[pecenipicek]

Why can't things keep looking good like they used to?

Thats why.[/snide remark]

[666maslo666]

Really, my biggest gripe about Windows 10 (and 8) is the aesthetics. This "minimalist" design looks like crap, IMO.

So true. Am I supposed to feel some aesthetic pleasure from looking at few simple unicolored rectangles? Cause I dont. Vista and 7 were the nicest windowses. And its not just windows, new Android 5 is also ugly, with the exception of some nice transition animations. Cant wait until this minimalist fad is over and UI graphics artists will again have to earn their wage instead of coming up with what looks like a drawing by a five year old.

[Luis Dias]

You guys have terrible aesthetic tastes and you should feel terrible. I do wish Microsoft listens to you and gives you the option to impair your eyeballs with the horrible aesthetics of yesteryears, if by doing so I'm left unbothered by the results of your grievances.

[Luis Dias]

"Windows XP looked nice" Jesus F Christ what is this, the Fisher Price generation? Pearls before Swine and all that. ****ing hell. And the comment about how designers are doing "5 year old drawings"? It can go **** itself.

Get better tastes before vomiting your ridiculous judgements.

[rev_posix]

Visual design is a preference, every one is different, there isn't a need to insult anyone over it.

[Dragon]

So true. Am I supposed to feel some aesthetic pleasure from looking at few simple unicolored rectangles? Cause I dont. Vista and 7 were the nicest windowses. And its not just windows, new Android 5 is also ugly, with the exception of some nice transition animations. Cant wait until this minimalist fad is over and UI graphics artists will again have to earn their wage instead of coming up with what looks like a drawing by a five year old.

Exactly. Vista and 7 graphics were a bit overdone IMO, though quite easy on the eyes and rather pretty. They did reduce performance though, playing games like KSP in a window was a bit problematic. XP was good. Fast and good-looking, it was likely the best UI out there.

Thats why.[/snide remark]

That's not really this. This is not aversion to change, this is aversion to things that look like they were drawn by a 5 years old. And the latest everything does just that. Everything is boxy and "minimalist", uses a single color for each element and generally looks boring. Add garish and inappropriate contrasts between between those single colors, and you've got an ugly UI.

[Klaustrophobia]

"People are stupid, so just change it and tell them it's better.  They'll believe us."

 - CEOs everywhere.

[CP5670]

I've used a custom skin in every version of Windows going back to 98, with a black/dark gray background and white/green text. I use a 98-style theme like this in XP, and a more modern but similar looking theme in 7 and 8.1 with Classic Shell (the Dark Agility theme, with some extra changes I made). I intend to do the same in 10, so I don't care what it looks like by default.

[jr2]

I won't be upgrading to it either until it's been around for a while, but I do want DX12 sooner or later.

3.  When it was all done, the screen asked me if I was Michael (I am), and I clicked yes.  I did not sign in with my Microsoft account.  Windows 10 desktop appeared, but it was not my old desktop background or theme, and most of my desktop icons were missing.  Going through the personalization menu, I could not find any of my themes I had created before. 

Are there any theme patchers available (or necessary) for it? I use a custom theme in Windows 8.1 but need a theme patcher to make it work, which gets occasionally reverted and broken by Windows updates (which is why I never use auto-updates).

http://www.windowsxlive.net/   <- 10 support, check

You can mod it now.  I always thought the best-looking was Vista.  Piggishly slow, though.  I used to use Win XP with Vista Inspirat 2 installed -- there was a slight performance hit, but it looked as pretty as Vista (indeed, looked quite similar!) and was 2x faster than the Vista OS.

If you use Vista Inspirat 2, be sure to update RocketDock! The included version was based on a faulty compiler or somesuch.  Just copy the Vista Inspirat-themed rocketdock icons to another location, uninstall, install the new version, copy the icons over to the new install.

EDIT: Actually, Royale Noir was a very pretty theme for XP, you can get that here (they have Vista / 7 / 8 versions too, I'm sure 10 will be next).  Replaced the green / blue with dark almost metallic blue / black... it's green / black by default but I found a blue / balck one somewhere that was much better matching.    Ah, here we go, Royale Noir 1.2 Final, much better:

       


That should have been what XP shipped with.    That and an officially patch UXTheme.dll -- locking themes was a huge mistake compared with Win '98 (which could be customized like crazy by default).

[Mikes]

Visual design is a preference, every one is different, there isn't a need to insult anyone over it.

Except when they are wrong? :-) /ducks lol

[Luis Dias]

An insult is ignorantly saying these designs look like being drawn by a 5 year old. That's more than insulting, it's offensive.

But I do recognize that the general taste displayed here is just in total lack of sync with .... ahhhh ... Let's say mine.

Does remind me of some ridiculous winamp themes back in the day, filled with useless crap just because they could. I guess people just love to torture their eyeballs.

[General Battuta]

OS X looks really good :shobon:

[Phantom Hoover]

linux looks really good if you're an expert graphics designer and you draw some great interface art

[pecenipicek]

OS X looks really good :shobon:

get out


btw, isnt Apple the one who started this fad for the current generation of stuff?

[Fury]

I have yet to use custom, unofficial themes in any Windows since WinXP. Am I right in assuming that it still requires patching uxtheme.dll and that it often gets replaced by Windows updates, possibly leading to breakage upon reboot? I remember reading that it is advised to revert to official theme prior to doing any Windows updates. Sounds like more trouble than it is worth.

Still, I was strongly hoping MS would have finally included a proper dark theme in Win10.

[jr2]

Pfft, I've never had a problem (when running XP SP3).  If an update did break it, I'd just run the patcher again.  I'm sure with some script-fu, you could even have a startup check and patch of the new uxtheme.dll if it did get replaced.

7 looked good enough (even though Vista on XP or Royale Noir 1.2 looked quite better) that I could tolerate it.

EDIT: I should add, that UXTheme patcher linked above does verify that UXTheme.dll works on startup, and it is compatible with:

This program will patch your theme engine files so you can use any 3rd party visual style on the following operating systems:

Windows XP x86 Editions
Windows XP x64 Editions
Windows Server 2003 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows Vista x86 and x64 Editions
Windows Server 2008 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows 7 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows Server 2008 R2 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows 8 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows Server 2012 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows 8.1 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows Server 2012 R2 x86 and x64 Editions
Windows 10 Technical Preview x86 and x64 Editions

For Windows 8/8.1/10, UXTheme Multi-Patcher comes with WinaeroGlass from winaero.com installed enabling Glass theme support.

If you have any issue related to UxStyle, please file an issue to UxStyle’s GitHub.

[AdmiralRalwood]

I have yet to use custom, unofficial themes in any Windows since WinXP. Am I right in assuming that it still requires patching uxtheme.dll and that it often gets replaced by Windows updates, possibly leading to breakage upon reboot? I remember reading that it is advised to revert to official theme prior to doing any Windows updates. Sounds like more trouble than it is worth.

Still, I was strongly hoping MS would have finally included a proper dark theme in Win10.

You couldn't be bothered to Google "Windows 10 dark theme"?

[jr2]

That requires a registry modification, though.  Fury might.  I might.  Quite a few wouldn't, though, so it's worth mentioning.

[Mika]

That requires a registry modification, though.  Fury might.  I might.  Quite a few wouldn't, though, so it's worth mentioning.

[Side track]
Oooh, the dreaded Windows registry! I mean, you can almost shoot yourself to the foot with it!

Coincidentally, why (in most occasions) did you want to write this in CONFIG.SYS? DOS = HIGH, UMB. And where exactly in the CONFIG.SYS did you want to write it?

And why use of DEVICEHIGH was much preferred over DEVICE, and why did the order of rows matter? And who could forget the joys of SET BLASTER line in AUTOEXEC.BAT!

As a consequence of learning this, we had something like 625 kb free when DOS booted up in Win 3.1 era. Thank you Wing Commander 2 and Falcon 3.0 for teaching me this, back then getting the games to load required a bit of knowledge of massaging CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT! Funny thing is, I almost recall the include flag syntax straight from the top of my dome for CONFIG.SYS row that loads EMM386.EXE, and that's something like 18 years ago!  The stuff you go through as a boy... Especially when you, of course, had to break things in the include flag for the heck of it to see what happens, and had to cover up you were actually re-installing DOS from your dad... who eagerly wanted to do his excel sheets in a hurry!

The only thing causing trouble in Windows registry is the size of it. I never had any trouble modifying anything there. It has always been about finding what you want in it, especially because it can be stored in several locations.  Although, I suppose there's a bunch of people who wouldn't want to do something like that at all. I on the other hand, I'm willing to get back some control of my computer hardware from the operating system! I liked to God mode of Windows 7 that unlocked some of the settings that were not as accessible.

[/End side track]

[CP5670]

I have yet to use custom, unofficial themes in any Windows since WinXP. Am I right in assuming that it still requires patching uxtheme.dll and that it often gets replaced by Windows updates, possibly leading to breakage upon reboot? I remember reading that it is advised to revert to official theme prior to doing any Windows updates. Sounds like more trouble than it is worth.

Still, I was strongly hoping MS would have finally included a proper dark theme in Win10.

All that is true, but it's still well worth it to me. The high contrast themes I use look much nicer and are easier on the eyes. I run the updates manually every now and then, setting the default theme along with restore points. Not setting the theme back can render the system unbootable with a few of the large updates.