Awesome Windows

It’s been 30 years since Windows 95 debuted, but we still kind of love its 256 colors and skeuomorphic icons. Retron Print created this amazing Windows 95-inspired iOS theme, with more than 700 original Windows 95/98 icons, custom widgets, and wallpapers to complete the look. It takes time to set everything up, but their website has full instructions.

This convertible member of the Asus ProArt laptop line is designed for durability and performance. It packs a powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU and an AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series processor. Expect crisp and accurate colors from its OLED touchscreen and all the ports you need. For even more power and a bigger screen, check out the ProArt P16.

The Atmoph Window Yo lets you visit exotic locations without leaving your room. The 27″ vertical display shows video scenes from around the world. It has white borders to make it look like a window, and you can connect up to five displays. A scope accessory lets you zoom in like you’re using a telescope. Note there is a subscription fee to access their image library.

Microsoft and other Windows-based laptop makers are following Apple’s lead. The Surface Laptop 7th Edition is powered by the new Snapdragon X all-in-one ARM chip. Disregard all the AI gimmicks: for now, all you have to know is that it should be just as powerful but significantly more power-efficient than laptops running Intel or AMD’s x86-based CPUs.

This fast-paced arcade game asks players to control a flower and a wasp to fight off various enemies in their otherworldly ecosystem. Caleb Wood, one of the concept artists behind the exceptional sci-fi series Scavenger’s Reign, created the game. It’s out now on Steam for Windows and supports single-player and local co-op modes.

The 1980s gave us computers that shared a case with their keyboard. Pentaform’s Abacus returns to that by attaching a tiny Windows computer to its keyboard. It has an Intel Cherry Trail CPU with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0/3.0, Micro SD, and HDMI 2.0 outputs, as well as a trackpad and a 40-pin GPIO connector.

Lenovo’s unique laptop features two 2.8K OLED displays which can be used in either a stacked landscape or side-by-side portrait mode. Its wireless keyboard can be docked on the bottom panel or placed on a table for maximum screen real estate. It also has a smart pen stylus and a 360-degree rotating Bowers & Wilkins soundbar.

Drew Builds Stuff has an office in the basement of his parents’ house. Because of its subterranean location, it doesn’t get much light. To brighten things up, he built a window wall out of three 75″ 4K TVs, resulting in a 12-foot diagonal image. Since he can load up any video footage, he can pretend to be anywhere on Earth.

This portable PC has a 17.3″ foldable 2.5K OLED touchscreen that transforms from a tablet to a dual-screen laptop. You can use part of its screen as a keyboard or attach the included keyboard and trackpad. It also has a Harmon Kardon 4-speaker audio system, a 5 MP AI webcam, and an HD IR camera for face login. Starts at $3500.

This made-to-order controller from Return to Paradise adds five linear slider controls to your Windows or Linux PC (sorry, no Mac support). It can be used to map volume controls and faders in DJ and gaming software via a USB connection. It works right out of the box with the open-source app deej.

Designers and engineers at Japan’s IMG SRC agency were given a challenge to come up with creative uses for a transparent LCD screen. The coolest idea they came up with was a touchscreen that simulates writing on a fogged-up window, complete with drips of water running down the screen.

We recently were reminded how painful it was to get on the Internet in the 1990s. Installing software on a computer without a CD-ROM drive was even more of a chore. Tech Tangents walks us through the slow but somewhat meditative task of installing Microsoft Office 97 from its 46 floppy disks onto a Gateway 2000 laptop.

If there’s one thing we don’t miss about computers, it’s having to install software and operating systems from dozens of floppy disks. Nobel Tech condensed hours upon hours of footage into a 6-minute time-lapse showing the time-consuming installation process of every major version of Microsoft Windows, from 1.01 to 11.

In 1996, photographer Charles O’Rear snapped a photo that would appear on over a billion desktops thanks to its selection as the default Windows XP wallpaper. Animator Zachary Loren Jones revisits the story of this iconic image and its impact on the zeitgeist with an imaginative and surreal retrospective.

It’s been a while since we booted up a computer running Windows XP or Vista, but the memories came flooding back as soon as we clicked play on this clip from Korean a capella group MayTree, who sang some of memorable sounds from Microsoft’s early-2000s operating systems. Their Movie Intro Medley is a hoot too.

Microsoft Windows has a long history of throwing annoying and cryptic error messages at us. Video artist 4096 decided to memorialize some of the operating system’s various foibles over the years with a fun-filled electronic music remix inspired by this Japanese video. MacOS even gets into the game at 1:24.