How can you tell that any Windows or Mac clone UI is a re-implementation? Easy: try to move your mouse diagonally into the Send To menu after letting it pop up. If the send-to menu closes as you mouse over the item into the submenu, it's a clone. If the menu stays up even if you brush over another menu item, it's either real or a Good Clone. :)
For the fun history, @DonHopkins had a thread a few years back:
I could tell instantly in the loading screen because the three blocks in the progress bar move smoothly across it.
wibbily · 34m ago
Man nothing drives me further up the wall than when a nice progress indicator with discrete segments gets animated with a lazy `to { rotate(360deg); }` etc[1]. It is my molehill to die on
you just don't like how it looks, or is there something else wrong with it?
jkingsman · 1h ago
Yup, and on just about every system I used there was a stutter in it about 75% of the way through.
webstrand · 7m ago
It also fails the "hold right click" test, Windows didn't popover context menus until right click was released. Instead, for file, it did a kind of "contextual drag and drop".
tczMUFlmoNk · 29m ago
A classic article about a no-delay solution to this problem, not mentioned in the linked thread:
Lovely and simple … you’d think it would have become the best practice in most libraries by now
alnwlsn · 55m ago
There's something like this in every desktop Linux I've tried, which made it feel like using the mouse was in some way weird and broken. But I've been using it for long enough now that it either got fixed, or more likely, I got used to it. I don't even remember what it was, something about clicking drop down menus a certain way?
Reminds me of the first time I ever used classic Macintosh System OS, and how you have to hold the mouse button down to keep menus open. It doesn't take much to throw everything off.
stronglikedan · 1h ago
If you have another option with a submenu on either side of Send To, the Send To menu will close. It closes as soon as you move over any item with a submenu. But it just so happens that Send To is typically by itself, so it's a good test regardless.
randunel · 33m ago
Ugh, all the links in that comment are dead, imgur and microsoft alike :(
rayiner · 59m ago
Crazy how much UI still fails this test.
jaffa2 · 1h ago
I must be a freak then because one of the first tweaks I do to any Windows install since possibly Win98 days is to set menu delay to 0ms. I like the snappy precise feel and have no problems not taking shortcuts across menu items.
DustinBrett · 1h ago
On my website daedalOS it does indeed have a delay when your mouse leaves a sub menu. I didn't know people looked for that though.
mmastrac · 1h ago
I believe that anyone who isn't explicitly looking for it is subconsciously frustrated by the lack of it and they just don't know why the UI is "annoying".
wahnfrieden · 2h ago
Google has not learned this lesson
tux3 · 2h ago
This is a nice replication of the WinXP UI in JS (it is not a virtual machine running in your browser).
It is slightly more than just a UI since all of the applications actually work (you can save and reload for example and still see your previous files too).
(takes less memory than Miro, at least in Firefox :D)
jeffhuys · 1h ago
Works great! Tested on Orion. Sad to see I couldn't delete system32.
devnull3 · 1h ago
Win XP remains my favourite OS till date. I was in college and getting hands on a pirated copy back then makes me so nostalgic.
There was a cambrian explosion of tools to customize the look and feel. TweakXP pro is the one I remember. All pirated off-course.
dijit · 1h ago
I remember being extremely envious of the "Alienware theme" that you could only get with an actual Alienware machine.
That was surprisingly short-lived though, such custom experiences are uncommon these days. Seems like nobody is theming Windows- they just fill it with crapware.
tracker1 · 51m ago
I preferred the Media Center Edition theme myself... kept a copy of it for a long time to drop into XP and other windows flavors.
accrual · 1h ago
I remember those themes - the sleek "glowing" blue accents on shiny silver and black UI elements looked so fancy back then. There was a Windows Media Player skin too if I recall correctly.
floxy · 30m ago
OS/2 is the nostalgic one for me.
rayiner · 58m ago
How was it better than Win2K?
voidUpdate · 2h ago
I was hoping this was emulation, like the windows 95 in js that exists, but its more of a simulator. The web browser doesnt work and the minesweeper game uses a text emoji instead of a picture for the face
twalichiewicz · 1h ago
Turns out you can just click and drag to select everything in Minesweeper, and it reveals all the hidden numbers. There’s even a sneaky little “debug” text in the bottom-left corner that shows where all the bombs are.
jasperry · 2h ago
I also hoped it was actual emulation. I could tell it wasn't when I saw the bootup progress bar moving more smoothly than it ever did in real Windows :)
LetsGetTechnicl · 1h ago
I was able to get the "browser" to work by opening the Flash Player and clicking the link to the Ruffle website. It's just an embedded view so some sites don't work (I think dependent on your browser settings.)
sunaookami · 53m ago
Vast majority of sites disallow embedding nowadays.
personalityson · 2h ago
I was able to create a vbs script (MsgBox "Test"), but it keeps opening in Notepad...
DustinBrett · 1h ago
Seems like v86 will be the king of this for a while longer.
philipwhiuk · 1h ago
Yeah I was gonna navigate to the website and try to recurse :(
thecosmicfrog · 1h ago
"WIN32.RUN might have unexpected behaviors on browsers that are NOT Chromium-based (Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.)"
What would be the reasons this wouldn't run on Firefox? Genuine question from a non-web developer.
tetris11 · 1h ago
it's not an emulator -- it's a (very realistic) re-implementation of the desktop using standard JS and CSS. Flash is run through Ruffle. Edge opens pages using native iframes.
Essentially the browser split comes from the usual browser split: discrepancies in JS and CSS implementations
pjc50 · 1h ago
This means the developer hasn't tested it on Firefox. Platform compatibility is way better than it used to be but you still occasionally get differences in supported APIs or interpretation of the standard.
BizarroLand · 27m ago
I ran it in icefox without an issue, even got a few games of minesweeper in.
The only issue I had was the mobi reader wouldn't work, but that was fine with me.
I feel slightly ashamed that I spent enough time using Windows XP that was able to spot that this was a clone based on the fonts and shadow effects alone.
Nice effort though.
accrual · 1h ago
It could be a badge of honor! You used the system so much that clones can't fool you. To be fair, Windows text rendering does have a very specific look that's difficult to perfectly replicate without using the actual Windows APIs.
I'm sure some here could look at a screenshot of the same text rendered on Windows, macOS, and Linux and tell them apart.
1970-01-01 · 1h ago
Back when the Start Menu made sense. It wasn't rose colored glasses, it was functional.
accrual · 1h ago
Yep. No web search. No ads or news or weather or links to apps that aren't actually installed. Opens virtually instantly. Lots of stock customization options (icon size, icon order, pinned icons, classic vs XP style, all shortcuts toggleable).
The only thing I miss is the search bar - I became quite used to that with Windows 7.
sunaookami · 52m ago
The Windows XP start menu sucked, no search function and it was common to have 3 columns full of shortcuts with folders inside folders. It only got better with Windows Vista.
Catbert59 · 2h ago
Will call our IT support tomorrow and start this as a full screen.
That will be fun in the office :-)
NitpickLawyer · 1h ago
That's actually not a bad April Fool's prank.
sangeeth96 · 1h ago
Real thing is possible on https://copy.sh/v86/ I think but need an XP disk image[1], not readily available at the moment (probably for copyright reasons?).
Windows 2000 is also available in the above (with more pre-installed apps).
hard_times · 1h ago
We get these cheap recreations semi-regularly on here. Why does stuff like this keep being spammed on here, besides the nostalgia factor?
edgarvaldes · 58m ago
Maybe this is the "running Doom" of the UI/UX crowd.
okincilleb · 1h ago
This is awesome! I recreated Win XP for my personal website a few years ago (https://www.sohailsayed.com/), but this completely blows it out the water on functionality.
I absolutely love just how much depth there is to the functionality in this (from being able to use apps like word, or being able to drag and move around icons on desktop).
I am viewing this post on a real Windows XP system on a 440BX platform from 1998. ;)
The BIOS splash text loads and animates but not much else. I'm using Palemoon 25 (SSE1). Impressive that it loads at all!
freedomben · 1h ago
Sadly, accrual's system was just compromised so they're offline for now
Davidzheng · 47m ago
wow it's one of the most nostalgic feelings I've ever felt. Like coming back home after leaving for many years. And you still know your way around even though you already forgot you knew.
bityard · 47m ago
Not an authentic experience, it boots way too fast.
benbristow · 1h ago
So close that Microsoft Edge's heuristics picked it up as a potential scam after being used for a bit!
accrual · 1h ago
Wow, did you get some kind of notification in Edge? Maybe they're trying to detect certain remote desktop sessions used in scams or something.
Using this made me feel happy. I don't get that feeling from modern Windows.
kardianos · 2h ago
Yes please. Can I please have a simple desktop that doesn't get in my way back?
mvieira38 · 1h ago
I switched from Windows 10 to Fedora KDE 2 years ago and it's been good. Not great, but good. I do have the occasional problem with drivers and whatnot, but honestly Windows was just as bad, just with different stuff, and Windows was much less stable and much slower
askonomm · 26m ago
I also switched to KDE, and man, not needing an online account to use a operating system, not having any ads or constant spyware sending every click and keystroke to some ad partner is absolutely amazing. Sad that to get a decent user experience feels amazing, even though it's not really anything special, really goes to show how bad things have gotten.
pantalaimon · 1h ago
There is still Mate, the Gnome 2 fork.
freedomben · 1h ago
I'm mostly a gnome 3 guy now, but mate is way underrated IMHO. I usually use it in VMs and the performance and usability is incredible. For those of us who grew up on this paradigm, it's a joy
You mean xfce? KDE is bloated. Yes it’s still bloated even if Valgrind says it has no memory leaks.
reorder9695 · 1h ago
KDE is bloated, but coming from Windows10 it feels very familiar but with all of Windows' extra shite (ads/tracking/sign in/fucking onedrive) chopped out. I couldn't be happier with it to be honest.
jasperry · 1h ago
Yes, this. I'm a long time XFCE user but when I got a beefier machine I switched to KDE, and unlike XFCE it manages the hardware thoroughly enough (sleep/brightness/network/audio) that I don't have to manually hack anything. I tolerate the bloat for that reason. I disabled all the kwallet and pim stuff though, that was a mess.
kardianos · 1h ago
I also run Linux using XFCE.
But some of my Clients use windows and were just "forced" to upgrade their hardware and use Windows 11.
LargoLasskhyfv · 19m ago
Does it matter when my current uptime is 51 days?
dartharva · 1h ago
You mean Cinnamon? XFCE is ugly as hell and breaks a lot of things.
saubeidl · 2h ago
xfce is nice, too, but aren't they still on gtk3?
ikari_pl · 1h ago
or just KDE?
andrepd · 2h ago
linuxmint.org :)
FirmwareBurner · 2h ago
Linux
sergiotapia · 2h ago
Design peaked here for OS's. Perfect balance of colors and functionality, and gloss. This was the top.
ianhawes · 1h ago
No, it's just nostalgic.
brandon272 · 8m ago
People love to dogmatically claim that any appreciation for past design can only be chalked up to nostalgia but the XP design is objectively an excellent balance between UI 'gloss' and very simple and clear, unambiguous functionality.
People rarely complained that finding an application under the Start menu was difficult. In current versions of Windows, the Start menu is such a disaster, such a mess, that people don't even open it and rely much more on the search function.
silverquiet · 1h ago
I often have a hard time telling if I'm being nostalgic. For me, 7 was peak Windows, but Win2K/XP would rank pretty close as well. I suppose the question for me is what have subsequent releases given us; what can we actually do with more recent versions of Windows that we could not accomplish back then?
LargoLasskhyfv · 30m ago
XP or 7 in "classic", aka 2000 look. For practical reasons, like hardware-support, really working USB.
If running in some isolated VM for some superspecial APP still supporting running on 2000, why not? Uses much less memory.
Fergusonb · 1h ago
I don't know, it's nice to have icons and buttons that actually look like what they're going to do instead of amorphous blobs.
Cool example, however yet another "runs best on IE" sites, ah sorry it is Chrome nowadays.
simondotau · 2h ago
It must be using ActiveX, ah sorry I mean some feature that Google has unilaterally decided is part of the official web standard, soon to be known as the Chrome Platform standard.
whalesalad · 2h ago
Insane how performant this is in the browser.
elbac · 2h ago
lol, I can't tell if you are serious or not, but it's a recreation in HTML/CSS.
whalesalad · 2h ago
I just assumed it was wasm
bravetraveler · 2h ago
Dragging 'Word' is rough on my setup... while 'Notepad' is fine, lol. More styling is expensive.
ferguess_k · 2h ago
Both the OS and Word 2003 run smoothly. It's quite a show. I think I might want to keep an old 16GB RAM laptop to run Windows 7, MS Office 2010 and VS 2012. I'll cut off as much Internet as possible and concentrate on my projects.
Edit: Just realized that this is not a VM, just a replicate. No wonder Word 2003 looks weird.
accrual · 1h ago
It is still nice to use old versions of Office. I think 2003 was my favorite. Simple, usable, no usage-based UI, no pop-ups like "look at this new feature we silently installed!" while you're trying to write.
ferguess_k · 16m ago
Yeah 2003 is probably good enough for me too. I only need it to write my CV.
For the fun history, @DonHopkins had a thread a few years back:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17404345
[1] https://cdn.dribbble.com/userupload/41647820/file/original-8...
https://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-mega...
Reminds me of the first time I ever used classic Macintosh System OS, and how you have to hold the mouse button down to keep menus open. It doesn't take much to throw everything off.
https://docs.win32.run/
https://github.com/ducbao414/win32.run
It seems functional to me!
Kudos to the author!
(takes less memory than Miro, at least in Firefox :D)
There was a cambrian explosion of tools to customize the look and feel. TweakXP pro is the one I remember. All pirated off-course.
That was surprisingly short-lived though, such custom experiences are uncommon these days. Seems like nobody is theming Windows- they just fill it with crapware.
What would be the reasons this wouldn't run on Firefox? Genuine question from a non-web developer.
Essentially the browser split comes from the usual browser split: discrepancies in JS and CSS implementations
The only issue I had was the mobi reader wouldn't work, but that was fine with me.
Nice effort though.
I'm sure some here could look at a screenshot of the same text rendered on Windows, macOS, and Linux and tell them apart.
The only thing I miss is the search bar - I became quite used to that with Windows 7.
That will be fun in the office :-)
[1]: https://github.com/copy/v86/issues/86
I absolutely love just how much depth there is to the functionality in this (from being able to use apps like word, or being able to drag and move around icons on desktop).
Brilliant!
The BIOS splash text loads and animates but not much else. I'm using Palemoon 25 (SSE1). Impressive that it loads at all!
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2025/01/27/stand-up-to-s...
https://www.trinitydesktop.org
But some of my Clients use windows and were just "forced" to upgrade their hardware and use Windows 11.
People rarely complained that finding an application under the Start menu was difficult. In current versions of Windows, the Start menu is such a disaster, such a mess, that people don't even open it and rely much more on the search function.
If running in some isolated VM for some superspecial APP still supporting running on 2000, why not? Uses much less memory.
Edit: Just realized that this is not a VM, just a replicate. No wonder Word 2003 looks weird.