What algorithm did Windows XP use to choose your initial user picture?

 (devblogs.microsoft.com)

32 points | by soheilpro 1 hour ago

5 comments

  • cgio 24 minutes ago
    The times when people spent an extra brain cycle to avoid billions of second passes.
  • bombcar 8 minutes ago
    Does it also check existing users so you don't match one?
  • jasonvorhe 47 minutes ago
    A couple of screenshots would've been useful for the post-millennial generations that never got to see the "beauty" (cough) of XP.
    [-]
    • moritzwarhier 35 minutes ago
      Here's a blog post from 2003 with beautiful pictures.

      https://jakeludington.com/2003/12/17/create_your_own_windows...

    • PalmPilotProMax 11 minutes ago
      I don't see how that's relevant? Article is about the RNG implementation, it doesn't matter what the profile pictures are.
    • Maken 22 minutes ago
      XP is Microsoft's prettiest OS by far.
      [-]
      • mrweasel 11 minutes ago
        That's a matter of taste, but for many it was the Windows they used first and/or spend the most time on and there's a lot of love for that reason alone. I never used XP all that much, but I always changed the theme to the Windows 2000 look. I really didn't like the default, it looked unprofessional and clunky in my eyes. Upon release XP was also pretty universally mocked as a Fisher Price-like UI.

        To me Windows 95/NT 4 is still the gold standard in Windows UI. It's certainly not the prettiest, that would be Windows 2000, but it was easy to use, easy to navigate and efficient with space.

        [-]
        • TazeTSchnitzel 3 minutes ago
          The "Windows Classic" look on XP is exceptionally ugly, because those 3D-rendered icons just do not belong on a Windows 2000-style grey background for menus or buttons. (I have recently had to test both these OSes in VMs…)
    • CalRobert 29 minutes ago
      I thought it looked great :-/
  • bhaney 34 minutes ago
    100 seems like a very unnecessarily low limit, even for the time
    [-]
    • daveoc64 20 minutes ago
      It's well above the number of images that were in the applicable folder by default, so seems pretty appropriate to me.
  • moritzwarhier 33 minutes ago
    Some say the Admin account defaulted to a chessboard.

    I think it's true, but not sure if I'm just falling victim to false memories... help?

    [-]
    • TazeTSchnitzel 1 minute ago
      The account named "Administrator" account that Windows created for you always had the chess piece.
    • xx_ns 3 minutes ago
      It makes sense. The chess piece is the first profile picture in the list.
    • bhaney 6 minutes ago
      There's no way my memory of this is reliable anymore, but I also remember my administrator account being chess pieces (and my user account being an orange fish).
    • bombcar 9 minutes ago
      It might be that the randomization code was bypassed in some cases - like creating an account in safe boot mode or similar.
    • abhinavk 13 minutes ago
      I remember it like that too. Or is it Mandela effect?
      [-]