All this crap to the left in Explorer windows that takes up space for no good reason. Active Desktop. Uglier icons that are inconsistent with the many older Win 95-style icons that remain everywhere in the OS. It's not that bad on the whole, and you can reverse most of it, but it's a bloating and bastardization of the (unironically) finely honed aesthetic of Win95.
The left area was used for information like file size, disk usage, and image preview. There have been better implementations. But Windows 98 could suit either preference.
Windows 98's icons look very similar to Windows 95's. Windows 2000's look better and more consistent to me.
All this crap to the left in Explorer windows that takes up space for no good reason. Active Desktop. Uglier icons that are inconsistent with the many older Win 95-style icons that remain everywhere in the OS. It's not that bad on the whole, and you can reverse most of it, but it's a bloating and bastardization of the (unironically) finely honed aesthetic of Win95.