The source leak of the Windows XP last week has surfaced severe features and themes that Microsoft has developed for it in early days. Out of them, one theme codenamed “Whistler skin with eye candy” raised eyebrows, since it closely resembled Apple’s then Aqua UI for Mac computers. It was never released since marked for internal use only.
Microsoft Made a Windows XP Theme Mirroring Mac’s Aqua UI
Continuing the accusations between Apple and Microsoft over copying features, a latest source code leak of Window XP adds a dishonouring point to Microsoft. This is because the diggers at The Verge pointed out an old theme found in Windows XP’s leaked source code, that resembled closely to Apple’s then Aqua UI.
Apple’s Aqua UI was made for Mac computers that released just 18 months before the Windows XP’s launch. Although Microsoft released Windows XP with a blue and green Luna finally, the newly found theme resembled Apple’s Aqua UI in a lot more ways. Several buttons including the Windows XP Start button and various UI elements were part of this.
This was codenamed as “Whistler skin with eye candy” (whistler meaning Windows XP) and is a big OS upgrade for Windows users since it allowed a lot of customisation including the support for third-party themes to overlay. It was so popular that, it’s still being used by some users after 19 years of launch!
The source code leak last week could be deemed sensitive since there millions of computers running Windows XP even today. Alongside Windows XP, the leaked database worth 43GB on 4chan bulletin contained source code for Windows 2000, Windows CE, MS-DOS, Windows Embedded and Windows NT and few conspiracy videos against to Bill Gates.