Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system in the world, the development and experience of Windows products is always one of the most popular topics that people are talking. Here we are focusing on the icons that most of the Windows versions produced. To compare or to see a revolution, it doesn’t matter. Most of the old icons can be seen as very classical icons that Microsoft has brought to us.
I am a Windows user and I have been using Windows since the very early stage. The first Windows I have ever used was Windows 3.0, and unlike an operating system, it was to me a kind of fancy application running on DOS (disk operating system). I clearly remember that to install a Windows 3.1 took about more than an hour on my 80386 PC and it was stored on 12 separated 5 inch floppy disks. Now let’s have a look at the revolution of Windows icons.
Logo
First, it needs to be the logos, each product of the Windows family has its own logo. Here are the logos from the very first version until the latest one. I didn’t show some of the server version of Windows (e.g. Windows NT and Windows Server 2003).
Early Icons
As in the early version like Windows 1.0 or 2.0, there are hardly any icons in the user interface (UI). But from windows 3.0, icons were widely used and in Windows 3.1, they became more colourful (it was 16 colours at that time).
The Common Icons
From Windows 95, Microsoft introduced start menu and it was a revolutional concept. Of course, icons are widely used in everywhere since then. on the start menu, task bar, file explorer, etc. Here we selected a number of the most common icons in Windows system and see how did they changed during the 15 years.
I didn’t put Windows 7 icons on the list as they are too close to the icons in Vista. In Windows 95, icons are in 16 colours. They were upgraded into 256 colours in Windows 98 although the design are almost the same. In Windows 2000, MS change some of the icons designs especially desktop icons like My Computer, Network Place, etc. Windows 2000 supported to use icons in 16M colours. From Windows XP, more colours are used and the alpha blend channel was enable which means the icons are in 32-bits with alpha channel transparency. Normal icon size are changed into 48×48 pixels rather than 32×32 pixels previously. When Windows Vista released the fresh design of Windows icons was really an impress to everyone and the larger icon sizes are supported (e.g. up to 256×256 pixels)
Here let’s have a look at the Control Panel icons in Windows Vista which contains very good detail in a large size of 128×128 pixels.
Summary
To me, Windows made a good effort in improving the quality of their icons. However, if you look very carefully, you will find in the latest windows, some old icons are still being used in some where which to me is a kind of incomplete transfer or upgrade. Hopefully, Microsoft can produce more and better icon design in the future products.
Good report, and beautiful collection. I find also the Windows himself in spite of all difficulties
with the systems very has improved. Just as regards representation and user friendliness
March 18th, 2010 at 20:00 |
猛图! 赞
March 19th, 2010 at 15:45 |
It’s a nice article and very good collection too. Wonder if you can provide the downloads for the icons.
March 19th, 2010 at 20:02 |
I like vista icons.
March 19th, 2010 at 20:07 |
Will try to prepare a pack of Windows Icons collection. But I am not sure if this is against MS policy to release those icons as they can be retrieved from system files like shell32.dll in the system folder.
March 19th, 2010 at 21:22 |
For me, the best operating system is Linux because it rarely hangs.:*,
May 20th, 2010 at 18:48 |
Good share, great article, very usefull for us¡thanks.
May 28th, 2010 at 01:18 |
There is a bunch of high quality info inside this blog post. I will be opting-in to your rss feed.
June 25th, 2010 at 06:36 |
operating systems can either make or break your system that is why it is wise to choose a vey stable one.-..
July 27th, 2010 at 08:47 |
Good share, great article, very usefull for us¡ thanks.
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http://www.ashisoft.com
August 14th, 2010 at 23:00 |
nice!
September 6th, 2010 at 06:43 |
with regards to PC operating system, i love Windows XP and Linux*.,
September 13th, 2010 at 09:20 |
the best operating system is always Linux, after Linux it is Windows XP. Vista sucks’*,
October 13th, 2010 at 08:43 |
Linux is still the best when it comes to stability and Windows for ergonomics-’*
October 24th, 2010 at 19:49 |
Great Post … Very inspiring .. thanks for collecting the evolution of icons
December 2nd, 2010 at 04:21 |
there are many different operating systems but of course i would still prefer to use linux for stability ,:-
December 20th, 2010 at 19:30 |
As for me . i would prefer to use linux too.
August 1st, 2011 at 14:42 |