[lamacase]

I dunno, I think a lot of early windows icons were kind of hard to differentiate at a glance. A lot of them are just computers or windows with different smaller icons on them. You can see this even in the examples shown from the collection.

I generally agree that modern attempts to "unify" the design of icons usually go to far, but if you think Windows 98 icons are strictly better than say Windows 11 icons, that seems like rose coloured glasses to me.

The good ones are good, but the bad ones are worse. Although I do understand the appeal, and subjectively I do like them better.

[lostmsu]

As much as I am nostalgic, I agree with this. So many people here say how intuitive icons were, but which one of you can explain the meaning of the 5th icon on the first picture in the article, the one with an app window in front of a folder? I used Windows starting with 95, so it probably saw it many-many times. But now it is impossible to either remember or guess its meaning.

[deadbeeves]

It's the icon for the "Programs" submenu of the Start menu. It is somewhat cryptic, but I think it's difficult to communicate "here's where your installed programs can be accessed" graphically. I don't think the icon is used anywhere else, so it's not much of a problem. You'll never see it out of context without the accompanying text.