Wasn’t that the UI overhaul that started with win8 and persists to a lesser degree to this day? It’s impossible to make an UI that works efficiently for both desktop and tablet. They’re two different platforms that are operated in different ways, and as such different UI designs are needed. Trying to unify them is like trying to invent a dashboard that works for both Volvo 940 and Airbus A380.

If so, I’d say it couldn’t have been done “right” by anyone else either, as it seems that a core element of its design is to make information as vague and short as possible, while padding it with a lot of dead space. At a distance it looks neat, but up close it feels like you’re expected to play guitar with mittens on. Its only reason for existing was that it was built on logic that was flawed to begin with.

And any implementation would’ve run into the same issue: You’re removing flexibility for the sake of simplicity, something you cannot really do with a desktop OS. Microsoft never seemed to grasp this fact.

Example, if I want to change the thingamajig-ratio of the skoodleblurp, utilizing the brumblebork method:

• Linux: skoodle -s thinga 50 (brumblebork is assumed by default unless something else is explicitly defined via --method=)
• msdos 6.0: skoodleb /thing 50 /brumblebork
• win 3.x and win95: can’t do that natively, but the msdos method still works for some reason.
• WinME: Nobody knows how it’s done, or even if it’s possible. Anyone who wants to adjust this is smart enough to avoid WinME
• win2k: after right clicking my computer and selecting properties, it’s a setting hidden somewhere in the hardware tab, provided you’re running the latest SP.
• win98: same as win2k, except a reboot is required afterwards
• XP: same as win2k, except a defrag is required afterwards. Also, Teletubbies color schema.
• win vista: back to rebooting. The change may not have been applied. It will not tell you either way.
• win 7: finally they made it functional and easily accessible via the control panel
• win 8: uh oh, the control panel of ye olden days is no more. We have a new thing going, so there are two way of doing it. The newer method isn’t quite as flexible as the old control panel, though; you need to regedit for proper brumblebork.
• win 8.1: They fixed the new panel, but you can’t fit it on a single screen due to excessive dead space padding. And sometimes you get told to contact the sysadmin. For your computer. That you own.
• Win 10: It fits on one screen now, you just have a million sub-menus to navigate through; control panel -> network -> advanced -> skoodleblurp -> advanced -> thingamajig -> advanced (yep, again) -> ratio slider -> apply -> OK -> submit -> execute -> “are you sure?” -> (three minutes of that spinning circle that replaced the hour glass) -> Fuck, you forgot to check the brumblebork box half an hour ago. At this point it’s easier to get WSL up and running and then run skoodle -s thinga 50 --method=brumblebork (method not implied. WSL isn’t that good)
• Win 11: you have to log in to support.microsoft.com with your Microsoft account, using edge, and hope it has detected that you are running an OS that supports this. Then you can download a service patch that may or may not be relevant. Either way it changes your default search to Bing.

I think I got a bit carried away there… but my point still stands. It was an awful design choice, and the awfulness was part of its core functionality. It’s gotten a little bit better since its initial release, but it still sucks.