I think the biggest culprit here is the economy. Shareholders and investors don't like it when things just keep working like a well-oiled machine. It means their share price stays stagnant. They always want "more more more" and earnings, not stability and usability. So that pressures management to keep on finding ways of changing stuff for no real good reason even when they have already invented and reached the optimal UI. Search bars embedded in the window titlebar, start menus that change the order of things every time you click them, these all scream "we can't think of anything else, let's just change some stuff around".

A similar effect seems to happen even with e.g. Canonical and Ubuntu. Gnome2 had an awesome optimal UI and 90% of Linux users I know prefer that kind of no-BS UI but "management" wanted that Unity and Gnome3 nonsense just to make it look like they were making progress when they were really going leaps and bounds backwards in usability.

More likely than not, sheep.exe still works perfectly on a Windows 10 box (at least if it happens to be 32-bit).

Microsoft's backward compatibility is still pretty impressive.

I just searched, apparently you can get the "updated" version from the MS Store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/esheep-64bit/9mx2v0tqt6rm?...

Gnome 2 was Windows 95 UI, refined, cleaned of all bloat and with a modern look (for his time). All installed apps were automatically stored is the right sub-menu in the Application button. It was really neat to use.

XFCE basically still is that. No "reinventing the desktop experience" junk, just a rock-solid desktop with all the features you expect.

All features except running on Wayland.

MATE (https://mate-desktop.org/) is the modern, supported, version of Gnome2. It's a great desktop environment and all your old nautilus scripts will work with just a s/nautilus/caja/ regex replacement.

This is why I always install Classic Shell when I boot up a Win10 machine: http://classicshell.net/

FYI, Classic Shell is no longer under development: http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8147

However, there is now Open Shell Menu which was created to replace it: https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/

Thanks beuty and love is restored!

Nice I will give it a try.

What is the point of start menu folders? How often do you browse through your programs?

When I want to do something, I hit the launcher key-combination of whatever OS I'm in (the Win/Super key in Win8/10 or GNOME; ⌘Space in macOS) and then type the first few characters of the name of what I want. If I know the search database is up-to-date (i.e. I haven't just installed the program, I then just immediately hit Enter before the dialog even shows results.) The program opens.

I feel like a Start Menu makes a lot of sense... for people for whom using a mouse is somehow a lot easier than using a keyboard. People who can move their fingers easily but whose wrists+forearms are immobile, for example. Or people operating the GUI through a thin-client app on a candybar-style cellphone. Or people using Windows on their TV with one of those Wiimote-like "air mouse" pointing devices, where switching to the keyboard has the friction of flipping the thing over, taking away your ability to move the mouse while you type. Or, for that matter, people using a game controller, ala Steam's Big Picture mode.

But in the regular case, where you have a keyboard and mouse in front of you, and are in a relaxed default position with one hand on one and one on the other? I can't see the benefit—for just launching programs.

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Now, for discovering programs... I'd never know about the "accessory" programs that came with an installation if I couldn't browse. I still recall the first time I installed Sim City 2000 and realized it came with a separate program called SCURK (a level+resource editor for the game.)

But it's been a long time since I've installed a program that came with accessory programs that way. These days—probably because of the influence of app-stores—every feature you get from an installation of "an app" is always accessed through the main binary of the app. And if it can't be, then they just don't bother to distribute it. (See also: macOS and the paucity of uninstallers for programs that install LaunchDaemons. You usually have to google for a script!)

When the start menu gets long and even more when it overflows it is nice to have folders for eg. games, office apps, image apps etc.

The main reason I like the start menu is that I sometimes forget the name of applications I use seldomly and I forget what apps I have installed.

Edit: One thing I forgot to whine about is the configuration panel. In the old one you had everything in front of you instanly. The new one is a joke and I never seem to remember which feutures you need can change in the "mobile friendly" blue one, or the kinda a folder one.

I used folders all the time and knew that I could type Windows, P, A, N Enter and Notepad would open. It took milliseconds.

Honestly how often does anyone use the start menu these days?

I am on windows all day long for analysis/development, anything I actually use is just pinned to the taskbar (like osx).

And when I do have to use the start menu to find something like newly installed.. not sure how you really think it's that different than win98? The left part is the same thing, it's just sorted alphabetically by program names etc.. and in theory now instead you just start typing for search instead of looking.

Overall calling win98 more user friendly than win10 sounds ludicrous, unless you are someone who never actually uses windows..

That is because “these days” the start menu is a dumpster fire.

The fact you don't have a resolution of 640x480 and you can lay down big high resolution icons in the taskbar help a lot in not needing to open the start menu