State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows (and I deal with a SaaS at MSFT). I am a FreeBSD committer and help maintain FreeBSD&#x27;s GNOME packages and (very recently) the graphics drivers.<p>The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely) because of one thing: backwards compatibility.<p>While backwards compatibility has it&#x27;s perks, it also means having lots of old code in Windows that can&#x27;t be touched very easily without breaking compatibility, And that means many old UI elements may stay, that&#x27;s a side effect.<p>While desktop Linux&#x2F;BSD isn&#x27;t exactly well known for it&#x27;s UIs, I found GNOME 3&#x2F;40 to be more consistent UI-wise than Windows 10, being a user of GNOME 3 on FreeBSD at home (which I am typing this comment from), and helping port GNOME 40, while (unsurprisingly) using Windows 10 at $DAYJOB.<p>But then GNOME, KDE, Apple, et al. is more willing to break things than Windows is. They aren&#x27;t as bound to legacy compatibility, so old UI elements can be shed easily.