shocked i didnt already make an account here ages ago as ive been following ross since around 2013 but whatever, this vid was particularly cathartic for me as someone that's been poking at the windows shell's guts for years and i still feel like going on a tangent
maybe its just my tism acting up again but i dont actually agree with a lot of your views regarding the *perfect* desktop gui - i dont need mouse gestures and so on, i actually like the standard windows 9x desktop paradigm. it isnt perfect and it can absolutely be improved upon (for a short time i used bbzero/bblean for windows and that comes with the right click start menu-esque thing most linux window managers do and i actually liked it a lot, although i still just open a lot of programs straight from explorer... which i should probably fix), but ive stuck to it since i was a squirmy little embryo and it generally works for me. i even love the raw beveled "classic" windows 9x theme you derided really early on. however every single thing you said about large software manufacturers (coughmicrosoftcough) gradually removing customization options and crippling their products in the name of """accessibility""" was absolutely spot on. this has been a widespread practice for the last decade at least but im going to illustrate this with an example thats been killing me from the inside for yeeeears:
as you mentioned countless times, customization in windows has been progressively gimped ever since xp added the theming engine to begin with nearly 20 years ago. (im pretty sure that even with xp you had to patch a .dll file to enable custom themes to begin with but i havent tried ricing it so..) 7 removed a few things like the classic "nested" start menu from win95 (steven sinofsky, the microsoft exec who is directly responsible for windows 8 and its metro interface killed it because he physically couldnt imagine anyone using it.. so he removed the option entirely :3) but it was still pretty damn good for ricing/desktop customization, and its the last generally sane version of windows that was actually primarily designed for desktop pcs but whatever. windows 8 was an absolute disaster for pretty much anyone interested in tweaking their desktop in any way whatsoever, and not just because they killed the start menu - not only is the metro interface permanently embedded within the os (you can ignore 99% of it and there are some hacky programs that "kill" it but its nearly impossible to fully get rid of), but microsoft also removed the aero glass theme and its associated effects (because their surface tablets physically couldnt handle it) AND they removed the option to use the classic theme which had been a core component of windows since win95 and nt4. the only desktop "themes" that windows has had since then are a gimped flat version of aero without any transparency and a glitchy high contrast theme, which you can actually customize to some extent, but its buggy and generally not worth the effort.
lets say i wanted to get the good ol' sexy lo-fi classic theme back. theres a little forum called winclassic (warning: it runs on proboards so prepare yourself for obnoxious anti-adblock popups..) which is primarily devoted to the classic '90s windows aesthetic and providing resources to get that look back on versions after windows 7. that "retrojackal" dude you used a video from has used this place for years. its kinda inactive and pretty goddamn small but afaik its the last bastion for people interested in getting back the actual classic windows look and not a shitty high contrast theme which barely even resembles the real thing. "wow!", you probably arent exclaiming. "i cant wait to get the old nostalgic Windows™ classic theme back on my modern, progressive and secure Microsoft™ Windows™ 10™ installation. this has to be easy to set up and configure!"
no! no it isnt! its an absolute fucking nightmare that barely even works, just like every other form of windows customization. i use 8.1 as my main os and not 10 so ill be primarily focusing on that. obviously windows 10's feature updates make this even more of a pain in the ass. i guess you could use 10 ltsc/ltsb like i used to and not have to worry about feature updates breaking your themes but you still have to deal with 10's telemetry and forced updates and the gimped control panel and the settings app and the dozens of conflicting ui types that microshit uses.. i legitimately believe that 8.1 is the better os once you stuff the metro ui into a closet and focus on the actual windows desktop but back to the classic theme..
the best method on winclassic i found for enabling the classic theme was this gui-based program called simpleclassictheme. it lets you enable/disable the classic theme at will (its still technically THERE in windows 8 and 10, microsoft just doesnt give you the option to use it anymore because they broke it!!), it lets you use the old theme customization panel from xp so you can use different color schemes and so on, it installs open shell or startisback if you dont already have it (i did..), and it comes with a bunch of other utilities i already use like 7+ taskbar tweaker and t-clock redux and folder options x (i use oldnewexplorer instead and if you really want the classic explorer toolbar back, open shell has an explorer plugin that adds it). sct works by physically removing access to the memory section that winlogon uses for handling themes instead of flat out killing dwm (the default wm that windows has used since vista, NOT the suckless tiling window manager..). wow, sounds great, right? i already wrote up a little text document months ago detailing most of the issues i had with it:
simpleclassictheme 1.0.6/general windows 8.1 classic theme issues:
-- doesnt launch on startup: programs that start before sct is applied use the default windows 8 theme [biggest issue]
-- weird black context menus when right clicking taskbar [solved with 7+ taskbar tweaker]
-- tray menu looks kind of odd [can be worked around by just.. not hiding tray icons]
-- transparency issues with certain programs that have custom borders (firefox, chrome, etc) [not really an issue with any of the programs im using atm except discord, and even then i can use the web app or ripcord. discord itself works fine regardless]
-- various issues with metro: metro wifi sidebar doesnt work (but the pc settings app still works?). default win8 task manager doesnt work (process hacker + old win7 task manager both work tho) [use holger's penetwork app or an alternative instead of metro wifi]
-- when sct restarts after crashing it doesnt actually apply the theme, it looks corrupted until you reenable it and wait a few seconds
-- explorer crashes when right clicking something in explorer (is it because of explorercontextmenutweaker?)
-- need to disable "use glass in address bar" when using oldnewexplorer
-- certain control panel menus simply dont work with the classic theme enabled (clasurol fixed this already iirc)
-- logo looks slightly weird in winver (fixable)
-- clasurol's pale moon theme is almost perfect but favicons in the address bar suggestions are too big
and simpleclassictheme doesnt touch any of the system icons or anything, by default it essentially just gives you the windows 7 classic theme. if you actually want something thats almost identical to windows 9x/2k you have to jump through so many fucking hoops that you would probably legit be better off just using windows 7 to begin with. i cannot emphasize just how much of a shitshow this is, and microsoft has shown absolutely no sign whatsoever of adding back something that even resembles the classic theme in windows 10. not like i was going to use it again anyway but whatever.... ;~;
currently im using an 8.1 port of the vista aero theme. nobody uses 8.1 and most of the custom themes arent that great tbh.. and i like the late 2000s glassy skeuomorphic look.. but even though windows still technically uses a gimped version of the aero theme from win7 (and the windows 7 basic theme even gets used sometimes, like during installation), this is still such a pain in the ass to setup. aeroglass by bigmuscle is the only tool i know of that readds aero glass transparency, but not only is it a pain in the ass to setup (with a custom theme patcher installed ive had it brick my windows installation a dozen times before, forcing me to use system restore, and you have to disable the "custom theme atlas" it installs by default or else any custom theme you install will be broken, etc etc) BUT it also happens to be an actual goddamn scam. even tho the website doesnt actually mention this at all, aeroglass is nagware. you can download and install the free version but it adds a watermark to the bottom of your screen and flashes a popup message in front of your face every hour or so that you have to manually click "ok" on to get rid of. if you find this obnoxious and actually want to pay bigmuscle to get rid of this shit, you have to """donate""" to him, but there is no preset donation amount, you just have to give him enough money and fucking pray that he gives you a licensed copy of his software. its entirely possible you could give him like 100 bucks over paypal... and he still wouldnt give you a copy of aeroglass.... its literal fucking extortion. i havent paid for aeroglass and i wouldnt seriously recommend it to anyone else. there are cracked versions out there, of course. im not going to link to them and theyre really really annoying to find, but theyre out there. and this isnt even going over the other programs i use like winaero tweaker and t-clock and oldnewexplorer and startisback but thats enough rambling for now i think, i need a fucking drink
and multiple people in this thread and the youtube comments and so on have already alluded to this (grrr...) but the "circle launcher" concept you brought up is called a pie menu and theyve been around in some form since the late 60s, and yes, don hopkins has advocated for them for yeeeears and he was the dude at maxis responsible for adding them into the sims. this is what i get for always being late to the party..
edit: whoops!! i forgot about stardock and all of their windows customization tools and that ross explicitly mentioned them several times in the video. i really really dislike them and i wouldnt recommend their software at all to anyone, not just because its paid proprietary software that barely works (well, so is windows, but... y'know...) but as far as i can tell, they actually changed their eula last year. if you buy ANY stardock product, you get to activate "one (1) copy of the Software on one (1) unique personal computer" and thats it! im not even going to try explaining why this is a vile fucking business practice, it should be blatantly obvious. just dont bother with stardock.