[rational-future]

I'm a Windows user (go on, press the down arrow) and I don't care about app design. Give me military ship grey windows, text menus and a way to hide all icons. Windows 2000 was for me the apogee of 2D design.

[jdhzzz]

I'm in on Windows 2000. Active window titles that could be set to bright colors to distinguish the active window from all the others (mine was canary yellow). I miss you Win2k.

[fencepost]

I don't have a Windows 8.x box to check on, but on Windows 7 you can still set the display attributes for active windows - it's just a bit more buried.

To do so:

  * Right-click on the Desktop background, Personalize

  * Select Window Color button/link at the bottom

  * Select "Advanced appearance settings..." link

  * Click on the Active Title Bar in the preview area, or 
    select Active Title Bar from the Item dropdown

  * Customize the font appearance, including font, color, size and weight.

[Intermernet]

I may be wrong, but as far as I know, the only way to access these settings in Win8 (without extra apps) is regedit. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors has the keys you want.

[yzzxy]

Despite flat design being categorized as a fad by design news today, I would LOVE a Win2k style desktop with flat design. Could probably just be a texture swap.

[guardian5x]

Not sure if that is what you mean, but Windows 8 has flat Window borders, buttons, etc. even on the Desktop.

[yzzxy]

The design language I generally like but I really want hard-to-learn, fast-to-use utilitarian UI like in Windows.

[rplnt]

I've that aroglassy thingy disabled on Windows 7, looks about the same as XP without that ugly Luna (seriosly, who thought of that?).

[boomlinde]

I think that you are missing out on the concept of design if you limit your understanding of it to the color and shape of the widgets. When it comes to Windows, I definitely prefer the W2K look, but I wouldn't say that I don't care about app design.

[keypusher]

I'm on Win7, but it looks exactly like the classic Win2K desktop. Grey bars, bottom taskbar, no pins, classic and functional.

[lucb1e]

> go on, press the down arrow

There you go. Nothing wrong with the comment, but since you asked...

The people mentioning "this is an unpopular opinion", "why the downvotes" or "this will be downvoted to hell" always get the upvotes and indeed, I see the comment doesn't turn gray when I downvote so it means others already upvoted.