In a recent blog post, Microsoft encouraged us to "get nostalgic" with the new Microsoft Teams background. These backgrounds include the Windows legacy 'splainy paperclip Clippy, Microsoft Solitaire, and the meadow that was everyone's wallpaper in the early 90s.

These are good-looking backgrounds and make great desktop wallpapers if you don't like artistic video call backgrounds. The part of the blurb on the "Paint"-inspired backgrounds that stuck with me: "Paint, a product of the 1980s, was first introduced in November 1985 as part of Windows 1.0, the first version of Windows. And while the original Paint is still a favorite of many artists in production, its successor, Paint 3D, was finally released in 2017."

Paint 3D was widely disliked at the time of its release, and I dispute the implication that Paint 3D is a successor to Paint in any respect other than age. Microsoft proposed removing the original Paint in 2017, a decision so unpopular that it was returned to the Windows Store after an online petition and reverted to an OS built-in program.

These backgrounds are as wonderfully nostalgia-appealing as "Paint" itself, with its primary functions of "crop," "doodle," and "draw a big red arrow."

You can find background on Microsoft's blog, and you may even discover that they have hot and passionate opinions about some of Windows' history. Perhaps it's about Microsoft's Solitaire, which was built into the OS for over 20 years, then resurrected with ads that you have to subscribe to remove.