> Perhaps aesthetic - both Windows 1.0 and 2.0 were (to me at least) very ugly.
But it was amazing for those of us used to black and white/green/amber screens in DOS. You could put an image as your background. And it stayed there, lurking behind your word processor or spreadsheet, to spring back into your vision whenever you finished up your work.
One of the very first things I always do in any OS is to set the desktop background to solid color, usually black. I almost never ever will see it, coz there's always going to be a window on top of it, except upon startup for some brief period of time or if I accidentally minimize everything.
I work with full screen windows. Always (tiny number of exceptional cases maybe). I switch between windows with Alt+Tab when necessary. I also have a relatively small screen, both for work and personal stuff (14" for at least 10 years now).
But it was amazing for those of us used to black and white/green/amber screens in DOS. You could put an image as your background. And it stayed there, lurking behind your word processor or spreadsheet, to spring back into your vision whenever you finished up your work.