Bringing the Retro Back
WinCustomize and WindowBlinds make it possible.
Monday, June 23, 2025 by bdsams | Discussion: WinCustomize News
It seems like it comes in waves and recently, Vista has been shown the limelight thanks to a certain developer conference in early June. Liquid Glass is Apple’s new direction for design elements but Windows fans, this is yesterday’s conversation.
We all know about Aero glass and the many ways you can bring it to Windows 11. If you haven’t taken a look at WindowBlinds 11 and some of the Aero themes, it’s worth exploring the many different options.
But if you said at the beginning of 2025, what trends would we see return? I would have guessed Windows 95 as that product will reach its 30th anniversary in late August of this year – of which we also have fun Windows 95 theme you can apply to Windows 11 today.
While Wincustomize isn’t all about the nostalgia of yesterday, it is a big part. Many of us, myself included, have fond memories of Windows 7 as the high watermark for an operating system and even in recent years, Windows 8 (not 8.1) still has its fans as well; we get asked occasionally to build a Windows 8 style Start menu experience into Start11.
I think the jury is still out on how Windows 10 will be remembered. On one hand, it was well received when it was launched and has remained, for many, a solid operating system whereas Windows 11 has fewer fans.
But Windows 10 can also be remembered when Microsoft changed, a lot. It was also during this OS when Windows Phone was ended, HoloLens as well and many other fan-favorites have gone away when Windows 10 was the main OS. More importantly, however, Windows 10 was the last OS without AI, at least, that’s how it was released.
Yes, Cortana had some flavor of AI-likeness to it but when compared to Copilot, it was more caveman than astronaut. And by the time Windows 10 officially sunsets, Microsoft will have lightly AI-ed the OS as well…which is why Windows 7 may be remembered with the widest of rose-tinted glasses.
I do wonder if Microsoft would ever chase Liquid Glass as bringing Aero back to the OS wouldn’t be a huge lift for the company. Everything new would need some updating and Fluent is kinda-sorta-applied in a few places but Aero v2 could be another chance for Windows to finally have a unified design language but considering how long it has taken the company to fully rollout a dark mode on all screens, I wouldn’t expect them to do anything quickly – if at all.
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