Although Windows 8 adds a very different start screen, the system's desktop mode does not change except that the Start menu is removed, basically maintaining the style of Windows Vista, the so-called aero glass design. Although this transparent aesthetic style looked great at the time, it is now a bit outdated.
Windows 10 has made significant changes to the desktop of the system, including desktop icons, network settings, homegroup, and some folders. The new icon has a more flattened style, which is what Android and iOS are now advocating.
This design is also significantly different from the Windows 8 Metro style. On mobile devices, minimalist metro brings elegant intuitive aesthetic design, but on PCs, many users complain that it's too simple. Desktop and notebook have a large size of the display, then why the large number of screen space wasted, just fill in a large amount of solid color it?
In Windows 10, the desktop icons become flattened and provide more information, which also maximizes the use of screen space. The original white space is now occupied by smaller, more complex projects, which are still conspicuous and readable, but are much finer than the tiles that occupy Windows 8.
Blue seems to be the new favorite of Microsoft, which is the color theme they use at the conference, and it is also reflected in a number of newer icons. While this is reminiscent of Mac OS X, which also has a lot of blue icons, the difference between two systems is limited to that.
In addition to color, these two operating system icons look very different. Microsoft wants to be more aggressive in its flattening, giving up the gradient effect completely. Simplicity and a lot of blue use remind us of Windows 95/98, but the sophistication and contrast are higher.
But the flattening process has not been completed. The folder, disk, and library icons, as before, have not changed. In the taskbar, the new home folder looks very different from other folders. In addition, the search and task views also show a flattened style. Obviously, the once Aero icon will eventually be completely replaced.