原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060111-09/?p=32693
During the development of Windows XP, the visual design team were very cloak-and-dagger about what the final visual look was going to be. They had done a lot of research and put a lot of work into their designs and wanted to make sure that they made a big splash at the E3 conference when Luna was unveiled. Nobody outside the visual styles team, not even me, knew what Luna was going to look like. On the other hand, the programmers who were setting up the infrastructure for visual styles needed to have something to test their code against. And something had to go out in the betas.
在 Windows XP 的开发过程中，视觉设计团队对系统最终的外观讳莫如深。团队进行了大量的研究，对设计投入了很大的精力，意在确保Luna主题在E3展会上揭晓时可以大放异彩。团队之外，没有任何人——即便是我对Luna会长什么样有所认知。另一方面，为视觉样式功能编写基础代码的工程师们，则需要一些可以用来测试他们代码的东西，而 Beta 版也总得放点什么进去。
The visual styles team came up with two styles. In secret, they worked on Luna. In public, they worked on a “decoy” visual style called “Mallard”. (For non-English speakers: A mallard is a type of duck commonly used as the model for decoys.) The ruse was so successful that people were busy copying the decoy and porting it to their own systems. (So much for copyright protection.)
视觉样式团队做了两个样式出来。在台面下，他们继续为Luna样式努力着，而面对公众时，他们做了一个『诱饵』视觉样式，名为『Mallard』（绿头鸭）。（致非英语用户：绿头鸭是一种常被用于诱饵模型的鸭子。）这一诡计实在是很成功，以至于人们都忙不迭地赶去复制这个诱饵主题、将其移植到他们的系统里去了。（版权保护什么的就算了吧。）
Windows XP 在开发过程中还曾出现过一个视觉主题叫“Watercolor”，水彩。这个视觉主题和当今的扁平化设计风格很类似（和Windows 8的Metro UI类似），我也挺喜欢这个视觉主题的。