Microsoft Hasn’t Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold

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Here is every GUI technology actually shipping on Windows today:

Microsoft native frameworks

  • Win32 (1985) – Still here. Still used. Petzold’s book still applies.
  • MFC (1992) – C++ wrapper on Win32. Maintenance mode. Lives in enterprise and CAD.
  • WinForms (2002) – .NET wrapper on Win32. “Available but discouraged.” Still fastest for data-entry forms.
  • WPF (2006) – XAML, DirectX-rendered, open source. No new Microsoft investment.
  • WinUI 3 / Windows App SDK (2021) – The “modern” answer. Uncertain roadmap.
  • MAUI (2022) – Cross-platform successor to Xamarin.Forms. The .NET team’s current bet.

Microsoft web-hybrid

  • Blazor Hybrid – .NET Razor components in a native WebView.
  • WebView2 – Embed Chromium in a Win32/WinForms/WPF app.

Third-party

  • Electron – Chromium + Node.js. VS Code, Slack, Discord. The most widely deployed desktop GUI technology on Windows right now – and Microsoft had nothing to do with it.
  • Flutter (Google) – Dart, custom renderer, cross-platform.
  • Tauri – Rust backend, lightweight Electron alternative.
  • Qt – C++/Python/JavaScript. The serious cross-platform option.
  • React Native for Windows – Microsoft-backed port of Facebook’s mobile framework.
  • Avalonia – Open source WPF spiritual successor. Used by JetBrains, GitHub, Unity – developers who stopped waiting for Microsoft.
  • Uno Platform – WinUI APIs on every platform. More committed to WinUI than Microsoft is.
  • Delphi / RAD Studio – Still alive. Still fast. Still in vertical market software.
  • Java Swing / JavaFX – Yes, still in production. The enterprise never forgets.

Seventeen approaches. Five programming languages. Three rendering philosophies.

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WinForms (2002) – .NET wrapper on Win32. “Available but discouraged.” Still fastest for data-entry forms.

Super Fast!

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Jim Carrey Idk GIF

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I was a child through half of that timeline, so I just believed it all – until I realized it was AI generated … Disregard. I’ll look it up for myself if I’m ever interested again

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I didn’t zoom in on the image until I seen your post. :rofl:

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I do remember some of the highlights. For instanced the 2012 “hunger games” one. I don’t remember if it was 2012 when it occurred but I do remember them having a competition dev teams.

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Just scooped up from the Blog. I really just cared about the list. Big Petzold fan here.

Good Discussion:

We’ve ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. Not out of malice, but out of a misguided aim to reduce complexity and achieve consistency with the web.

I would argue that desktop is the platform for power users, and its future depends on them. The keyboard shortcuts, the micro-interactions, the window management – this stuff is all important when you’re using a system for 8+ hours per day.

Yet we risk desktop experiences becoming less useful due to the UI becoming “dumber” as we keep shoehorning websites onto the desktop. Website UI is dumb. It’s mouse driven, keyboard is an afterthought. There’s no consistency, and you have to re-invent the wheel every time to get the details right (almost never happens).

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GUIs are soooo 2026. Agents are the end of user interfaces.

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Star Trek Reaction GIF by reactionseditor

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