So Windows 1.0 was a "modern", "clean" (i.e. flat) user interface, like Windows 10. They have a substantially different color scheme and a substantially different layout preference, but we can pass them off as theming and pretend this matches.
It had a panel at the bottom of the screen (showing background apps) and tiling windows for non-backgrounded apps. Windows 10, by comparison, prefers you to run maximised apps and has a panel showing all apps, including some that haven't been launched. Despite the fact that a user experience for Windows 1.0 and Windows 10 could be roughly the same, the Windows 10 user is not required to maximise their window and can have multiple, user-managed windows. This is vaguely similar, but I think the dissimilarities are starker than the similarities. Especially since the panel explicitly draws inspiration from other operating environments - if it is similar, it is because of a common language rather than because of heritage.
Windows 1.0 made use of menubars to hide their functions or to make them available. In Windows 10, the menubar is essentially deprecated - it still exists, but most Microsoft/inbuilt apps use ribbons or hierarchical page-style apps (I don't know what to call them - apps whose UI draws more on mobile apps than the desktop tradition).
Windows 1.0 exposed your computer to you in terms of the file system, kinda like the Mac did. Your prime UX helper was the MS-DOS Executive, which was the predecessor of File Manager/Windows Explorer. By Windows 3.0, this system was essentially abandoned and applications were presented separately from the filesystem, first via the Program Manager and then by the Start menu, eventually adding the taskbar/panel into the mix. This system remains to this day. I think this is a massive difference, it is insurmountable. The idea that the filesystem is a scary interface means that your operating system mediates between you and the stuff on your system, rather than being a tool for accessing it. Your C: drive becomes Windows' private database that it uses to store your programs and data - effectively a local cloud, making the transition from "your computer, your files" to "Microsoft's computer" obvious. It was clearly no great conspiracy - Gnome and KDE and XFCE, to say nothing of all mobile phones, do the same thing; it was a natural evolution in making computers easier and safer to use. But the ramifications of the change are significant, and the implications for a comparison of Windows 1.0 and Windows 10 are significant. However, I think you're mostly comparing Windows 1.0 to Windows 10 in comparison with Windows 1.0 and perhaps Windows 2000, and in this regard, yeah, sure, maybe we have to "price in" this change.
Windows 1.0 made very limited use of graphics and animation. Windows 10 pretty much is scared that you're illiterate (fair enough maybe, we can process graphics pretty quickly compared to text). It's certainly worried that you might have an attention span, and does everything it humanly can to prevent that. I think the difference between Windows 1.0 as a "good faith" tool and a work in progress, versus Windows 10 as a deliberately distracting entertainment device, designed to prevent you from doing what you want today, is also a massive change. Understating it does us a massive disservice.
It had a panel at the bottom of the screen (showing background apps) and tiling windows for non-backgrounded apps. Windows 10, by comparison, prefers you to run maximised apps and has a panel showing all apps, including some that haven't been launched. Despite the fact that a user experience for Windows 1.0 and Windows 10 could be roughly the same, the Windows 10 user is not required to maximise their window and can have multiple, user-managed windows. This is vaguely similar, but I think the dissimilarities are starker than the similarities. Especially since the panel explicitly draws inspiration from other operating environments - if it is similar, it is because of a common language rather than because of heritage.
Windows 1.0 made use of menubars to hide their functions or to make them available. In Windows 10, the menubar is essentially deprecated - it still exists, but most Microsoft/inbuilt apps use ribbons or hierarchical page-style apps (I don't know what to call them - apps whose UI draws more on mobile apps than the desktop tradition).
Windows 1.0 exposed your computer to you in terms of the file system, kinda like the Mac did. Your prime UX helper was the MS-DOS Executive, which was the predecessor of File Manager/Windows Explorer. By Windows 3.0, this system was essentially abandoned and applications were presented separately from the filesystem, first via the Program Manager and then by the Start menu, eventually adding the taskbar/panel into the mix. This system remains to this day. I think this is a massive difference, it is insurmountable. The idea that the filesystem is a scary interface means that your operating system mediates between you and the stuff on your system, rather than being a tool for accessing it. Your C: drive becomes Windows' private database that it uses to store your programs and data - effectively a local cloud, making the transition from "your computer, your files" to "Microsoft's computer" obvious. It was clearly no great conspiracy - Gnome and KDE and XFCE, to say nothing of all mobile phones, do the same thing; it was a natural evolution in making computers easier and safer to use. But the ramifications of the change are significant, and the implications for a comparison of Windows 1.0 and Windows 10 are significant. However, I think you're mostly comparing Windows 1.0 to Windows 10 in comparison with Windows 1.0 and perhaps Windows 2000, and in this regard, yeah, sure, maybe we have to "price in" this change.
Windows 1.0 made very limited use of graphics and animation. Windows 10 pretty much is scared that you're illiterate (fair enough maybe, we can process graphics pretty quickly compared to text). It's certainly worried that you might have an attention span, and does everything it humanly can to prevent that. I think the difference between Windows 1.0 as a "good faith" tool and a work in progress, versus Windows 10 as a deliberately distracting entertainment device, designed to prevent you from doing what you want today, is also a massive change. Understating it does us a massive disservice.