Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

Summary

Windows launched way back in 1985, when I was still using a Commodore 64 and PCs were all of four years old–barely out of diapers. The GUI or Graphical User Interface, has changed a lot over the years and I thought it might be fun/horrifying to rank every major version of the Windows GUI, from Windows 1.0 in 1985, to Windows 11 as of 2023. I’m rating not based on how the system looked at the time (you can do only do so much with CGA/EGA graphics, after all), but how they look now. Is this fair? Probably not, but as always, I make the rules! The rating system is based on a scale of 1 to 10 Clippys, with 10 being best. NOTE: I am skipping over all versions of Windows NT because it follows the look of other versions mentioned below. Overall Rankings: Windows 11 Windows 2000 Windows 95/98/Vista/7 Windows 10 Windows 3.0/3.1/XP Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 2.0 Windows 1.0 Windows 1.0 (1985)Rating: 1 Clippy In 1985, Windows ran on top of DOS, had drop-down menus, fixed windows, and CGA graphics. In a way, the extremely limited colour palette actually made it more colourful. Perhaps too colourful. This is pretty ugly all around. If you are a fan of this, you probably wear plaid bow ties unironically. Windows 2.0 (1987)Rating: 2.5 Clippys This is where Windows goes from hideously ugly to just unattractive. The menu bars and arrows have been refined a little, and now you get resizable windows. It’s like a colour Macintosh, but hit with an ugly stick. And still needs to run on top of DOS. Windows 3.0 (1990)Rating: 6 Clippys Microsoft makes a big leap with Windows 3, the first version to offer a coherent GUI, with pseudo 3D elements for buttons and scroll bars. Support for VGA graphics also means the cartoony look has gone away, making it look that more professional. It still needs DOS and has that weird File Manager/Program Manager split. Oh, and Minesweeper. Windows 3.1 (1992)Rating 6 Clippys Windows hits the big time. This is the version where it was clear Windows was the f...