> MS's version does seem to be the ugliest though, mainly because of the horrible color picks.

For whatever it's worth, Windows 10 is one of my favorite looking user interfaces, especially with its dark theme. I am not sure why so many mainstream operating systems do not offer viable dark themes.

Your second point doesn't really hold up - I'm a Windows 10 user, and I don't spend any time even considering Linux UI alternatives because you could show me one that I liked twice as much as Windows and I still wouldn't want to use Linux for my day to day stuff.

I actually don't mind the Windows 10 UI as it happens, but if there were the variety of options for Windows that there are for Linux, I'd certainly see if I could find one I liked more.

She wasn't implying you should switch to Linux to get the UI alternatives available there. She was saying that there is nobody working on UI alternatives/innovations except for a few people in the Linux space. That everyone had settled on the same basic UI.

She was saying that the alternative UIs aren't popular, and my point is that their low market share is down not only to the UIs themselves but also because of the software they are compatible with.

Virtually all software that runs on Windows can be run on Linux via WINE. Often better.

If people actually cared about it that much, at the very least there'd be some 3rd-party program available for Windows that would improve the UI, and it'd be selling like hotcakes. I've never heard of any.

Same goes for MacOS, iOS, and Android.

I think the windows 10 platform doesn't lend itself very well to 3rd party UIs. It's quite closely coupled to the actual OS.

In a sense though, this is what I consider to be the strength of the windows UI. With the tight coupling, you can make guarantees on the UI covering all possible configuration options. At the same time, it allows a fixed standard of how to implement configuration. (Some of this comes from windows being monolithic)

The end result is a 'unified' UI where there are user-friendly ways to configure a system. Most notably, it is a lot easier to 'explore' the configuration options of windows as opposed to any linux distro.

How about WindowBlinds? http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

This is the first I've heard of it. Just like I said before, if the Windows UI were really that hated and unpopular, this thing would be common knowledge and selling like hotcakes. It isn't. Maybe the word just hasn't gotten out enough, but I doubt it.

I do have to say, $9.99 is a pretty good price for this. But this again reinforces my point: if people really hated the Win10 UI that much, a $10 purchase should be nothing to fix it.

Also, I only looked over the link cursorily, but does this fix the whole Metro interface? That's my big complaint with Win10; when you're on the regular desktop, it isn't much different from Win7. It's when you want to load a new program, or use the Settings, or stuff like that you suddenly find yourself in the purple hell that is the Metro UI. If this Windowblinds program is only letting you skin the desktop stuff and not changing the whole start menu, then it's not really fixing the problem, just making the crappy, clunky Win7 desktop more pleasant to use.

WindowBlinds is a very old program - consider it started on OS/2. It used to be very popular back in 90s and 2000s, but its popularity have dropped the last few years. Still, if you find any alternative Windows theme on places like DeviantArt chances are it is made for WindowBlinds. It isn't wildly popular, but it isn't unknown either.

It sounds like it really doesn't affect the whole Metro UI part of Win10, which is the part I have the biggest complaints about UI-wise.

I don't like the Windows desktop that much (I like the start menu and such, I don't like the look and feel and other things, which is why I'm a KDE fan). But I can deal with it fine; it's the Metro stuff that's really horrible to me.