Users baffled by odd official Microsoft design that remixes Windows 11 with 10

Recently, Microsoft finally rolled out a fix for a major issue wherein the shell components on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 were broken on certain computers. Shell essentially comprises the main UI components of the Windows desktop, and that means interacting with the OS itself would have been difficult. UI and UX are basically the user-facing front end of the OS, and they are key to any device.

Last year in April, Microsoft praised itself for how "special" the modern Windows design is and even went as far as to say that user feedback alone would not have made that possible.

Microsoft, however, has to take into account user feedback some of the time, especially when the criticism is just. Recently on Reddit, a user Androbots, pointed out the very odd-looking design choice from Microsoft in a recent Windows 10 update wherein it seems like the company simply stuck bits and pieces of Windows 11 onto a Windows 10 platter. The issue indicated by the user is on the "About" page inside the Settings app, which essentially provides some basic details about the hardware and system specifications of someone's device.

The user wrote, "How was this UI update approved? This looks like it was glued on by someone in a modernization team and called it a day without any respect to the original Windows 10 design language." Later, to make sense of what was going on and in a bid to fix the problem, the user dug up one of Neowin's 2024 news articles wherein we had reported on the redesigned About page that Microsoft was working on inside Windows 10. Sadly, none of the feature IDs worked for them when they were applied to restore the original UI.

As you can see in the image above, the aesthetic certainly looks a bit out of place, as if Microsoft simply used rehashed Windows 11 design material on Windows 10. The post was upvoted by many users, indicating that they agreed with the OP's confusion and frustration.

This inconsistency, however, is not totally unexpected. Earlier, we learned that the company is moderinzing some of the older bits and pieces of the OS that have been around for over a decade, including the Windows 8-era spinner as well as the Run dialog box.

However, given that Windows 10 is no longer officially supported, at least not outside of extended security updates (ESU), we doubt Microsoft will revisit and fix this "issue" unless it's a visual bug that can be patched quickly with minimum effort. Plus, Microsoft's focus has been on AI and Copilot for the most part, as we recently learned that Redmond was actually looking to launch a dedicated web-based Windows AI OS.

Source: Reddit