What did I make?
Picked up where ship #1 left off and turned AeroOS into an actual usable desktop. Added a full boot sequence (shutdown > boot > lock screen > desktop), a top menu bar with working flyouts for battery, wifi, volume, and calendar, and a functional Start menu with search.
Four new apps: Settings (wallpaper, sound, network, accounts), File Explorer, Media Player, and a Games Explorer with 5 playable embedded games. Also added a custom right-click context menu and a Browser app.

What was challenging?
Keeping everything visually consistent as the app count grew. Every new flyout, window, and panel needed the same treatment as the original apps, so I ended up building shared pieces instead of copy pasting styles everywhere. Wiring the boot > lock > desktop flow through session state without it feeling janky took a few tries too.

What am I proud of?
The flyouts. Getting battery, wifi, volume, and the calendar to all feel like they belong to the same OS. The same borders, same shadows, same footer links was fiddly but it's the difference between "a pile of components" and "a coherent system."

How to test it?
Start on the shutdown screen, hit power, and let it boot through to the lock screen. Click "Log on" to reach the desktop.
Try the Start menu (bottom-left) and search for an app by name.
Open File Explorer, double-click an audio/video/image file: it'll launch in Media Player.
Check the top-right flyouts (wifi, volume, battery, calendar).
Right click the desktop for the context menu.

What did I make?
I built AeroOS! It's a fully functional, browser based desktop OS that's basically a love letter to the "Frutiger Aero" the popular aesthetic of mid 2000s (think Windows Vista, Windows 7, and early Mac OS X). I built a custom window manager so you can drag and minimize windows, added a 3D glass dock with that classic magnification effect on hover, and threw in a bunch of skeuomorphic apps. right now, it has a Notepad, a detailed mechanical analog clock, a live weather dashboard, and a Welcome app.

What was challenging?
Honestly, nailing the aesthetic was the hardest part. It is surprisingly difficult to recreate authentic 2000s glass UI using modern CSS. If you aren't careful, it just ends up looking like modern Apple glassmorphism. Getting that true Frutiger Aero vibe meant stacking crazy complex box shadows, using sharp 50% split linear gradients to get those harsh glass cuts, and layering inner white borders so the UI actually looks like thick, physical acrylic glass.

What am I proud of?
As a person who loves designing as much as I love web dev, I'm proud of how I was able to blend those two together. I'm really proud of the details, like the vista pearl CSS orb, the red counterweight on the analog clock’s second hand, and the custom Vista style cyan loading ring. Seeing all those tedious, tiny CSS tweaks finally come together into a desktop that actually feels like a real machine from 2007 is just incredibly satisfying.
How to test it?
Just head over to https://aero-os.vercel.app/ and you'll be on the desktop. Have fun!