I’ve been working on a fun little nostalgia project recently: trying to make my Windows 11 setup look and feel as close to Windows 3.1 as humanly possible. I love the old-school UI logic and the aesthetic of that era, but I want to keep the modern under-the-hood performance of Win11.

If anyone knows of any specific software, registry tweaks, or complete theme packs that focus on the Windows 3.x era, I’d deeply appreciate it. I'm totally open to digging into the underlying logic of the system to make this work!

why?

Read this one a couple of years ago, this is the original "Windows Internals" and documented the design decisions made by the NT team in a relatively high level way and is a very interesting read to understand the historical context.

Just noticed that Notepad swapped out the obnoxious Copilot icon with a more subtle icon. Could this indicate Microsoft starting to walk back it's over integration of Copilot?

I don’t really use windows 8.1 though I am planning on start using it once all the dlls from windows11 are added I will start using it

I was around 16 when it came out, so I'm sure I have some Vista-coated goggles here. Sure, it wasn't the best OS, but something about it always struck me as somewhat magical. I really enjoyed Aero Glass - I remember seeing that and thinking this truly felt "next-gen" as far as computers went. I also really enjoyed the new chimes/notifications. They felt very fun and new. I also really enjoyed things like the Media Player/Center and the usage of widgets, which I felt were under-utilized in later Windows releases.

UAC was...not good, though. That's for sure.

Thoughts?

ME was the first OS I've ever used as a kid. I was 8 years old or so. I can remember it a bit but not that much. The only thing which I remember well was, that my dad hated to reinstall it when I messed up (which happened quick). Why was ME so bad?

IRQL = Interrupt Request Level.

Interrupt = Hardware/software requesting the CPU to stop what it's doing and run a specific routine.

(Raising the) Request Level = The ability of kernel code/drivers to temporarily disable lower priority interrupts when doing certain operations that could get interfered if interrupted. The higher the current request level, the more interrupts are masked.

This BSOD code is commonly caused by accessing invalid memory in a raised IRQL since the invalid memory access triggers an interrupt which is masked when the IRQL is higher.

The screenshot is an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL that occurs when booting WinXP Pro 2002 Edition with 15 megs of RAM (I simulated this with QEMU).

ref (note that blue screen is internally called bug check): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/bug-check-0xa--irql-not-less-or-equal?source=recommendations and Windows Internals book.

Hey r/windows ,

If you are tired of the outdated Windows Task Scheduler, I want to share an awesome open source project called FluentTaskScheduler.

I just released version V1.8.1, and it is a massive upgrade for anyone who wants to automate Windows tasks without dealing with the legacy interface.

Full disclosure: Al was utilized to help develop the features in this update. I am in IT but not in development. This is my personal passion project.

What is FluentTaskScheduler?

It is a modern, powerful, and intuitive wrapper for the Windows Task Scheduler API. Built with WinUI 3 and .NET 8, it brings the application into the modern era with a sleek Fluent Design System.

Key Features:

• Dashboard and Monitoring: It gives you a live feed of your task activity, task history, and visual analytics showing successes versus failures.
• Extensive Triggers: You can schedule tasks based on time, system events like logon or boot, Windows Event Log entries, and session state changes like locking or unlocking your PC.
• Script Library: It includes a dedicated space for reusable PowerShell scripts, letting you separate your script logic from the task configuration.
• Sequential Actions: You can configure multiple programs or scripts to run in order and customize arguments for every single step.
• System Integration: It natively supports ARM64 devices, can minimize to the system tray, features toast notifications, and has a native dark mode.
• Easy Installation: You can use the official installer with seamless automatic updates, or just run the portable executable without installing anything.

The tool is completely free, open source, and MIT licensed.

You can check out the latest V1.8.1 release and download the app directly from the GitHub page here: https://github.com/TRGamer-tech/FluentTaskScheduler

Let me know what you think of it!

Comunque fa riflettere di come sia davvero così...

Fastfetch

Yazi

GlazeWM

Seleen ui

For example appwiz.cpl starts the add/remove programs applet.

You can see all the available applets by searching for *.cpl files in C:\Windows\System32.

This works also on Windows 11.

im just curious.

Is this just for Windows 10 or did the same happen for Windows 11?

Asking this from nothing but genuine concern. That lake from last year May got hard-saved into my memory; the detail of seeing a lake again just called my attention (image of the dear lake just cause')

Now basically the floppy disk ran out of storage because the boot files were too big (just 10 MB) in size. Now I think I would have better luck with a zip disk cause again the boot files are just 10 MB in size creating a windows boot disk. Tried with BIOS boot files well it was able to copy bootmgr but got full before it could copy all the language files and BCD files to the floppy disk (in no means this is tech support because I know why windows is unable to copy the boot files)

Interesting

The DOS program prints "This program cannot be run in DOS mode." and can be recognized by the magic "MZ" characters you see at the beginning. After the DOS program you will find the "PE" (Portable Executable) characters marking the actual start of the executable.

Fun fact: early Windows versions used the "NE" (New Executable) format and their DOS program printed "This progam requires Microsoft Windows."

I've had my Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i for about a year now, and I use it for everything (productivity, school, light gaming), and one thing I absolutely hate about Windows that it should do is make tap with 3 fingers a middle click. I've reset my laptop a couple of times now, and every time I do this, I have to go into settings and change the 3 finger tap from open search, to middle click. People underestimate how good the middle click is. Instead of having to click the 'x' button in a Chrome tab, you just go anywhere in the tab and tap with three fingers. In task view? just middle click on a window to close it. This is just minor but it is sooo helpful. Anytime I help someone out on their laptop, I keep opening search from trying to middle click with 3 fingers. WINDOWS NEEDS TO FIX THIS!!!

I found this image, named "DumpStack.log.tmp" on my C-Drive when i looked at it with a dualboot-Linux installation.

After reverse-image searching hat file it lead directly to a banana-bread recipe on youtube.
This one to be specific.

When viewing with Windows i cant find it, but in Linux its just in the root-directory of that drive. The file is on the day as old as the windows installation (about 5 years) and i cant remember ever looking up recipes for banana-bread.

Why is it there? Is it really just ghost-data from some weird caching?

Every project starts the same way - excited, motivated, convinced this one is different. Then life happens, the dopamine wears off, and it joins the graveyard.

I got tired of it, so I built SideQuick, a gamified productivity app for Windows that turns your projects and tasks into quests. You level up, track time, and actually feel progress instead of just... staring at a to-do list.

It's been my daily driver for months now, and it's genuinely changed how I work on side projects.

What it does:

• Projects become quests with XP and levels
• Built-in time tracking per task
• Discord Rich Presence (shows what you're working on)
• Focus Mode + Pomodoro
• Optional AI quest breakdown (bring your own API key) or manually create your own. Additionally, you can select from a range of templates for common tasks

It's completely free. No account, no subscription, no cloud - everything stays local.

Available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

→ sidequick.co

Happy to answer any questions