@phnt @RustyCrab @deprecated_ii @sun Kind of. Active Desktop was a way to hack web pages into the background image, but it was still the core Explorer program underneath. WinXP had what you said but you could turn it off and go back to regular windows rendering. I give MS some slack on those because everyone was experimenting with the Web back then, and you could easily toggle it off.

But Windows has been on a long slide into retardation for decades now. I didn't realize they completed the journey with 11, figured it would take one more version.