KDE on Windows - Exploring the Forgotten Port

[@Pytak0703]

No sound for that authentic 2000s linux experience

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

I heard that a lot but I never encountered audio river issues at that time.

[@KSPAtlas]

​@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffeceI'm guessing you meant driver but I read that and immediately thought of the river window manager

[@vwvvvww]

​@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffeceWell, you can't hear much without audio drivers :)

[@PixlRainbow]

I suspect all the KDE apps here were made to pipe audio through pulseaudio but he hasn't installed pulseaudio for windows

[@skinwalker69420]

Oh the days before Pipewire. I was having sound issues as recently as this year because of fucking PULSEAUDIO AND THAT DUMMY OUTPUT SHIT GOD I FUCKING HATE PULSEAUDIO

[@ThatLinuxDude]

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT I thought this was lost media - we were relentlessly trying to find an archive of this recently to no avail, digging through archived mirrors and everything just for a chance, when all this time someone had archived it for at least a year while completely going under mine, and several others', radars... FINALLY, it is *good* to have KDE 4 for Windows back.

[@thunderous800]

ERM WUT TEH SIGMA

[@meow52190]

erm what the -sigma- geck

[@mjdxp5688]

I thought it was lost as well, I'm really happy it finally surfaced.

[@kubekawy0374]

​@@thunderous800 November 24, 2024

[@jayrony69]

lol, I just search kde on windows and I found it

[@sundhaug92]

Fun fact about Konqueror is that it's powered by KHTML. KHTML was forked by Apple to create WebKit, which they use for Safari. Google then used WebKit to create Chrome/Chromium (and later they forked WebKit to create Blink

[@leap123_]

And then Blink was forked by Qt to make QtWebEngine and that got used by KDE for the Falkon browser. It's literally the ship of Theseus of web browsers.

[@indrasishmajumder6359]

​@@leap123_full circle of life?

[@previousslayer]

Unfunny reality, neither KHTML- (until its discontinuation) nor WebKit-based browsers were a thing on Windows in the last few years 😭

[@BenitoiteBaTiSi]

proprietary built atop open source!

[@Sumire973]

tl;dr Konqueror is the first modern web browser, the rest used Konqueror's foundation to progress, including Firefox itself in some extent.

[@Snoozie280]

I love how the author of the post was very aware of what kind of content Michael makes. I wonder if he laughed when he read it for the first time.

[@lucss21a]

Well indeed. I actually watched him oftentimes, and knew that there's a possibility that he'll feature it, but not today 😅

[@Linkman8912]

edit: nevermind, I saw your comment further down ​​@@lucss21aare you the person in the original post, or did I misread your comment

[@ImNamo_]

Imagine how sick it would be if they finished the port, using the Plasma 6 DE on Windows 11

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

Yes! I use KDE on my home PC, but I need to have Windows on my work lappy, which I hate, especially because the Windows desktop looks and feels nothing like my KDE setup (my KDE desktop is setup up to look and feel like a modern cross between the Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and NextStep desktop environments), so going back to a Windows 11 desktop just feels so weird and oddly old fashioned. This could bridge the gap, allowing me to feel more at home on my Windows machine.

[@ottergauze]

KDE Plasma already rockets past Explorer in functionality, it'd be a must-have if i still used Windows

[@Smaxx]

Since Windows can run at least X11 apps through WSL now, makes me wonder if you could run a full desktop, too…🤔

[@Juanguar]

What I would give for this reality I absolutely hate 11 and Linux just didn’t do it for me for gaming since I don’t always use steam

[@SpiffingNZ]

@@Juanguar yeah but Lutris and Bottles exist for non-Steam games.

[@winelectronic101]

The fact that the reporter acknowledged MJD is hilariously absurd. Way to predict the future.

[@ciach0_]

This is the REAL Lindows!

[@vincenzomenniti5041]

*Kindows

[@thesrcrew]

w

[@какойтошизик]

Windows is already pretty Lindows ngl

[@KanokYT]

That took me back. I remember Lindows...

[@jefflem]

Winux

[@lucss21a]

Imagine the shock I found out when I find myself in a Michael MJD video. But yeah, thanks! I do find some obscure nitbits from time to time, like that time I was finding an original copy of Mac System 0.97 or tracking down a build of KDE Neon with KDE Plasma 5.0 for an anniversary post. It was wild stuff, but yeah, it is indeed an interesting project that I managed to look into once I was looking into KDE history, but arguably it'll be cool if I find other desktop environments in a similar initiative (native or WSL-based).

[@ThePr0_0149]

Cool!

[@archadam4657]

awesome

[@ThatLinuxDude]

@@lucss21a You are an absolute legend for this, I have upmost respect for your success in archiving Windows KDE4. Not even KDE 4 developers could find it when asked, and me and countless others tried relentlessly to find it, to no avail, while your efforts slipped under the radar. 🤝

[@lucss21a]

​@@ThatLinuxDude aww shucks, but it's indeed nice after all of these years, would you rather believe it I found all that on unmaintained, yet still online FTPs within East and Southeast Asia?

[@absolking1]

​@@lucss21athat sounds about right

[@Moremjd]

Next video: installing KDE for Windows on Wine

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

Running through the Linux subsystem inside Windows 11.

[@MetalTrabant]

Or installing Windows on Linux through Wine... man, that'd be a disaster, like ReactOS :D

[@kaiuweb974]

Haha yeah I remember how the task bar had a Win32 backend so Plasma on Windows would actually show open Windows windows. We axed that sometime during early 5.x in preparation for the Wayland backend. Also, whoever thought that using DBus on Windows was a good idea... I used Dolphin on Windows 8 since Windows Explorer is borderline unusable, especially back when it didn’t even have tabs. One of my few Windows-specific contributions to KDE Framworks was fixing drive letters in the Places panel lol

[@muizzsiddique]

Reading "Windows Explorer is borderline unusable so you use Dolphin" is crazy.

[@Wkaelx]

@@muizzsiddique Yeah man, when i first used Dolphin I couldn't(and can't) use the native Windows Explorer anymore.

[@QWERTYCommander]

Windows doesn't even look like a word to me anymore.

[@Ali.F]

@@muizzsiddique Dolphin has been better for ages - though KIO can be a lil funky at times.

[@xgui4-studios]

@@QWERTYCommander you dont have windows on your home ? ???

[@henningerhenningstone691]

I bet the reason for doing this was somewhere between "just for the sake of it" and "because they could"

[@louistournas120]

Seems like a waste of time to me. I would prefer if they ironed out the bugs in Dolphin.

[@henningerhenningstone691]

@@louistournas120 Oftentimes it's not even a case of "they" in these community-heavy projects, this is no corporation working behind closed doors. Could be that someone came along and was like "that could be fun", then proceeded to just do it

[@pinheirokde]

​@@henningerhenningstone691exactly what happened.

[@beardsntools]

That would make most sense.. I mean this is F'ing terrible and would convince me to not bother trying linsux at all. Besides to everyone thinking about trying linux... don't bother, it's simply inferior. Just use windows.

[@louistournas120]

@@beardsntools It depends. Linux is inferior in some areas but not others. For example, I don’t like the flat colorless look where everything is white of Windows. Under Linux, there are a lot of themes available. In my case, I can get that Win 95 look. There are no ads in Linux. I can install updates when I want to rather playing around with dates and times or installing third party solutions. Installing third party solutions implies that a major corporation such as MS is not listening to customers. The Windows world is great bc it is heavily focused on good user experience. Linux started out with a technology for web server administrators, some box that is behind the office, some box we don’t look at. If I run a Windows app and a DLL is missing or it crashes, I get a messagebox. Under Linux, nothing happens. When I make a recommendation about something, the response is, well, this software relies on this other software which has so and so limitation. So, Linux has this stack of one software using another one and that one using another one. They don’t fit together well. This is something that effects a few software. Installing LibreOffice on Windows is easy. On Linux, there is a bunch of deb files and it takes some command line. I like the way you can install and uninstall drivers on Windows.

[@jonglass]

Back in 2007 or 2008, I compiled the whole KDE desktop (3.something) on my PowerBook Pismo, just so I could compile and install one KDE-only app. It ran in Quartz, and I could either use the MacOS window manager or KDE's own WM. It was weird making KDE full screen, but even weirder to use XQuartz to let those KDE windows live in conjunction with MacOS windows, and even overlap. Those were heady days. I didn't know this was available for Windows. Thanks for sharing!

[@ajarivas72]

Please share the instructions to do it on Mac OS X.

[@afastaudir846]

How long did that take to compile...

[@jonglass]

@ days and days. That was just KDE. I compiled it from source from the Fink project. I don’t remember it having any issues but the app took another few weeks because it kept failing and I’d have to figure out what was wrong (invariably some new dependency, which I’d then have to download and more often than not, I had to download the source to that dependency and compile that too. I still remember the shock I felt when the app compiled without errors. I didn’t believe it until I ran it and it actually launched!

[@kbhasi]

@@jonglass In 2007 or 2008, that would've been KDE 3.5.x. I also remember seeing a KZbin video (probably gone by now) where someone was able to run stock* KDE 3.5 in full screen in XQuartz, and I think it was around that time I first heard about MacPorts, which according to what I'm reading on Wikipedia, still required packages to be manually compiled from source code at the time. *When I was using Kubuntu 8.04, I thought it shipped stock KDE 3.5, until I tried Slax and also saw that video I mentioned (along with one about failing to run KDE 3.5 in coLinux) and started realising that Kubuntu's setup was modified, much like how Ubuntu shipped a modified GNOME setup. 2008 was the year I was getting into Linux-based desktop OSes for the first time.

[@iodreamify]

did not expect a KDE4 video today :) for anyone who's watching, Kde plasma 6 made major strides since then and (imo) looks way more polished

[@xgui4-studios]

i am pretty sure this is kde3

[@iodreamify]

@@xgui4-studios well last release of kde 3 was in 2008 and the binaries in this video are from 2013. And also the application launcher here Kickoff has those large button-cattegories whereas as kde 3's launcher was more traditionally small and compact. Plus look at 0:33 the reddit post says version 4.10.2

[@sasha-fe2bl]

@@iodreamify KDE3 has Kickoff but this is still KDE4

[@glasseffect]

Windows 7 still looks more fresh and lively, than any other later iteration.

[@mgordon1100]

Windows 7 was the OS that was built to work. Consumers were lied to about ME. It's my belief that they installed it on all the new computers for widespread testing of a beta before the final release of 7. Of course, I held onto XP as long as I could. BSOD aside, XP was a pretty solid system. It wasn't disappointed when I went to 7.

[@julespetrikov]

I really wish KDE would've become a valid alternative to Windows Shell that more and more Windows users would use. Regardless, KDE has Okular, Filelight, Kate, Elisa and KDEConnect available on Microsoft Store as well. I believe there are unofficial Dolphin builds for Windows too.

[@RubenKelevra]

Why use Windows in the first place? :)

[@donaldbaird7849]

​@@RubenKelevra Adobe suite, games with anticheat, etc

[@RubenKelevra]

@donaldbaird7849 ah, why not run that in a VM? 🤔

[@donaldbaird7849]

@@RubenKelevra Try playing games in a vm without a second gpu. It's not a good experience. A vm is not a good solution for adobe stuff either, it's not ideal since that vm is using up resources passively

[@xgui4-studios]

@@RubenKelevra i sadly need windows on bare metals for school .... that the issue ....

[@idk-sy3iu]

7:50 that's cuz on kde 3, before plasma 4 konqueror used to also be kde's file manager

[@cameronbosch1213]

That is correct. I mean technically the same could be done on Windows 98, 98 SE, 2000, ME, and even later versions of Windows 95; you could type a URL into Windows Explorer and it would work.

[@APPLP1E]

I still find it funny how the KDE dev team decided to merge the file manager and web browser into one.

[@kbhasi]

Yep! From what I could tell, Dolphin being the default file browser on KDE 3.5 was a Kubuntu customisation, and that change was integrated into KDE SC 4 for all distros. Likewise, the first version of the Kickoff menu was an openSUSE customisation that was also present in Mandriva Linux and was integrated into KDE SC 4 for all distros before it was eventually replaced or redesigned in KDE Plasma 5.21.

[@undefinedCat]

windows did it too, type in a url into the explorer ​@@APPLP1E

[@cameronbosch1213]

@@kbhasi So true on all of these. (AFAIK the kickoff menu is still there, just not the default anymore.)

[@georgeh6856]

In the early 2000s, shortly before I switched to Linux as my main desktop OS, I used cygwin. Cygwin created a Unix-like command line interface on Windows. I vaguely remember that cygwin allowed you to have a KDE environment running on a Windows machine. The Wikipedia article on cygwin goes into more details.

[@lucss21a]

It does, from what I have remembered. I was also planning on extending it on any KDE on Windows initiatives but I got no luck setting that one up because the servers were unalived.

[@optiquest86]

That was one of the options that I explored for an alternative shell to Windows before settling on BB4Win. KDE 3.5 under Cygwin did __NOT__ like being ran as a shell without a lot of kludging. A lot of the individual KDE applications were quite happy to run on Windows via Cygwin though! 😁

[@Reziac]

I've done this. It not only works well, it's portable -- once installed, you can drag it from one PC to the next. And yes it runs on Win10 and 11. (I use the apps, not the shell.)

[@Sylkis89]

I still have a local copy of this. My mom loves the games package. No other mahjong or solitaire suite that is available for windows compares. Also the best jumping cube game and so on. I keep it saved in the cloud as well so that I can load it onto her laptops wherever she gets a new one.

[@fusionsub]

0:45 OP summoned you lol

[@bluephreakr]

That hole 3 par in Kolf was _outstanding.._ Off the wall _edge_ into hole.

[@RadikAlice]

Joke's surely been done by now, but the instability is probably due to it being KDE 4. There's much I can say, but for example. Single-click open is a default they kept until KDE 6 IIRC Why? They finally relented, as basically every single distro changed it to double-click. And yeah, the old default theme (Oxygen) always gave me Aqua vibes. Also, fun fact about Konqueror I remembered when you opened it, pretty much every browser has a vestigial reference to it. KHTML is somewhere in the useragent

[@ghostraider4312]

Man I miss Windows 7 aesthetics. Simple easy to use.

[@MegaManNeo]

Eh... Vista looks better.

[@MoultrieGeek]

Windows 7 - The last decent version

[@No_True_Scotsman]

​@@MoultrieGeek What's wrong with 10?

[@AraiDigital]

Tons of telemetry and unnecessary bloat. Windows 7 would nearly always use less than a GB of RAM at any given time (for me at least) on a brand new spanking install without having to do anything with it. Starting at Windows 8.1, but well known at 10, they added so much to it where it eats 2-3 GB on even a new install.

[@aleksandersats9577]

@@No_True_Scotsman Lots. It has built in spyware by microsoft, has built in ads, copilot which I believe was added somewhat recently, is slower and a bunch of other issues which all-together make it bad. Like the 2019 LTSC is the last decent version of Windows 10 that still gets updates.

[@serhatgulasti]

I remember this port. I tried to use it when I was a high school student who freshly met with Linux. Besides of Wubi, this fricking thing was frequently crashes and I can't remember a time that I could use the Plasma desktop. It was a good memory freshener. Thanks!

[@XzTS-Roostro]

FunFact: Apple WebKit (Developed by Apple Inc., Adobe Systems, Sony, KDE, Igalia, Alphabet/Google, Nikia, Bitstream, RIM (Research In Motion Ltd., now BlackBerry Ltd.), and others; initially released 4 November 1998) is a fork of KHTML (KDE HTML) & KJS (KDE JavaScript)

[@kendawg_mcawesome]

Damn, I forgot all about this. I remember at one point getting really excited, waiting to see the project mature.

[@ChuckFinley-m5e]

To this day I continue to use KDE4’s version of Kolourpaint, via the Chocolatey package manager, on Windows. I’m very pleased to see the full WinKDE suite preserved for posterity now. It was my favorite app suite for an OS.

[@nephatrine]

I use to use this back in the day. You can still get a couple of KDE apps on Windows still updated (straight from the Windows store even!) like Okular and Kate. EDIT: Ok you mention there are still some apps available for Windows!

[@nmac101]

does it run under wine? 💀

[@TheAzuratis]

Most likely usecase are people like me who need Windows on their work Laptop, have quite wide reign on them and Want their Plasma Desktop. I would love a working version of that Project to be honest. Having the full KDE Suit on a windows laptop which can also reliably all my technician specific work programs sounds like a dream come true.

[@konkondotzip]

as someone who has made the switch to linux a few months ago using KDE plasma 6, I had no idea this was a thing! pretty cool

[@AlexandruVoda]

I loved this at the time. I miss it. Glad to have it documented on video.

[@ssokolow]

In KDE 3, Konqueror WAS the file browser. It's just been hard enough to find maintainers for it that Dolphin and Falkon came into being. Konqueror is more a generic harness (think ActiveX, but done properly) where it was dragged into being a web browser because there's a KHTML KPart and an HTTP KIOSlave. Modern Konqueror relies on DolphinPart for the file view and the main difference is that Dolphin refuses to let embedded preview support drag it into becoming Konqueror all over again... but it still supports using KIO for stuff like navigating SFTP servers.

[@foddey_3543]

congrats on 500k man love the videos!

[@mistermind.]

Note: A couple of the KDE apps, like stable releases of Filelight is on Windows Store nowadays. I wanted to try this mysterious port since I heard of it. Thanks for the video.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

MJD continues to answer the questions we never knew we wanted.

[@theoldtechhandheldtinkerer4092]

Since the Steam deck is KDE and I found out about the software KDE Connect and man I love it, it's available for all operating systems, including mobile and allows for a plethora of connection features, main one being transferring files, of any size, between devices over the network, you can also use your phone as a keyboard and mouse for your computer, run CMD commands remotely, push local clipboard. and depending on what device you connect to there are more functions.

[@cameronbosch1213]

I actually heard of this before this video, but I completely forgot it existed! Of course, given it's based off of KDE Plasma 4 (and thus Qt 4), it wasn't very stable. Hello from KDE Plasma 6.2 on Arch Linux (btw)!

[@iloveitwhenusuffer]

Arch (btw) for the win !!

[@thesrcrew]

hello from windows 11

[@OkarinHououinKyouma]

I use Arch btw

[@soundwyve-no8pf]

I use Debian btw 😎

[@lindsaymobil22]

I mean KDE 4 *was* stable past a certain point (4.5/4.6 was that turning point), and pretty damn good too. Though there's no denying the very early days of KDE 4 were... rough to say the least!

[@xorwcnrssk]

Imagining a world where I could just replace Windows 11's entire UI with KDE

[@xgui4-studios]

if you want kde you switch to gnu/linux ... if you workflow/use case allow it .... i sadly still need windows for smooth gaming experient with the laptop nvidia card and school

[@redroC171]

oh god I remember this, I even considered using it at one point but by that time I had switched over entirely to Linux and didn't want to bother with Windows at all whether on bare metal or a VM

[@LiveWireBT]

22:00 You are wondering about the use case? Well on second thought l can think of scientists. Actual scientists. Some of them would do that to their desktops just like you do in the video. Not for performance er better ergonomics, just for the sake of it. The Linux machines we had to support looked similar.

[@edvardeishen]

Holy shit, this thing just vanished from my memory. Now I remember installing this on my Windows 7 computer

[@philtkaswahl2124]

I miss this project. It was so cool hearing about it back then, and I was kinda bummed when it fell through.

[@markusTegelane]

The "home folder" is just %userprofile%

[@xgui4-studios]

in linux it is ~ !

[@cirkulx]

@@xgui4-studiosor $HOME if you want to conform to variables

[@kajoma1782]

%HOME%

[@x.xlx.x]

I wouldn’t mind a 3 hour MJD video

[@your_sweetpea]

14:45 Note that Filelight is an example of one of these applications that still has a modern Windows port, I use a newer version of it on all of my Windows machines.

[@mjdxp5688]

Oooh, this is really exciting, I've actually been trying to find this myself but I never could get it to work! As far as I was concerned, I believed it to be lost media. Glad someone was finally able to find it and back it up!

[@EverRusting]

Now you made me aware of this, I desperately need it.

[@sebastian19745]

I had been using KDE at home on my Slackware machine, around 2011, but at work we had Windows XP. So, when I found KDE for Windows, I just installed at work. Needles to say, the IT was intrigued and after few weeks, they reset my computer. But while I used it, it felt ok, as far as I remember.

[@Technilogica2019]

i dont begin to know who the target audience of this port would be, nor do i know how you would use it longterm, but im glad it exists

[@HIDLad001]

They should do this again. KDE and Qt are so much better and more consistent as well as more customizable than the Windows 11 UI. But you might as well just use Linux at that point because it is free from Microsoft spyware.

[@arnox4554]

Very true. Back then, there wasn't much point to this at all as the Windows 7 interface and built-in tools were already so damn good, but now, with Windows 10/11 being the abominations they are, a full KDE port might actually make sense. But also, as you say, might as well just install MX Linux at that point and be done with it.

[@ilonachan]

If there was a way to create some kind of "Windows Distro", which runs on the NT kernel and packages all the system modules one would need to run BASICALLY ALL programs (with spyware removed or patched out ofc), but runs on KDE Plasma and has a bunch of better infrastructure with shell and stuff… it's the most stupid way to circumvent the need for Wine, but it might be fun to try.

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

Yeah, unless circumstances outside your control force you to use Windows, such as for specific software required for education or work.

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

@@ilonachan I think at some point it will pretty much turn into a Linux distro that runs on the NT kernel, in which case you might get into some serious legal trouble with Microsoft.

[@HIDLad001]

@ For that kind of stuff, if it won’t work in WINE, I will use it on a debloated Windows 11 install running in QEMU.

[@SCMabridged]

MJD just casually flexing that he's a god at Kolf.

[@APPLP1E]

KDE seems to be the only Linux organisation that makes Windows versions of their software

[@DanielAnderssson]

Makes sense why they would honestly. GNU is more than Linux

[@nikunjkhangwal]

​@@DanielAndersssonHow GNU has anything to do with KDE?

[@VonVikoGoat]

not really, many windows applications run under GTK (Gimp Toolkit) which was made for gimp and later on got used by desktop environments like GNOME or other linux software that then got ported to windows

[@UltimatePerfection]

Well, certain GNOME apps such as GIMP have official windows versions too.

[@Wkaelx]

QT works better on Windows than GTK, some aplications like VLC, Gimp, Blender are ported and many others but some devs just don't care or don't want to have all the trouble for 5 people to use it.

[@Lofote]

12:00 Yes I remember that was the one thing missing in tetris for C64: the ability to let it drop faster but not instant to bottom. But we C64 users got by far the best Tetris music ever, running over 20 minutes.

[@adamsfusion]

I unironically used this for quite a while back in the day. It was very "kludgy" feeling, but man it felt like the future.

[@MrNessuno1994]

5:57 KDE did in 2013 what windows 11 can't do right now... 2 folders at the same time

[@WinterRidozi]

What about Explorer Tabs?

[@youtubiers]

I installed this at the time... It was great having KDE apps on windows! Was trying to find it recently but had no idea where to look. Thanks for the video

[@kbhasi]

That "Notes" you found was likely made for the Plasma Active project that was later discontinued.

[@Johnny31323]

The problem with KDE is that it behaves more like a maximized application with interconnected sub-applications that can run either through Explorer or alongside it, but not as native components of Windows Explorer. It's not a true Explorer alternative. In fact, creating a replacement for Explorer is nearly impossible, as it's deeply integrated into newer versions of Windows. Windows 7, for example, still has a basic fallback approach to display 'windows' even when Explorer isn't running, similar to Windows XP. Even if someone managed to create an Explorer alternative, there would be tons of bugs and limitations which couldn't be fixed. Microsoft itself states that Explorer.exe is a "critical, deeply embedded service required for running and maintaining Windows functionality." This might explain why it was discontinued. Maybe the developers couldn't get Windows applications to function properly without Explorer.

[@ThatRandomToast]

Metro/UWP apps won't run new instances when explorer.exe isn't running. Developers of Explorer7 for Windows 10/11 (a fork of Ex7forW8) are getting UWP apps to work.

[@TrentonMatthews]

Could someone please tell Michael MJD, that escargot and Nina now have AOL instant messenger support open to the public? Also escargot 2.0 is in the works! I don't know when he will do a video on the latest happenings with escargot and Nina, but I'm sure he would have a field day, even just reading the news page over there would be a thrill for him to look at! PS. I am a supporter of their project.

[@ssokolow]

I'd hope the Oxygen KBlocks theme would fit in with the "KDE Design Language". Oxygen was the name of KDE 4's default theme.

[@EdnovStormbrewer]

This was back when KDE was at their worst state. I remember trying out KDE 4 on Linux and instantly regretted it. But now everything is a lot more stable now than before, seeing this not only brings nostalgia, but it makes me feel grateful of seeing the features we have now making KDE DE for Windows an important piece of history. I think KDE on Windows would've had potential if they had continued developing it, and if it wasn't for the fact that Microsoft changed everything on their code and did evil things on Windows 10 and 11

[@cookiehead.]

Wow, just yesterday I was thinking about KDE on Windows, and had actually downloaded some apps from the KDE website.

[@madfinntech]

2:21 Windows 7 is still the most beautiful version of Windows, if not any desktop operating system ever!

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

Well, since you can make Linux look like literally anything, I have to respectfully disagree.

[@xgui4-studios]

@@Michael-Archonaeus linux itself is just a kernel ... not a de

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

@@xgui4-studios Yeah...

[@SIG7Pro]

@@Michael-ArchonaeusMost Win7 themes hardly work/look right honestly.

[@nmcli]

@@xgui4-studios you know what they mean dumbass stop trying to sound smart

[@reezlaw]

It's incredible that they ported all that stuff, so much work

[@snap_oversteer]

I faintly remember there being something similar from GNOME, not sure if official and if it included so many (or any) applications, but I remember playing with it around 2014, changing icons pretty much system-wide to look like GNOME etc.

[@idk-sy3iu]

5:18 that used to be the default on kde for a long time, they changed it only with plasma 6

[@cameronbosch1213]

Though afaik many distros that didn't serve a completely stock Plasma DE changed it anyway because of Windows.

[@Fancy2209Real]

Dolphin still has a Windows port, i wonder if itd be possible for plasma to be ported to windows again

[@pocketsizedweeb]

I wonder if somebody hacked explorer.exe to customize it directly instead of policy/regedit changes?

[@awesomekalin55]

So is Kleopatra, part of GPG4Win

[@mini_bomba]

unlike explorer.exe, dolphin only handles the file browser, plasmashell is what's behind the actual desktop

[@thatredkite8310]

Kate the text editor is even on the Microsoft store

[@Fancy2209Real]

​@@mini_bombaI am aware, and good thing it is. The fact that the whole shell is on explorer.exe makes me scared to know how messy that app's code is

[@nailington]

A friend of mine actually has made newish kolf builds for windows. It has some mods added into it, mainly for proof of concept

[@RemyJustice97]

You could also set windows to be single click to open folders and files. I had my childhood winxp set up that way for years

[@throwaway6478]

You still can, even in the latest 24H2: File Explorer -> Options* -> General tab -> Single-click to open an item (point to select). * Called "Folder options" in Windows 10 and earlier.

[@vpun215]

Love your vids man! Been watching since 2020 and have to say you are the only channel that I have never not stopped my work to watch a vid! Thanks for this epic video

[@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus]

Oh God I tried installing this on my mother's work computer as a teenager ten years ago... My sins come back to haunt me xD

[@Cart1416]

that'a cool, I wish there were more explorer options for windows, but I use Linux now

[@TopiasSalakka]

I actually remember using this back in the day, probably 2013-2014. I was studying information and communications technology at the time, i found about this and installed it on one school computer just to test.

[@c.rosenfeld]

Congrats on 500K subs!

[@CubeAtlantic]

idek, that was a real thing on Windows that boosted-up odd & relaxin' nostalgia.

[@gustofing]

The home folder in Dolphin explorer actually points to your user folder, it's not just shortcuts, they're the actual folders, same way `cd ~` goes to the user folder as well.

[@XRTerra]

I'm using KDE Plasma right now and "Plasma" on Windows is the most cursed thing I've ever seen

[@macyler]

Several different options for the same task, but none of them work correctly. A shell that is nothing but an outdated, horrible mess that someone somewhere actually tolerates, and no sound. Incredible, they've managed to bring almost the full Linux experience to Windows. The only things missing are all the other drivers failing to work, the system just shitting itself randomly, and update popups several times per day.

[@Azureusz]

KDE4 looked great, I loved it. I have even tried KDE on Windows, but not 4.10. Maybe I make a backup archive to myself.

[@kubev]

7:41 - I'm trying to remember whether it was an older version of Opera or what, but I recall another browser having an Up button as well as buttons to go Left and Right to navigate through images on a Web page as a gallery. Really cool feature.

[@Poorgeniu5]

I can foresee a Github project dedicated to finishing this port and then somehow modernizing it to current KDE version.

[@jemoeder5347]

This must have been the year of the Linux desktop!

[@40percentyt]

The descriptions for applications in parenthesis is actually something native to linux, and not just kde. Most applications that get added to the Menu have similar descriptions and/or "comments". These can show up in various places depending on the environment you use. Windows has something similar, but it's a little more obscure so it looks like they included them in the filename directly.

[@kqelinn]

congrats on 500k! hard to believe I subbed nearly 7 years ago 😵‍💫

[@MichaelMJD]

Thank you!

[@jhatsworld]

If imma be honest I used to fall asleep to your videos because you have like the voice of like one of those documentary narrators. (Not a bad thing, been watching since 2020 and have loved the content since then)

[@slacky00]

I remember trying this back when I was first introduced to KDE. Did not use it past a couple of days But these days, Okular is one of the best pdf viewers in Windows

[@previousslayer]

fun stuff about the whole thing, i meddled with it in 2012 taking it for something granted, blink of an eye 12 years pass and it's been no more for 11 out of them.

[@mocha2-i6b]

i forgot about this. i was reading this back then on the kde website. i never really got to installing it on my desktop ;(.

[@xgui4-studios]

kde plasma stiill exist in gnu/linux

[@Ankhaz]

Wow not way to late to a michael mjd video for once

[@HouseOfFunQM]

You said WELCOME properly!

[@AB-Prince]

with big parts of the KDE desktop not working, I have to wonder if it's because they ran into issues implementing certain core features, or they just stopped mid way through supposing most people would use the windows desktop anyway.

[@testla3383]

Plasma 4's aethestic mixes well with that of Windows 7's Aero, this brings back memory of the peak windows days It was not this buggy when I used years ago. Also I can't believe you run the shell without at least adding the "windows" widget to the dock

[@joshuakoa9596]

Loved using KDE for Win back in the day

[@unclerubo]

I did try this back in the day. I had been daily driving KDE since around 2005, but I still dual booted Windows for most of my gaming sessions. I wanted this to work because I found Windows infuriating compared to all the functionality I had in KDE. That said, KDE 4 was absolutely broken when it came out and that gave birth to a long lived reputation of KDE being unstable, which fortunately is no longer the case.

[@leonthayne]

Videos just reminds me how much I miss Windows 7.

[@Darkwanjin]

thank you for bringing this back to 2024, I forgot about that project, you presented it well 🙂

[@gryphonavocatio]

I remember when they tried to push that. I've been a KDE user since like 2004, and if I had been a Windows user I would have given it a shot.

[@gavinjones]

Oxygen theme ❤ It looks so good after a bit of customisation

[@CrippleX89]

They've come such a long way!