WinCustomize Turns 25: A Quarter Century of Making Windows Yours

Wincustomize was started in 2001 and in internet years, that's about as old as the Big Bang. And twenty-five years later, the site is still going strong delivering millions of themes, icons, wallpapers, and more to users around the globe.

When WinCustomize.com first landed, the desktop customization scene was the Wild West. There were scattered forums, random download sites, and a lot of broken links as well as a myriad of chat applications like AIM, ICQ, and others who had their own communities for desktop customization. 

Windows, during the past couple of decades, has tried a few different designs that have ranged from corporate (Windows 95/98) to the opposite end of the spectrum with Luna for Windows XP that was often described as the Fisher-Price theme. And thanks to Microsoft's choices, theming Windows is also what makes Windows, Windows.

Over the past 25 years, there have been millions of downloads across skins, themes, wallpapers, icons, cursors, and more. The artists, the skinners, the tinkerers and the people who refuse to accept "stock" as good enough have helped keep WinCustomize fresh with new content all these years later. While the tools like WindowBlinds are fantastic for skinning, it's the community that brings the desktop to life with themes that bring out the personality of each individual user.

For the year ahead, we do have plans to continue to improve the site. The first major update will be a serious overhaul to the forums of this website that should improve performance, allow us to easily add new features, and eventually, new customization categories. And later in the year, we plan to add a new category that will make sharing Start menus a lot easier too.

Twenty-five years in and Windows keeps changing but the constant is that while Microsoft builds for the billions of users, WinCustomize makes it possible to make Windows yours.

To everyone who has created, commented, and shared ideas on WinCustomize, the entire team at Stardock thanks you for being part of this corner of the web.