Home > Fun with Microsoft Windows

Why should Mac users have all the fun? X is not the only GUI with tons of configuration options. Windows is fairly customizable right out of the box. You can assign new sounds to system events, set an image to cover the desktop, choose a screen saver, mess with the icons used to represent things, etc.

However, it leaves out some neat things like changing the wallpaper after a certain time interval, or keeping track of changes to the .INI files. These pages are dedicated to showcasing the little tricks and utilities that make Windows a fun GUI to use.

Links under this heading:

Derekware Backgrounder - neat little freeware utility that you can use to change your wallpaper at regular intervals

Clouds wallpaper - tileable

A joke replacement for the Windows 95 startup screen - part of which can be seen in the image above

Star Trek IIc: The Macintosh Generation [82K] - a spoof of Star Trek: The Next Generation that ran in Gargoyle Magazine, the humor magazine of U of M, back in '93. If you've ever tried to select something with a mouse and selected the wrong thing, this comic's for you.

"640K should be more than enough for anybody."

Though he now denies having ever said it, this quote from Bill Gates is so wrong that it's amazing to think that anyone could have once thought this.

Now I've been using IBM-compatible computers since around 1989 (an XT-clone from a company called Leading Edge), and I've been using computers since I was introduced to the Atari 400 and 800 computers along with the Apple II/e back in elementary school.

So I've dealt with most of the major versions of Windows going back to Windows 3.1. (I only had brief exposure to Windows 2.0 through a roommate in college who had it on his 286.) And while it's been a pain in the ass during most of that time, Windows has also been a lot of fun. I mean, how can you beat Solitaire for pointless fun?

Now I may have moved on to playing FreeCell on a Windows XP equipped laptop provided by my employer, but one thing that hasn't changed is that Windows can be a lot of fun to use.