Looking "native" on Windows is a very difficult thing these days. To me classic Win32 is what "looks" native whereas all their modern apps like Mail and Calendar don't look native at all even though they are.
Office is native but has its own, unique look and feel that is different to other native tab interfaces built into Windows.
And don't get me started on context menus in Windows (ironic given this story). The design and items on a context menu is so inconsistent it drives me mad at times.
Consistency in Windows is a real pain point imho. I would love for Microsoft to just stop adding more crap to the shell like some weather or contacts fly-out and just spend a year getting everything consistent with a good, modern light and dark theme that works everywhere. I know it is easy for me to say that though.
(Office is not native. Easy to check since all the controls behave in their own particular ways, even on dialogs, and the look is strikingly different from the rest of the system controls. Most exacerbated if you run Office 9x on NT 3.x).
Office is native but has its own, unique look and feel that is different to other native tab interfaces built into Windows.
And don't get me started on context menus in Windows (ironic given this story). The design and items on a context menu is so inconsistent it drives me mad at times.
Consistency in Windows is a real pain point imho. I would love for Microsoft to just stop adding more crap to the shell like some weather or contacts fly-out and just spend a year getting everything consistent with a good, modern light and dark theme that works everywhere. I know it is easy for me to say that though.