A Reddit user rebuilt the way Windows 98 looked, sounded and behaved on top of a modern Windows 11 PC, and the result is hard to tell apart from a real machine from 1998. Teal desktop, gray beveled windows, a chunky Start button, the old icons, even the startup chimes. All of it is back. Underneath, Windows 11 is still doing the work.
Reddit user ExoGeniVI built it and posted two screenshots to the r/Windows11 community, calling it the ultimate Win95/98 theme for Windows 11. The build brings back the right fonts, taskbar, icons, sound scheme and screen savers all at once. It spread far enough to reach Slashdot and the tech site Neowin.
Reddit thread about I Now Have Ultimate Win9598, Neowin Here What Windows Looks Like Classic
What the screenshots show
One screenshot is a pure Windows 98 desktop. Flat teal wallpaper, the old icons like My Briefcase and Recycle Bin, a Win9x taskbar and a working Start button. Down the right edge sits a panel that tracks the clock, the weather, free disk space and live Slashdot headlines. The other shot, up at the top of this page, opens Netscape, the 1990s web browser, on Google. Both windows wear the gray title bars and raised buttons anyone who used a 90s PC remembers.
One detail gives the trick away. A small performance gadget in the corner lists dwm, the Desktop Window Manager that only modern Windows runs, ticking along at one percent. The paint is from 1998. The engine is current.
How the look was built
ExoGeniVI later wrote up the recipe in the comments. Window frames come from WindowBlinds, a paid Stardock app that controls how every window is drawn, loaded with a Windows 9x skin. A free tool called Open-Shell restores the classic Start menu and button. RetroBar, also free, swaps the Windows 11 taskbar for the flat 98 one.
Small details are the hard part, and the builder points to WinAero Tweaker as the key step. That tool switches on classic right-click menus, the old volume slider and the tighter window borders Windows 11 hides by default.
The rest is small swaps. A panel on the right is the long-dead Desktop Sidebar app set to its Win9x look. Sounds load from a Windows 98 audio pack through the Sound control panel. Icons come from a Windows 95 set that ExoGeniVI says he swapped in one file at a time, which is why he is in no hurry to undo any of it.
It actually runs
This is more than a screensaver. When one reader asked whether all that skinning would drag the system down, ExoGeniVI said the PC felt "actually quicker." Another asked whether Windows still draws its modern effects underneath. The gadget in the shot says yes. That Netscape window at the top is not a photo either. It is a live browser, open and loading a page.
Backward compatibility is what surprised the builder most. He said the project showed him how far Windows 11 will bend to run old code. Readers traded stories of decades-old programs that still launch today, from Windows 95 games to Visual Basic 6 apps.
Love it or hate it
Whether the result is beautiful or an eyesore split the room. Some readers called it ugly. Plenty more called it the most functional desktop they had seen in years and begged for the files. ExoGeniVI shrugged off the critics in three words. "She's a beauty," he wrote. Under the rounded corners, Windows 11 will still put on a 25-year-old coat of paint if you ask.
