RIP Windows 95 Icons

Bits and pieces of Microsoft’s sweeping aesthetic changes to Windows 10, codenamed Sun Valley, have dropped over the last few months. The OS is getting support for the Advanced Audio Codec (AAC) codec over Bluetooth, new folder icons, and reportedly a much-needed overhaul to its Microsoft Store user interface. But Microsoft is also finally getting rid of remnants of Windows 95 that have somehow stuck around for 25 years: custom folder icons.

According to Windows Latest, the Sun Valley update expected later this year modernizes the extra folder icons in the Shell32.DLL module, the module that’s existed in all Windows operating systems since Windows 95. If you’re unsure what those are, create a new folder on your Windows 10 desktop. Right click on it, go to Properties, click on the Customize tab, and then click on the Change Icon button at the bottom. That tiny window that pops up with all those icons? Those have been around since the mid-’90s, and are soon getting a facelift.

Microsoft has quietly made subtle changes to a few of those icons over the years, but nothing as robust has what’s coming to Windows 10. Classic icons like the hibernation monitor and floppy disks look totally different, although modernized to match the style of the new Drive and Recycle Bin desktop icons in the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21343.

:story: Gizmodo