into the 2000s) if you plugged something into a Mac... nothing would happen. You had to go hunt down a driver for it and initiate the installation process yourself.
How times have changed.