I miss running setup.exe off of install media from a box and seeing the 256 color based blue gradient InstallShield installer
You know what I don’t miss? Getting to install floppy 13/15 and running into a bad diskette. I don’t know why, but I think about that a lot. I just REALLY wanted to play Wing Commander 2, I guess!
It’s tragic the InstallShield Wizard perished in the Great Meme War; giving his life to cast a spell that dealt a crippling blow to the QAnon Egrigor. Were it not for his sacrifice, the bastions of Wikipedia would have fallen.
I miss when games came with a little wizard
Also the proper startup sounds for a PC.
You knew you’d hit that good shit when the progress bar moved out of the way to show a fullscreen slideshow of game/cutscene screenshots. Bonus points for music!
Some of them had music! ... and then there's the Command & Conquer series installers which had more budget than an entire bargain-bin game
Also zero Downloads or last minute updates