Key Takeaways
- The Windows 95 Start menu was a revolutionary addition to the operating system, with interesting design choices.
- Dave from Dave’s Garage provides insights into the unique challenges faced in creating the Start menu.
- Graphics Device Interface was used to create the blue and black bar in the Start menu to avoid language-specific image issues.
The Start menu began its long and illustrious life on Windows 95 and has become a staple for the operating system ever since. These days, people have mixed opinions on the Windows 11 Start menu, not helped by the fact that Microsoft started putting ads in it. Now, someone who helped work on the original Windows 95 Start menu has made a YouTube video discussing the thought processes behind how it came to be.
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The video appeared on the YouTube channel Dave’s Garage, the owner of which helped make the Windows 95 Start menu. Dave starts the video by explaining that he cannot be wholly credited for the Start menu; after all, it was built upon the core Windows 95 technologies that made the Start menu possible in the first place. However, what he did do was add a lick of paint to the Start menu, plus work on the system that booted the app you selected at the end of your journey.
Turns out, that cool blue and black bar that spanned across the left of the Start menu wasn’t an image. Dave explains that if he made a Bitmap for that part of the Start menu, they would need one for every single language that Windows was translated into. And given how hardware wasn’t plentiful back then, that would mean a lot of checks and sorting through images every time the Start menu opened.
Instead, he drew out everything using the Graphics Device Interface (GDI). He programmed the gradient from blue to black, which he said he liked because the system would automatically dither it if your PC didn’t have all the colors (yes, that was a problem back then). Then, he had to have the Windows operating system text rendered at a 90-degree angle to fit within the bar. It’s a great insight into what would be a key part of Windows history.