Now someone port it Wine, combine it with the fact that Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux [0] and we're all set!

0: https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/

Now I want to see an entire desktop environment built with Wine instead of GTK or Qt.

Try it on wine and document any incompatibilities on the wine appdb

These customization efforts will likely continue to break and frustrate devs into giving up in future updates because proprietary OS vendors like Microsoft and Apple are simply not motivated to allow people to get in the way of their regular overhauls of their preferred brand experience.

If you want wide customization of an OS, an open source OS is likely a more maintainable choice.

Even on Linux, the only DE which shines on the customization front is KDE.

FVWM would like to have a word!

queue dr evil laugh

DPI/Scaling configuration?

Every modern graphical linux distro has this as a GUI option.

So every modern graphical linux distro has it's own GUI implementation of it for FVWM? Or without sarcasm, it's a Window Manager problem in X, and my google-fu says FVWM doesn't support this feature.

FVWM is a an ultra minimal window manager favoring advanced users comfortable on a terminal. No major consumer focused distros ship with it.

Gnome or KDE are likely a better fit for someone that cannot scale DPI on a terminal.

I was an author for a couple of alternative desktop shells for Windows 9x.

I think Windows 95 was the first time I encountered support changing the desktop shell (then via the ‘shell’ property in one of Windows’ ini files). I remember some of the main uses cases were:

1. Restoring the Windows 3.x progman (Program Manager) shell

2. Bespoke UIs for educational systems in schools and colleges

3. Bespoke UIs for locked down graphical terminals, like kiosks.

The shells I wrote were purely aimed at families though. Designed to make the single user OS a little more like a multi user platform. Windows 95 was pretty terrible when it came to different family members using the same computer.

It was fun times but I honestly don’t miss Windows 9x one but.

Being able to replace the shell is actually possible since 3.x, also using the method you described. It was fun using Calmira to make win 3.x look like 9x.

Oh wow. That does sound fun. Thanks for the correction.