This site made me realize the windows 1.x and windows 2.x (the ones from the early 80s!) logos look surprisingly modern!<p>Flat single-colored simple shape as is the trend today, with a light blue color that doesn't even exist in the standard EGA color palette.<p>As opposed to the much more colorful and busy icons that came after.<p>But then of course Windows 10 and Windows 11 are flat-single-colored simple shapes again since they are _actually_ released during today's logo design trends.
The Windows modding scene was probably most active in the mid 2000s when XP's theming feature made it easy to create custom "skins" for all the UI elements. It's worth noting that most if not all of these custom "distros" were likely made by people who had no formal education in CS, and did it mainly as a way to play around and explore and/or impress their friends; I remember visiting the forums where this stuff happened back then, and some of the creators (self-reportedly) were very young --- early teens. The majority were likely male, but there was definitely some female presence too. I suspect a lot of them also didn't go into CS or other computer-related fields when they grew older, but they definitely embodied the classic "hacker spirit".
<a href="https://crustywindo.ws/File:XP_GanjaEdition_Boot.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crustywindo.ws/File:XP_GanjaEdition_Boot.png</a><p><a href="https://crustywindo.ws/File:XP_Ana_Muslem_-_Desktop.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crustywindo.ws/File:XP_Ana_Muslem_-_Desktop.png</a><p><a href="https://crustywindo.ws/File:Horse_XP_2013_Desktop.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crustywindo.ws/File:Horse_XP_2013_Desktop.png</a><p>some really good stuff in here, horse xp is my favorite.
I am surprised they host the ISOs<p><a href="https://crustywindo.ws/collection/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crustywindo.ws/collection/</a><p>that seems illegal<p>cool website nonetheless
There is Windows <i>CE</i> one!<p>And if I came to site like back in the day I would definitely grab some wallpapers.<p><a href="https://crustywindo.ws/Manley_Evangelista%27s_Windows_CE_Bootable_CD" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crustywindo.ws/Manley_Evangelista%27s_Windows_CE_Boo...</a><p><a href="https://crustywindo.ws/Whistler_Build_2531#/media/File:Whistler_Build_2531_Desktop.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crustywindo.ws/Whistler_Build_2531#/media/File:Whist...</a>
Are any of these releases based on leaked source code? Or have they simple repackaged existing builds?<p><a href="https://linuxreviews.org/42.9_GB_Of_Microsoft_Source_Code_Leaked:_Historicans_Can_Now_Study_The_Source_Code_For_MS-Dos_3.3_To_Windows_XP" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://linuxreviews.org/42.9_GB_Of_Microsoft_Source_Code_Le...</a>
Site/project creator here. It's nice to see my creation garner interest.<p>In all honesty, the project mostly serves as documentation and archival of Windows/Linux bootlegs (that is to say, relative popularity is kind of a side thing for me, though it's still nice. Having a reverse ego and limiting the project seems like a very bad move to make for an archival project IMO), as feeble file sharing websites have taken many links to them completely down.<p>As of the 2 years the project's been around, there's already at least a dozen bootlegs inside of the archive which, if we didn't have them, would not be on the clearnet (I'm sure there's probably at least one person hoarding at least a few which aren't public anymore, but I'm not counting that).
Gold Windows XP 2016 was truly a thing of beauty.<p><a href="https://crustywindo.ws/Gold_Windows_XP_2016#/media/File:XP_Gold2016_StartMenu.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crustywindo.ws/Gold_Windows_XP_2016#/media/File:XP_G...</a>
I just realized - the logos of Windows 3.x through 7 look more like <i>flags</i> than they look like windows. I wonder what the reasoning was behind that? I'm sure it has been documented/analyzed somewhere.
Mildly interesting: no Windows bootlegs from Oceania. I have a hard time believing that the enterprising people of Australia haven't created something, at least out of national pride...
Even though I have (like a lot of other folks) become anti-Windows recently, this is amusing, for nostalgic & other reasons.<p>Perhaps that is where Windows fits best -- in the history museum.