It’s neat: I like it a lot actually.
But the problem with you billing yourself as a graphic designer and reimplementing Windows XP is that you’re copying a design that already exists rather than showcasing your own design skills, so I can’t immediately tell how good a designer you are[0].
I can look at your projects under the IE icon, which gives more of an impression, but some of the visuals there do look decidedly AI generated, which isn’t super-encouraging.
The UX is also weird. For example, the back/forward history controls behave like carousel controls through your portfolio, whereas when I hit back/previous I expect to be taken back to the menu of projects.
If you applied to me for a job with this, would I interview you?
Yes, I would, simply because I can see you’ve put a lot of effort in and created something high quality. But I’d have some reservations because of the concerns I’ve raised above and, in particular, I’d want to dig in to how user-centred your approach is, because that isn’t really demonstrated here.
Sorry if this sounds discouraging. What you’ve done is cool, and I like it, and it would certainly get you a foot in the door of many interview processes, but that will be when the real work of showcasing your skills begins.
I hope that makes sense?
[0] Literally, I could do this, and I suck at design. It’s very similar to the process of implementing a design passed to me by a UX Designer, which I’ve done loads of times.
> Literally, I could do this, and I suck at design.
Are you sure about that? I've seen plenty of imitation XP interfaces in my day, and there are virtually always elements that are jarringly wrong. While I won't claim that MitchIvin XP is a faithful reproduction of XP, in the sense that one could compile a long list of inconsistencies with Windows XP, the experience is pleasant enough.
I think their point is that the skills of making a website which looks like Windows XP is adjacent to the skills needed to be a good graphic designer.
Pretty much most days I am the person who is taking a design from a designer and reimplementing that in HTML/CSS. I couldn't tell you where to start when creating a design, but as far as taking something someone else has created and reimplementing it in code? I can do that all day long.
The visual guidelines PDF exists http://interface.free.fr/Archives/GUI_Xp.pdf and turning that into a web page is just a matter of creating some DOM elements with the right sizing, margins, padding, fonts, borders, etc.
This was my concern too - as a little project, it's interesting but if it's a replica of XP it has been done before and much more accurately.
As a portfolio, I think it doesn't work at all and is detrimental to what you're trying to do. I think now in design, it is more important than ever for your work to cut through the noise and show at least some attempt to create something original.
I think sometimes graphic design is seen as competence with certain programs, which I guess includes genAI now, or making something cool - but really it is visual communication that responds to a set of constraints - e.g. a brief, tailored to a target audience, communicating a product or emotion. There are no shortcuts - study what has been done, work on communicating what you want to say with colour, layout, typography and images. Draw and paint; avoid genAI until you are competent without it. Currently as a graphic design portfolio, I'm sorry to say it is memorably bad and there is a lot of work to do.
That said, well done on finishing something, and making it to the top of HN. I hope the attention leads somewhere and that you continue making things.
I highly disagree with the feedback above.
The reality is, it depends on the context of whom is hiring. A startup values things like being resourceful and finishing stuff vs a large firm wherein most projects get dumped anyway.
In either case a "real" portfolio will be more effective and less work than this Windows XP thing, which is the point.
As someone that has hired designers before I'm far more impressed by this than a portfolio.
To get the attention it works very well. It stands out and will be remembered.
I think now in design, it is more important than ever for your work to cut through the noise and show at least some attempt to create something original.
From what I've seen, at least half of design work is "make it look like x" where x may be "glass", "CRT effect" or "BigCo's design language".
This project looks like some light-hearted fun and demonstrates an ability to achieve a desired look. You seem to be looking for someone doing greenfield design work for a large advertising agency.
I see nothing in your profile that indicates any expertise in design, so it's really bold of you to level this kind of criticism at someone's project.
You’re reinforcing my point on not really understanding what design is, above. It is not a surface coating or a look.
You're talking absolute nonsense and failing to read what I've written. Your scathing review is simply wrong.
Again, you have zero design credentials in your profile. You don't dictate what design is and is not.
thanks for the support mate! don't worry about people like that, If people want to be so rigid in their thinking - let em!
> Yes, I would, simply because I can see you’ve put a lot of effort in and created something high quality. But I’d have some reservations because of the concerns I’ve raised above and, in particular, I’d want to dig in to how user-centred your approach is, because that isn’t really demonstrated here.
Then the site satisfied its purpose. A portfolio site should get you an interview with someone who is curious to know more. Its purpose is to be a foot in the door, not to get you the job.
Well, not really. Graphic design isn’t art— it’s a communication strategy using text, images and layout to convey information to people — often purely visually with visual hierarchy, gestalt, color, etc. Lacking originality only really matters with branding, avoiding copyright infringement, or if existing cultural norms interfere with the message— like you’re obviously re-using something without deliberately making a reference to it as part of the message.
The much more important question for a graphic designer is: what exactly are you trying you communicate about yourself and your portfolio by invoking windows XP? Because right now, technical competence is about the closest I can get and I really don’t see the association. I think what they’re probably trying to do is evoke nostalgia among potential tech industry clients as a freelancer, and to be fair, the intended audience is always a big part of the equation.
If I was art directing, I probably wouldn’t bring them in for an interview — but I’ll bet they aren’t advertising themselves to art directors.
> Literally, I could do this
The classic refrain. Implementation is the easiest part of design work. It looks better than XP did, and it should— that’s one key skill that a designer should have. Nobody hiring a designer will care if they can accurately recreate the wonkiness of XP’s interface. And nobody is impressed that a developer can implement this because that’s a developer’s job. I’m genuinely impressed when a developer’s website has solid type design and a thoughtful informational hierarchy, but that’s not even the bare minimum required fora designer. Having done both, I think deciding exactly what goes on the screen/paper is the harder part. It takes longer and you’ve got a much more nebulous path to success.
I would hire this guy he stands out from the competition! He has tenacity, grit and more creativity then the majority. So much more creativity that multi thousands of HN(ers) have enjoyed his creation, their friends and tech journalists who some will write about it showing his work to many more thousands to millions. Getting a job isnt easy now but being like this guy will no doubt make it easy to get many offers!
Ive been needing to update my portfolio site as in August an out of nowhere opportunity knocked on my door. Seeing this makes me want to innovate my portfolio for said opportunity(thanks for the inspiration).
nice gatekeeping
as if everything isn't just a copy of something else
> A faithful XP-inspired interface, custom-built to showcase my [...] attention to detail.
Here goes:
1. "Welcome" on the login screen should be lowercase
2. Balloon is too high (should touch the icon), close icon is too small (should be roughly the same height as the balloon title)
3. About Me is missing the scrollbar on Firefox
4. Wrong gradient for "Social Links"
5. Start menu should have a shadow
6. In My Projects, two tiles are loading forever
7. Windows that cannot be maximized, but can be minimized, should have all three buttons, with the middle one disabled
8. Paint did not have the Windows logo in the corner. It would be better to show the JSPaint menu bar to make things like Undo accessible, and the JSPaint authors deserve attribution.
9. "Git Co-pilot" is not a thing, as Git ≠ GitHub. (On the XP project page.)
If I were making something like this, I would probably skip the boot and login screens (certainly would not require user interaction; indeed, XP would automatically log you in if you had a single passwordless user), and show "About Me" on startup, so that potential clients don’t give up before they learn more about you.
Also missed that double clicking the icon in the top left of the title bar closes the window. It does not toggle maximization like clicking the rest of the title bar does.
Fun-fact: that's a relic of Windows 3.1, where the close button was exactly in the top left corner of each window.
Too bad most new Windows 10+ apps don't support that anymore.
no way, the boot and login screens add to the overall charm of the faithfulness of the reproduction, as much as does your attention to detail. In GUI applications one needs both aspects to enchant the user and keep them in a state of joyous disbelief -- without the disappointment -- as they use the system.
In general, it is even smoother than the real Windows XP. Kind of a magnetizing experience, and I do not know why. There is something attractive in this idea in terms of UI/UX, aside from the obvious nostalgia.
Another interesting aspect of this particular implementation is that it blends naturally with a browser tab hierarchy, it does not try to overrule it, it just blends in. Probably thanks to a distinctive taskbar, or maybe it is due to the startup screen/login/sound that set up a distinctive boundary "you are here now, and this is a friendly place to be".
Windows (or anything) is nice when its fast. Most things should work in under 20ms so I don't notice a delay.
20ms is faster than a fly reaction time, it's about the same time which 60HZ monitor takes to refresh the frame, 10 times faster than a typical human's reaction.
Everything under 150 ms is pretty much indistinguishably fast to a normal person.
If this were true, then a 10fps movie clip would be indistinguishable from a 24fps or a 60fps one. I have written several years ago about how optimizing my shell prompt from 50ms to 5ms was definitely a noticeable impact on how snappy the shell felt: https://xyrillian.de/thoughts/posts/latency-matters.html
I've occasionally spent time doing and even fighting for latency optimisations that supposedly don't matter in the great scheme of things, but that resulted in customers leaving positive feedback about how the product is noticeably more responsive and/or feels more polished than the competition in those specific areas. It can definitely make a difference.
The context was about UI interactions, not at all about movie clip which is a totally different thing.
Reaction is not the same as perception. The typical human perceptual threshold is around 16ms, although persistence of vision "smooths" that out to around 40ms.
You're wrong. You can clearly see a difference between 20ms reaction time (as instantaneous as it gets because of what you say, 1/60 = 16.6666...), whereas 150 ms is a fast reaction but it definitely is a noticeable lag. I wish your opinion didn't exist because how can we expect to get rid of the lag everywhere if some people even claim it doesn't matter.
Well, most of this sub 150ms lag everywhere in the interfaces is actually artificially designed, and believe it or not, some people do prefer it like this, so it's being designed like this. I'm personally for making everything as fast as it would be, but for most people it really doesn't matter.
I uh guess I’m not a normal person then
Working with soft synths, the difference between 65ms, to 15ms latency, 8ms latency, and 2ms latency - time from pressing the key to speakers emitting the sound - is agonizingly noticeable.
The numbers I’m quoting are ones I remember from various gear and upgrades over the years. It’s crazy to think about the levels of latency I was stuck with when I was a poor college kid. These days I wouldn’t settle for more than 10ms latency, and I don’t have to, thank the maker.
Nice troll.
"Faster than a humans reaction" time is different from "indistinguishable".
Yeah of course it is different. My wording was not really correct here – I was rather meaning "irrelevant" in context of a user interface
I am not talking about usability or accessibility but rather just a nice feeling of using the UI. Of course that is subjective but if I click and it appears as close to zero time perception then to me that is much better than lag and/or animation.
Instead of pointlessly trying to convince you how horribly wrong you are, I dare you to interact with any software at 20FPS and report back.
This is about input, not visual frame rate. 20 ui ticks per second? For anything but gaming I'm probably good.
My thoughts exactly. I'm on macOS 26 Beta and this Windows XP felt like an upgrade. I think that's because it's simple, fast, intuitive and I know everything about how it works. Old Windows was also bad at multitasking due to single cpu core, which is better for the user to focus. In modern OS I have 20 windows open with hundreds of tabs, distributed over 6 different workspaces and 2 monitors. They all fly left to right with cool animations. I can't focus on anything.
obviously the nostalgia is a huge factor but you might be onto something with the login sound haha. did you try logging out? :)
> There is something attractive in this idea in terms of UI/UX
Very fast response time for the UI interactions. "Modern" UIs can have a few fast transitions but the overall interactions with the different components have a human noticeable lag that make them uneasy.
It’s interesting, I’ll give you that, but feels entirely like the wrong approach.
I opened the page before reading your post, and what immediately jumped out at me is that you say you’re a graphic designer but then you’re copying someone else’s old design which isn’t even that good.
The second thing I noticed was the obvious AI icon for the login, and that hovering on it makes it move weirdly. I haven’t used Windows XP in over two decades but don’t remember it doing that. It looks like an error.
At that point, I started losing confidence. You are supposed to be a graphic designer but are obviously using AI to design graphics and I assumed you would be doing the same for the code.
The resume as a fake PDF is cramped and zooming in feels like a poor solution.
Same thing with your projects, I can’t view them properly because they’re shoved in a tiny window for no reason. Plus, two of them are just loading animations, and it’s hard to understand if they’re broken or will ever load.
Then I finally read your post. You say you had no coding experience and used AI agents and “every decision was human”, but if you don’t know how to code, most of the decisions will have been made by the LLM even if you instructed it in particular ways. Do you feel confident regarding what you ostensibly learned and that you’d be able to reimplement most of the project yourself from scratch?
Again, it is interesting and a cool project, but it’s not particularly well-made or original¹ and I feel that as a portfolio actually does you a disservice by showcasing your skills in the worst possible light.
hey haha I tried to post this a few weeks ago but my post didn't go through - i'm glad you guys are enjoying it!
edit: I'm new here! let me get some of that sweet sweet karma!
(I'm one of the mods here) - I've re-upped your original Show HN and merged the comments hither.
I've also marked your account legit so it won't get misassessed by those nasty spam filters in the future!
Thanks dang for helping here, especiallyfor new comers! I always find you appear from nowhere when you are truly needed. Kudos!
thanks for that! I was a fresh account when I originally posted it so I completely understand. cheers!
Really polished! And it really captures that windows XP aesthetic, but also the spirit of that aesthetic.
If Windows XP had had some kind of super professional “create a portfolio” app that would output an executable binary that you could download it would’ve been lauded as amazing and beautiful if it looked like what you created.
This is great. It shows your skills, but also brings back the beauty of Windows XP, in a contemporary but historically accurate format.
In an alternate timeline where malware never existed and Apple had gone out of business in the 90s, all portfolios , presentations, and resumes would be packaged as .exe files as a de facto standard. It’s a great and flexible exchange format!
I often fantasize about this, late at night. That exe rule the world. You can have portable document formats inside exe (or nix binary) that contains its own reader. The glory days of self-extracting zip archives achieve the ultimate realization of their lofty ideals.
Add to this the ability to make it cross-platform executable[1] that has no dependencies to get the perfect file format.
haha wow, thank you so much :)
Cannot believe how well done this is! great work
For me, the start menu takes a couple of seconds to appear, and disappears again after a fraction of a second (Chrome 138 on Windows 10).
interesting, if you can be bothered - could you let me know if disabling the screen effect via the system tray toggle makes any difference? thanks for letting me know
That makes it work 30-50% of the time, after flickering closed briefly.
After reloading the page and leaving the CRT effect on, it worked once (the first time) then not.
Reloading the page and turning the CRT effect off immediately, it seems to work every time, but flickers.
thanks for testing - thats really strange, i've never experienced anything like that myself or had anyone else mention it. ill try and recreate it with the info you gave me - thanks mate
same on Firefox macos
This is really well done. Excellent work!
>> let me get some of that sweet sweet karma!
You are going to be a wealthy man very soon now from all that karma.
I wonder why his karma is less than the points of the post. doesn't karma follow the total points of one's posts and comments?
Im just looking to go from broke to stable dude haha, its been a long journey
Very enjoyable. Well done.
Beautiful work.
This isn't meant to critique you personally. Your post just sparked the thought. But it points to a deeper, systemic issue with AI collaboration in coding, design, writing, and beyond.
The core tension is between replication and creation. Yes, some things will always resemble what came before. A hard-boiled detective novel usually has a corpse or two, a bottle, and a wisecrack. But the artistry and work are in what you do with the formula. Take Les Roberts, for example. He wrote detective novels, sure, but he set them in Cleveland, gave them local color, and turned Northeast Ohio into a character. That's authorship. That's presence.
You can absolutely ask an AI to plot the story. But the soul, that point, is what you bring to it: the choices, the voice, the friction.
What gives me pause here is that I don't feel that presence. The project looks good, but it feels like Windows XP. Smooth, clean, and generic. I can't tell what this person's actual skills are. From the post, they clearly put in real time and effort. They learned something and got it working. But what I see is replication. Competent, yes. But flat, in my opinion.
If I were in their shoes, someone who would struggle to replicate this, I'd still treat that as step one.
Okay, I copied it. Now, what can I improve? What parts of the interface feel off? Where could I take a risk? Then, show the before and after.
So here's the long-winded point.
Why stop at imitation? Why not go further? Why not show that you can replicate something, build on it, shape it, and own it?
That's the more profound concern I have about AI collaboration. How do you show your work in a world of infinite templates and effortless iteration? How do you show your soul, or if you are too shy to bare your soul, at least a differentiator, that means you should be hired?
(I say this with the absolute irony that I used Grammarly to ensure this collection of words somewhat resembled a coherent thought. In the words of Dirty Harry, "A man has to know his limitations."[0]) ---
[0] Probably a misquote.
I think a clear recreation is a cool addition to a wider portfolio that also showcases some of the elements you mention.
Having one deeply extended project and one memorable clean recreation (it's getting upvotes, seems like a novel enough idea) is probably more unique than two mildly extended projects, if I were to hazard a guess into what people ripping through dozens of portfolios are thinking.
You are probably right that the portfolio needs to be rounded out though and that this project shouldn't stand alone.
At this point it seems like the debate around if the portfolio site is effective or not is opinion based but I will say, I know my actual projects are lacking - that’s just proof that I’m a junior haha and that I didn’t intend on ending up with this.
If anything it’s the best motivation I could have to raise the quality of all my work though
I love this. As a former XP user, here are some pedantic inaccuracies you've got:
- The taskbar tabs are slightly off from how they looked in the real XP (must be the borders? It's the same issue with the windows as well).
- The close/maximize/minimize buttons never had hover transitions
- By default, desktop icons didn't have any hover effects in the real XP
- I'm surprised you didn't recreate the XP mouse cursor!
- IE6:
- The address bar didn't show progress
- The buttons in the toolbar at the top never had any transition effect on hoverI think of this as a homage or appropriation, a gentle upgrade of classic Windows XP aesthetic into a form that merges a few contemporary affordances and new polish. It's a classic way of keeping art and styles fresh and how aesthetics evolve while retaining a clear lineage that respects their roots.
Whilst that's true... Using "faithful" is inviting criticism where it doesn't align - intended or not.
always tension between the traditionalists and the nouveau
this ^ while also completely disregarding portfolio conventions. some have even said "If i was a recruiter I would instantly click off because it takes too long to load" hahah
If you're still working on this, you can add a "Pedantry mode" ou "Really faithful" switch that turns some of the suggestions on. It could work as a way to show that you're really aware of the shortcomings of the first implementation without messing too much with what you've got already done. And it can also work as a way to show some kind of "appreciation" for the feedback you're getting here..
Personally, I've used XP a lot back in the day, but don't remember much of the details like most users are reporting here, so I really liked to play with your website, and would definitely hire you if I was in such position.
Good luck!
"Pedantry mode" slightly brings down the elegance of the project.
Maybe they could have a fake "patch note" file within the virtual OS which frames it as a hypothetical service path upgrade (which showcases that OP does realize the slight variations in their design, while also showcasing that they can do technical writing)
Nothings off the table so maybe I’ll look into that eventually! Before that id probably go the other way and allow the viewing of a basic single page basic portfolio haha
Maybe styled like a word doc or something
Go hardcore and render the word doc in HTML jspdf style
I guess it functions as a filter to exclude companies that won’t be best for you anyway. I think good portfolio/cv should do this!
taskbar tabs - correct and I spent a crazy amount of time trying to figure out why they look off, admittedly I accepted defeat at where we landed but I think its pretty damn close!
the rest, are all aesthetic decisions haha but I was aware of some of them - I'm surprised you missed the biggest one of them all though.. also that nobody else has mentioned it yet - maybe its because nobody has tried it
the drag selection over desktop icons highlights the icons in a way much closer to windows 11 than XP... i really just thought it deserved an upgrade
edit: did i miss it or did you just add the thing about selection? you're right though
The command prompt?
It's very cool, but I think two issues keep this from being truly delightful. First of all, it doesn't really feel like a computer, little things like typing "dir" in the command line could be a great little interaction, but it's not supported. I'd try to make it more fun to use and not just pretty to look at.
The other thing is, I think the portfolio doesn't really match the quality of the website you vibe coded. This is actually a pretty bad sign that your own work is not as good as something you can do with AI (human assisted or not). The website is pretty high quality, so browsing through extremely simple assets just feels out of place.
Overall it's a good project.
Pretty cool stuff.
Every time I see it, a part of me misses the styling of Windows XP. It was kind of the only well-regarded windows that tried to actually be fun; the fact that there was a little dog mascot in the search results, the fact that the bar on the bottom kind of looks like a Fisher Price toy, Clippy!
I kind of miss when professional programs were allowed to be goofy.
As a side note, I really like your avatar; has kind of a Simpsons/Bob's Burgers vibe that I find appealing.
aside from the frustration it's been pretty cool building it, its almost like im back in 2006
This is really nice work, and it does showcase your skills, ability to learn, persistence and attention to detail.
I disagree with others who complain that either the design was copied or a few little details are not exactly the same as the original – I don't think that's the point here.
Congrats!
To me, the CRT effect looks like an early LCD (TFT panel) one. CRT monitors picture did not look like made of dots from what I can remember (maybe not for all monitors). Except maybe the Trinitron ones.
Great site, thanks for nostalgia!
you're probably right and I've actually had someone tell me that no monitor during the XP era would've been a CRT one haha so the whole things a bit off but I think people can let it slide
> I've actually had someone tell me that no monitor during the XP era would've been a CRT
That person is incorrect. WinXP started selling at retail in Oct 2001. I started using it at work in early 2002 and as a senior employee in a tech company I had a pretty deluxe 21-inch Viewsonic CRT which ran at 2048 x 1536 resolution. That Viewsonic cost $1600 new in 2000 and looked great. The company didn't upgrade to flat screens until about 2006 when the Viewsonic was replaced with a 20-inch Dell 2005fpw with native 1680 x 1050 resolution for $800. That's the year Windows Vista came out.
Even in 2006 corporate priced LCDs at the 20-inch size didn't look quite as good as the high-quality CRT I switched from. In some ways (like sharpness) a good LCD could look better but in other ways (like contrast) it wasn't as good yet - so it was still a mixed bag. About 2004 the company started buying newly hired entry-level employees 15 or 17-inch LCDs but they were typically 1024 x 768 and the quality wasn't great. A designer like you would definitely have stuck with a CRT longer both for quality and screen size at a reasonable price.
noted and I appreciate the detail!
Yeah XP did use a flatscreen for some of its iconography, but that was to look cute. Nearly everyone but rich people were using CRTs for the first half of XP’s heyday.
I grew up in Bulgaria and when Windows XP was released almost everyone had a CRT monitor.
As a former Windows XP user: this is amazingly detailed and well done! The CRT effect is spot on for me.
i'll remember that next time someone says anything! thanks dude!
Just noticed: not sure if intentional, but with the CRT effect, I see a sort of moving line every few seconds or so. I don't recall my CRT monitor doing that, haha! But the tiny dots are spot on for me. The better a CRT monitor was, the smaller and less visible the dots were. But they were always easily visible from up close.
Haha it’s intentional yeah, just to add some extra drama
My 2 cents: I would get rid of it, it's kinda jarring and distracting.
i agree the CRT effect is mesmerizingly spot on
Confirm. I used xp on a silicon graphics 21” crt for a longgggg time. Was freaking heavy as hell to lug around, but it was a great monitor even well into the lcd era.
oh, I was definitely rocking a 17" CRT in 2001! Pickup up 2 other guys with CRTs and lugging it to a friends for a LAN party we couldn't fit them in the boot of the Ford Meteor and had to cram them in with the passengers in the back seat.
Got my first own computer in 2002. It ran Windows XP and had a CRT, as did the home computers my friends had too at the time :)
whoever tell me it's wrong next is going to be hit with multiple real life testimonies, they'll never expect it
> no monitor during the XP era would've been a CRT one haha
Well, not really, and it depended highly on the place of work/study and country/state. For example, my University replaced the CRT ones with LCDs only in 2005-06 (they've used XP in computer rooms for quite a long time, skipping Vista and 8).
I myself used the CRT monitor with winXP until the late 2004.
some of those redditors don't know what they're saying then, huh? thats such a good point - couldn't I run XP on a CRT monitor today if i wanted to
Nothing stopping you from using one with totally modern systems as well, except for the ever increasing prices, I guess. Anyway, yeah, same as some of the others already mentioned, but I don't think I actually owned any sort of standalone display—be it a monitor or television—that wasn't CRT until ~2009 or so?
I used my mom's iMac G3 (CRT) probably until 2004 or so, because I distinctly remember getting stuck on Tutorial Island on RuneScape as a kid, since you had to Right-click -> "Prospect Rock", and at the time, I had no idea how to actually do it with Apple's single-button mice lmao.
Aside from the couple of laptops that came later, I don't think I had moved on [for the worse] until a bit after I put together my first DIY computer (Phenom II 920, etc); I still had a CRT TV in my room long enough to have been using it when Halo Reach came out.
This is really good. I’ve seen recreations before but the attention to detail made this delightful to use. Agree with some of the other points that you’re recreating a design that already exists but it’s evident you spent some effort on this even with the help of AI (which was disclosed in the AUTHOR command in command prompt, thank you!)
Wow, this is cool!
You should open source this and let other people contribute and build apps that work inside this sim. I would love to build a version of our browser into this. (https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS)
This is wonderful. You should be proud. It's a fun recreation and it was fun to use. Back when I was using XP (2004-2010), I had a 19" black CRT monitor. Once I got a laptop, it became a second monitor. I got whatever the family didn't want and the few things I scrounged from used computer stores. In 2010, I jumped to Windows 7. The theming of Windows XP always reminds me of seeing it for the first time, how colourful and inviting it looked.
if they remember the site, they'll remember me :) kinda?
"AI agents " I KNEW something was up with it. Wrap it up.
its nice and warm in here, come on.. join us
> Every pixel and every function went through me. The AI translated what I asked for into code, but every decision was human.
You'll find that programmers are a lot less prickly when you use AI to generate code, than say artists are, when you use it to generate pictures. You don't have to defend yourself, it's OK to use it to make cool things that you couldn't otherwise.
You should be aware though that even though it may "feel like magic" when just getting started, there's an upper limit to the complexity of what you can build with AI-generated code - it's very low quality and will start falling apart once you stack a lot of it. For the same reason I wouldn't recommend using it as a learning resource, if you really want to get into programming.
Feature request, very nitpicky: currently there is a grid overlay that simulates display pixels; but the content behind it is high resolution - as a result one “pixel” consists of multiple colors, which can break the illusion; this is especially visible when scrolling text. Perhaps there’s a way to render actual content in low resolution too, to match the grid resolution? E.g. set the css width&height of an element to 50% and upscale 2x via css scale transform (although filtering could be a problem), or render to a canvas and upscale there, or use html gl, or maybe there’s another way?
I'd love to see that command line working for some Easter eggs.
hit me with some idea's. in terms of novelty ideas ive thought maybe unlocking extra songs in the music player, or opening a different version of my projects that looks like it should (internet explorer) showing my wow logs or something lame hahah just some for the ones who would respect it
Maybe cmd.exe launch into "your terminal" - styled with starship or whatever, your shell aliases but taking the user into your (code?) projects' directories that they can have a nosey around with (mirroring github repos?)
This is amazing! Really enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
It would be wonderful if you could also share or write a post about your vibe coding journey to put this together!
just like the site itself, I'm slowly trying to piece something together in a coherent way when the process itself was the complete opposite. When I do figure it out I'll do a post/series of posts on LinkedIn most likely. there's a few posts already on there about it, but nothing super in-depth
im open to all connections btw :) i'm just getting started!
No right-click menus anywhere. How am I supposed to Lock The Taskbar? (As seen in https://madeupandprobablydoesnotexist.com/taskbar/)
i've been putting together a list of things for the right click menu, thanks for that one.
Wow. Beyond anything, my main take away is *do not try to mimic [wW]indows [xX][pP] in any way*. I will never ever ever get it right enough. Stick to Windows 95 or earlier.
This made me immediately want to play Age of Empires and drink a Mountain Dew. Well done sir.
do it!
It looks great the application section was a little lacking. Add minesweeper or defrag or any number of the pre installed pieces like file explorer and get more creative.
Its a lot of work setting everything you have up spend sometime on more details / applications
Interesting that you vibe coded the whole thing.
I don't think it counts as vibe coding, since the author read every line of code and presumably also asked questions about them and looked things up about the meanings of unfamiliar keywords and functions and so on.
It might be spiritually close to vibe coding in some ways because the author wasn't previously a programmer, so this code was never reviewed by a professional or trained developer.
But it was a high-effort project that involved inspecting and trying to understand the code, which isn't what vibe coding is about.
Whatever we want to call it, I think it's awesome! This is a good use of LLMs to help laypeople break into writing code imo, and the result is great.
yeah, I've had a tough time finding the right wording so I've even called it vibe coding since its definitely not at the other end of the spectrum. I think its somewhere in the middle, like a developer version of Ratatouille
He said it took months, so perhaps we need to coin a new term for it. Maybe AI crawling?
its been a nightmare trying to word it... haha. I really do feel like it's something that nobody else is really doing, at least that I have seen. but if I really think about, why would anyone do this? hahaha
"vibe designed"?
I suspect that this sort of design wouldn't come up a lot, but do you think about the difference between this experience and the experience of designing something where you used a workflow that you were familiar with? Or put another way, if you did this again, would it go faster or would it take the same amount of time?
It would definitely go faster based on a few things. One being that these models are continually improving - an ungodly amount of time was spent trying to connect the dots between what I was seeing and what the agent was seeing/understanding.
But aside from that, I would still say yes. I've learned a lot (it's just hard to put into words when I'm missing some of the technical language) and I've gained so much confidence in even dealing with code.
I've actually started doing some work for someone after they saw my site on Reddit, which I could never have done before. It involves Docker, a bit of Python, and working on a codebase with multiple contributors. It's both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Really cool.
Only bug I noticed was that the command line output doesn’t scroll. This was on my iPhone with the keyboard up as I was typing commands and press return.
Oh interesting, that’s not intentional but it might be something I just hadn’t considered - does it scroll again after the keyboard is hidden?
Looks great on mobile! I think it’s awesome. But I’d change the avatar to something more XP like and less Simpson-esque that has a less obvious GPT designed feel to it.
haha yeah I’ll get around to it eventually, it’s clearly a pain point for many - it’s really just not a huge deal for me
Wow, this reminds me of how Windows XP was such a beautiful UI.
UI these days are flat everything and pretty boring.
Arguably the most familiar desktop user interface on the planet. I often wonder why complex web apps do not use this searchable start menu format.
i've got no statistics to back it but I'd bet my life savings on it being exactly that (its $0, but still)
You got this far have DIR print something!
I was so proud of myself for remembering it’s DIR and not ls. But at least `help` worked.
although not much I still use the windows command line (not powershell). XCOPY being my favourite (although rsync is nicer but xcopy still rocks)
Skip the scanlines, makes everything blurry on my sharp display.
The paint app is very accurate. Kinda shocking really.
that is something I cannot take credit for - https://jspaint.app/#local:58ec4c22cf9878
I just had to make some small changes so it would blend in better with my site
No way to save my creations though :(
nah I removed that from my version, I can't remember why though so I might try and bring it back - if you look up jspaint or paintjs theres some really cool ones available
you ever see this https://puter.com/
thats sick, I hadn't seen it
In my head, I heard videogamedunkey saying: “Ohhh... they've got the original paint on this one! I didn’t know this was a slick-type website!”
Oh my Paint doesn't work. New button is disabled. Maybe because I use Safari and Steve Jobs disabled it on purpose.
This works incredibly well on mobile too. Awesome job
thank you!
Did you make this all by yourself?
yeah, its been my obsession for the past 6 months. Im a junior graphic designer so I decided I would try something out of the box to try and grab recruiters attention, since my actual projects wouldn't be enough
man when I hear young people saying they can't get a head start or no one will hire them, I say go make something show off what you can do and you really nailed it here!
Super impressive!
Really neat! I made one a few years ago too, it still is online (but not updated) https://melkael.github.io/
Get rid of the AI profile picture. Just use the picture on your resume! That AI one means a good chunk of people will hate this website before they even click your name to "login" due to their own preexisting biases. As an artist myself I'm not happy about how AI companies have shamelessly plagiarized people's work. The fact you're using the same Studio Ghibli style everyone else is using just feels unoriginal. Whether employers would care is another story entirely.
Others have left good feedback regarding the UI inconsistencies that you should address.
If you really want this to reflect on your abilities as a graphic designer, you should make this "themeable." XP had multiple visual styles - there were variants of Luna, as well as the Royale theme that came with Media Center Edition, and other themes like the Zune theme. There were also numerous third-party user-created themes you could download and use (if you installed a dll patch).
You should consider adding a few of the standard themes - at the very least the silver, olive, and royale themes. But more importantly, you should make your own themes, and add them as options as well. Open up a dialog similar to XP's "Appearance" dialog on first run so users instantly know they will have that option.
It's great if you can recreate a user interface... but anyone can do that and many already have. What matters more is how you can build on the UI while remaining true to its design language and interaction paradigms. What uniqueness can you add to the UI?
Here are some links for inspiration:
- One example of this sort of thing is https://macthemes.garden/, which has thousands of Mac OS 8/9 themes.
- Here's the wikipedia article that goes over the first party XP themes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_visual_styles
- For examples of XP third party themes... I don't know any good websites off the top of my head but DeviantArt has had lots of 3rd party themes and style assets uploaded to it over the years (for both Windows and macOS): https://www.deviantart.com/search?q=windows+xp+themes
Use these as inspiration and come up with your own unique visual styles which would still feel at home with Windows XP. If you can do that, I think it will really impress people.
What was the worst part of the Win32 API to implement? Offhand I'm guessing CreateToolhelp32Snapshot or StretchBlt.
This is cool! I like how you can toggle the pixel effect. A lot of great attention to detail.
personally, I prefer it on but I'd had some complaints and it does have some impact on performance so better to give the choice, right?
I miss the Windows XP look & feel so, so much.
> Apart from basic libraries like xp.css and paint.js, it's all original code.
I wouldn't say this constitutes "original code". AI agents are trained on open-source software; to apply them and present this project as your own work is misleading.
My mobile device is a square aspect ratio and thus there is no portrait mode to check this out :(
I will get around to it, sorry! Thanks for letting me know
Weird, what phone?
How often does that aspect ratio ruin things?
It's the cover screen of my zflip 5 with the inner screen being broken. It's surprisingly usable and I find myself wishing more phones were purposefully built at this size and shape.
Looks great, but you probably don't want to be serving copyrighted music mp3s directly from your site: e.g. https://mitchivin.com/assets/apps/musicPlayer/audio/song2.mp...
Any reason I get downvoted for this?
The mobile experience is really well done too!
This is awesome, I found a tiny bug. On mobile, if I open CMD and the keyboard opens, the browser thinks I'm in landscape and blocks the UI till I close the keyboard.
noted, thanks - which device do you have if you dont mind me asking?
S24 on chrome.
Delightful.The XP vibe is spot on, the startup sound and taskbar feel right.
it's all about the feels
This looks and feels really good, nice work.
Makes me wonder what windows mobile could have been
cease and desist followed by the announcement of windows on mobile any day now
It’s very neat but I’m sorry, you can’t advertise yourself as a designer while prominently showcasing very obviously AI-generated graphics. The wallpaper and the avatar immediately undermine everything else, I can’t take you seriously seeing those
I love the 'recently used' in the start menu.
thanks!
Really cool! Added to my collection of personal websites @ https://personal.network/
Windows didn't fade in and out in Windows XP.
This reminds me a of a very faithful (in browser) recreation of Windows XP I stumbled upon recently, may've even been on HN:
Good times.
I salute your tenacity.
it can't be understated, truly - people would think im insane
Looking at your resume, I am curious how you are intimately familiar with XP. Seems like it should be before your time.
It should be based on my resume, you're right haha - a peak behind the curtain reveals a decade of struggles finding my place in the world before saying fuck it and following my gut. I'm 30, whoooops - if you do the math on my graduation you should be able to get there, not hiding it - but didn't want to shout it from the rooftops either haha
While I'm sure this was fun to make, I think this site is a little tone-deaf, and I'd like to save you some time and frustration.
Clients hire graphic designers for unique and modern designs. I get that WinXP is retro these days, but WinOS is also the antithesis of good design. Hacker News will love it, but design industry folks won't. Especially all the clicks and delays it takes to get to your actual work (hint: bounce rate).
You're competing with a lot of designers right now, so you need to show your best work up front to stand out. Just like you, your clients need to grab attention and establish trust for their products and services, which is why they're spending money to hire a graphic designer.
Now that you've made this, archive it as a Personal Design Experiment and add it to your portfolio so it can still be discovered.
Then, remove the WinOS skin from your actual portfolio. Take visitors straight to your projects page: it should be your homepage.
In each project: show your work. It doesn't have to be perfect, 5-star design. Make it clear what you personally designed vs AI-designed, so they know what they're paying you for. Did you make sketches? Revisions? Show 'em. Not everything, just samples. With those, describe your thought process and work process. Demonstrate that working with you is a positive, efficient experience.
That's what will get you hired.
Finally, your work so far is sports oriented. You many want to make that your focus for now. Think about what a sports-designer portfolio should look like: bold, powerful, action-oriented graphics.
Wait! Was your score big for LIGR? Also hi from someone who comes from Brizzy! (SF now)
The mobile experience was actually really good. Pleasantly surprised.
Consider using the display/monitor icon in tray to manage CRT effect on/off instead of the Windows Defender icon.
fair call! the CRT toggle was fairly recent in comparison to the full screen toggle so it was a case of seniority haha but I'm at the point now were I can spend time on things like that and the icons will be getting a refresh at some stage so i'll remember this.
thanks
Wasted opportunity: shut down -> orange "now it's safe to turn off your computer"
Wasn't that just Windows 95 and 98? I think I remember XP having the Windows logo and the "It is now safe to turn off your computer" text in white.
No, I recall once being surprised at seeing it in XP back in the day, on a particularly old PC that had had its OS upgraded from 9x.
Older AT power supplies were entirely mechanically controlled using the power button. ATX power supplies added the ability to turn on or off via software. That screen was shown on PCs using an AT PSU because Windows couldn't shut it down itself, it had to ask the user to do it.
Evidence you’re right: this video at 1:10
Well it kinda feels like the optimal example of "if you cant make it good make it look good".
While, if the author reached its goal and is happy about it, thats fair and fine - tho for me as a former webdev looking at the source and how its build well it basically yells AI... and absolutly not in a good way....
If you really want to learn coding - put the AI aside and learn it by yourself. You may use AI to search for documentations and stuff, but dont try to learn coding style/sturcturing from it ... because its very bad at it.
Works very smoothly on my phone
love to hear it :)
Wow! Seriously, well done! I love it.
Thanks so much mate, appreciate the kind words
Windows XP is an emotion for me. You have rekindled the memories of 2005 .
Love that the hidden 10x zoom in Paint is there and works :).
I love the little things, like the paint program and music player. This was so fun.
Love this! The nostalgia hit hard, I immediately felt the urge to play Raft Wars on Miniclip
I wonder if im doing some psychology trick on recruiters, they love windows xp = they love my site = they love me = they hire me? right.. right?!
It’s all about how you make someone feel ;)
One thing that immediately popped up was how much nicer Windows XP looks compared to the current OS UIs...
There’s even a command line where you can run commands, that’s really nice!
I think it’s the best portfolio I ever seen! Loves it!!!
Author looks shirtless in the avatar photo.
Extreme nitpick, but the progress bar animation on bootup was stepped, IIRC.
the site is built on extreme nitpicking my friend, its welcomed and encouraged. I'll look into it!
"Dyanamic" typo.
otherwise, cool, nice, great work!
fixed the typo! thanks
very cool !
On my dell XPS13 (Windows) the high DPI scaling makes the page display "please rotate your device back to portrait mode" . If I zoom out a few steps (ctrl-minus in the browser), it loads fine.
thanks for letting me know! i've had someone else mention that it didnt work on folding devices, but considering i've never even held one this makes more sense to me so ill look into it
you sir are an absolute mad lad! kudos.
That CRT effect is dope. It's amazing it's even possible.
fun fact: this whole journey started because of that effect. I had that and was trying to think how I could use it haha
I can tell this was a ton of work, and a ton of fun. Congrats!
thank you!
At this point do you even need a portfolio? You can already build amazing software, why not create your own startup?
Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur
When I started building this I needed any design job more than I can explain haha
Give this man a job! (If he doesn't have one already)
I might have to re-elevate the goals after this haha, I thought it was cool personally but truly didn't expect this kind of reaction
Youre more than just a designer mate, this clearly shows it.
Follow your intuition (whilst having some cash inflows to survive).
This is excellent, detailed, and does the job. Many of these comments are myopic and miss the point. This is better than the way most people would present their portfolio and it shows some creativity and thoughtful design. Especially if they've visited the rest of your portfolio.
Good job, OP. Stay away from the haters.
Thanks boss! Appreciate the kind words.
I’m not phased by the comments at this point haha I take them all on board but I’d already considered the large majority of their points before I decided to go all in!
The people that get it, get it
Very cool. There's an impressive number of little details. My favourite is that the Paint app actually works.
Vyvanse is a hell of a drug
Amen
IYKYK
This is amazing!
Thanks mate!
Great job! Working on mobile is really a nice touch!
thank you!
Looks and feels solid. Only issue I noticed off the bat is that scrolling isn't working in Chrome on Android. Also, idk if it's an issue with mobile Chrome but the address bar doesn't drop down.
Will check out the chrome scrolling on android, is that in the my projects app?
Sadly the address bar does not drop down haha Maybe one day
man, fix the typos. Dyanamic.
otherwise, fun, great, keep going!
it took me way too long to find but i've 'fixed' it haha, thanks!
This gives me so much joy. Well done!!
Mind Your Manners brought back some seriously nostalgic memories. Thank you!
It'll defintely be in my MitchIvinXP Wrapped this year
If you didn’t know, Chiddy has been releasing new music. It’s just him now, no Xaphoon, but still pretty decent.
I actually didn't know that, but my favourite part of this comment is seeing Xaphoon mentioned. I love Xaphoon! I still listen to some of his old remixes on youtube some times haha
Phenomenal work. Excellent!
thank you so much
Good stuff! Desktop environments are so much fun to make.
Absolutely brilliant.
Thank you!
We are learning. The thing about open access and giving access to those codes is so the knowledge is there, anyone can do it, use it for a reason, and hopefully they generate rewards for improvements people that are much better at coding than I will be able to fix and add on it never goes stale in 100 years the improvements are made .
Did you ask Microsoft permission to use logo/branding etc. Or are you ready to be sued?
Recreations of Windows UX in a webpage have been done a million times and I've never heard of Microsoft suing them. I think they have better things to do.
As a design showcase it is odd to basically trademark/copyright infringe all the visuals.
In university design classes they made it pretty clear we should take care choosing sources for assets we used, even as a base for our work. At least back in the early oughts. Maybe it's different now that crime is legal.
What you say is true, but as an HR person i wouldn't care too much about the copyright aspect, more about the fact that this showcases nothing about the guy's actual design abilities. That's more a feat of a front end dev integrating an existing design, which is impressive but this aspect has been mostly vibe coded, or at least "vibe taught" (is that a thing ?) according to OP himself
A graphic designer should be capable of designing an avatar for themselves instead of using AI slop that rips off Studio Ghibli. I closed the page as soon as I saw that.
Quite honestly, super cool! Telling that you probably managed to wield AI tools quite well if you managed to get this far with it.
Only pet peeve I have is with the obvious AI generated art (including the wallpaper?) — still can't get onboard with them.
It was definitely a long fought battle haha
Yeah for sure, I completely get it - I can genuinely understand the large majority of reasons people have for holding that opinion and I don't even necessarily disagree with many of them. I will admit, I do find it wildly entertaining and having the ability to turn an idea into something tangible almost instantly allows me to produce more high quality work.
Aside from personal opinions, I just think that it's pretty clear where the world's going and since money doesn't care about feelings - companies are going to use it. so I feel like it probably helps, or at least will start to help more and more as time goes on having it clear that I can and do use these AI tools they keep hearing about.
It looks good. As others have flagged up there are a few inaccuracies, but I noped out of Windows about the time XP came out (mainly due to the product activation stuff), so I couldn't itemize those in detail.
These kind of projects are fun to do, but as a showcase of your design skills... ehhhh? There are a few things that have your original design, like your résumé and such. Something like this is a much better showcase of your front-end coding skills, but you've delegated much of that to AI.
My advice: if you want to show off your programming skills, learn how to do it on your own. Don't do Windows XP right off the bat. Start with something simple. Make an Amiga "boing ball" bounce around the screen or something. Then tackle more complex challenges. It's not just about arriving at a finished product. By crafting something yourself, without machine assistance, you develop a better feel for what should be in the finished product and what shouldn't.
(It's OK to use dumb code generators to automate repetitive tasks, transpilers, etc. But there's a feel for when and how to use those as well.)
Great work
Would be cool if the contact you page let me send you an email from your site itself instead of trying to launch my default mail app. I typed out an email and filled in my email but it tried to launch mail app when I tried to send it.
yeah I would also love to get that working - at one point that was the plan but things changed. It's something i'll look into updated, thanks for the suggestion.
btw, if you let your mail app open - whatever you typed into my contact me app will be pre-filled in a new message ready to send
Might not apply to most people, but on some of my machines I have left the mail app unconfigured and so the few times something uses a mail link launching the app will just land me on the setup screen. It’s rare enough that anyone uses those sort of mailto: links that I haven’t bothered doing anything about it. And it might be that most other people have their email program set up already so only me and a handful of others run into any sort of issue with that :p
funny you say that, you are the first to mention it but I personally use Gmail installed as an app from my browser, so I encounter this exact issue hahah. Even worse, there was a time where I uninstalled outlook completely. It was also pretty messy in that instance
I kind of assumed that if someone found themselves in that position they would contact me another way and it shouldn't be a dealbreaker haha
pretty badass sir! cheers!
thanks boss!
Amazing work!
this is sick
This is so damn cool! I love that you have MS Paint too xD
Wow, really enjoyed clicking trough it. Super smoooth. Lots of attention to detail. Excellent. Well done mate.
thanks dude!
I've seen a lot of similar projects, but never ones that worked well on mobile, and this one works perfectly, quite impressive.
That said, I wonder if it makes sense for a graphic designer to have a portfolio with a design that just copies someone else's (Microsoft's)?
I don't understand the claim, is it recreating the actual operating system and kernel, and it can run and install programs like an emulator? Or is it just superficially the UI?
purely UI - HTML, CSS, JS
Very cool. I'm on mobile and on your projects page I couldn't scroll down to read the details of some projects. Otherwise worked well but I would double check.
Noted, thanks for letting me know - do you mind telling me which device /browser you’re using
I've gotten so used to instant loading operating systems, I've forgotten about those loading screens.
pretty badass sir...cheers to you.
Very cool
hey i saw this a while ago on /r/vibecoding . Looks even better now .
thanks dude!
Holy shit!
The "recently used" part was clever :)
Wow. You are going places, Mitch. Epic design skills. Listening to Unwritten and loading up that email form… can’t wait to see what you build.
thank you so much for the kind words, appreciate it more than you probably realize :)
I need to right-click and refresh the desktop, please.
If I glance over at my TODO's its pretty close to next on the list - stay tuned
Great job, well done. This really highlights that people who obsess in telling us that "AI hallucinates", and "AI isn't intelligent", are missing the point. At the end of the day, it's simply useful, and incredibly empowering.
thanks mate haha yeah I stay out of those convos
This shit is fucking awsome!
Thanks boss!
No offense, maybe I am jaded by our environment, but this reads like an ai ad….
No minesweeper?! I’m severely disappointed.
it's on my list!
Awesome job btw. Impressed by hell well it works on mobile. (Can even type in the terminal!)
thank you so much
only since a few days ago haha
> I started from zero knowledge and spent months collaborating with AI agents as a learning experience. Every pixel and every function went through me. The AI translated what I asked for into code, but every decision was human.
This is so absurdly cringe and absolutely not coding. It’s like saying I spent absolutely trying to get ChatGPT to write my college essay for me. At the end of the writing period, I wrote nothing but decided which ai goop I liked best.
If OP were a front end engineer or something I might agree, but this is a graphic design portfolio. I think it's completely reasonable to rely on outside assistance for the scripting and interactive stuff.
With Windows XP already being visually designed, this project not being "fully-functional" but just a visual wrapper of some portfolio pages where the code was written by AI, I'm left wondering what this piece actually represents.
+1
Who's hiring a graphic designer based on a Windows XP aesthetic that they didn't even produce? Of course novelty. But then what. Not really promoting the graphic design side. Not really promoting the development site. Bizarre noob accounts here loving it.
He cooked. (But not really) And we're all cooked.