Has Microsoft used Windows 98 as source of inspiration?

Apr 10, 2015 09:52 GMT  ·  By

They say Windows hasn’t changed too much in the last 20 years, and many claim that menus and icons are more or less the same with the ones we used in Windows 95 or 98.

With Windows 10, Microsoft is trying to move away from its past and create a platform that not only looks fresh but also feels fresh, so it’s critical to offer modern elements such as icons and menus.

This is the case of the icon pack in Windows 10, which has already been criticized by many for looking too dull, but Redmond is changing it as we speak. The leaked Windows 10 build 10056 screenshots reveal that a new Recycle Bin icon is about to be adopted, and we must admit that it does look better than the one before it.

But as some of our readers pointed out, it looks way too similar to the one in Windows 98. To make a quick comparison between the two, we’ve launched Windows 98 in a virtual machine and put the two icons side by side.

And… surprise! They do resemble in terms of looks, but the Windows 10 version does come with a modern touch, including a new recycle symbol.

All in all, the two are similar, that’s very clear, so Microsoft might have to work a bit harder to impress its users. It turns out that recycling Recycle Bin is not enough these days.