It is funny how I've been using every operating system since Windows 3.1 except for Windows 2000. I remember hating Program Manager and wanting the Windows 95 look when it came out, so I got Calmira a skinning program and skinned it to look like Windows 95 and it almost felt like Windows 95. Calmira added a taskbar, start menu, and clock and is probably still out there for those who still have Windows 3.1 or 3.11. Their website was
www.calmira.org. I found it online, it is now
www.calmira.de. I had the Windows 3.1 computer for a while (at least until '00). I remember when the first screenshots of Windows XP came out, I was drooling. So I came up with a Windows XP theme for Calmira and bought the old version of Window Blinds to skin the rest of the interface. I then experimented with upgrading to Windows 95 and ended up keeping it although it took a large part of my meager 250 MB hard drive. In those days I was repairing computers from my high school. We even had 286's and 386 computers that I was in charge of. So I used parts from broken computers to upgrade my 486 machine to 32 MB of Ram. It already had a top notch display card at the time with 1280x1024 native resolution and 24 Bit color, so I had no need to upgrade that. The sound card was a Soundblaster 16 card which was also top notch at the time I got it. I remember using Text to Speech software included with the Soundcard to make my computer sing songs in a British voice. I wish I could get the same software for Windows XP because that was really fun.
Here is a screenshot of Calmira doing its thing back in the day:
Linear Mode
Main Menu