Windows 2-ish Experience
Jun 6, 2020 16:54:44 GMT -8
Post by oz on Jun 6, 2020 16:54:44 GMT -8
This is not an attempt to recreate the Windows 2 interface by any means, or well yes, by slight means. It's at the very least a resemblance. It mostly stems from a desire for a bare bones Windows usage and a love for DOS.
As an alternative to MS-DOS Exectutive I use the Norton Commander clone Far Manager. Norton Commander was one of the most popular and widely used file managers for DOS, and since Windows 1 and 2's MS-DOS Executive is a fairly orthodox list based manager, I figured I could kill two nostalgia birds with one OFM-stone. Besides, Far Manager is awesome once you get used to it. For power users, the Norton Commander way still holds up almost 35 years later. Explorer feels sluggish and damp after changing to Far, for me at least.
As you can see, I've relocated all user folders to C:\ start menu program folder included. When I install new programs with "add shortcut to start menu" ticked the shortcuts are added straight to C:\
Good bye convoluted libraries, user folders and program folders! Hello DOS style drive-is-home-directory!
Did you know the way programs are minimized when Explorer isn't the shell; is a leftover from fricking Windows 1? They used to become icons instead of a compressed titlebar, but they function just the same. You can move them, and they'll minimize to their new spot, just like in 1 through 3.x. Funny how without explorer, the old window management has just been hibernating all these years. It just looks slightly different these days.
I picked some 80's neon, 16-color-looking colors. Except for the wallpaper, but I'm pleased with how the dark blue looks against the rest of it.
I'm not using classic theme. These screenshots I took in low resolution to look good here, but I'm running this pc in high dpi and classic theme is just very buggy with high dpi. Maybe I didn't try hard enough? But to be honest, the boring flat squares of Windows 10 metro does look more Windows 2 than Windows Classic does, right? So what the heck!
As an alternative to MS-DOS Exectutive I use the Norton Commander clone Far Manager. Norton Commander was one of the most popular and widely used file managers for DOS, and since Windows 1 and 2's MS-DOS Executive is a fairly orthodox list based manager, I figured I could kill two nostalgia birds with one OFM-stone. Besides, Far Manager is awesome once you get used to it. For power users, the Norton Commander way still holds up almost 35 years later. Explorer feels sluggish and damp after changing to Far, for me at least.
As you can see, I've relocated all user folders to C:\ start menu program folder included. When I install new programs with "add shortcut to start menu" ticked the shortcuts are added straight to C:\
Good bye convoluted libraries, user folders and program folders! Hello DOS style drive-is-home-directory!
Did you know the way programs are minimized when Explorer isn't the shell; is a leftover from fricking Windows 1? They used to become icons instead of a compressed titlebar, but they function just the same. You can move them, and they'll minimize to their new spot, just like in 1 through 3.x. Funny how without explorer, the old window management has just been hibernating all these years. It just looks slightly different these days.
I picked some 80's neon, 16-color-looking colors. Except for the wallpaper, but I'm pleased with how the dark blue looks against the rest of it.
I'm not using classic theme. These screenshots I took in low resolution to look good here, but I'm running this pc in high dpi and classic theme is just very buggy with high dpi. Maybe I didn't try hard enough? But to be honest, the boring flat squares of Windows 10 metro does look more Windows 2 than Windows Classic does, right? So what the heck!
