What were the internal politics at Microsoft at the time that resulted in the .NET branding being pushed more aggressively than Copilot today, everywhere from the login screen to file associations?
Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
81–90 of 121 posts
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#82I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…
I find this take (from the guy who wrote the Windows task manager while at Microsoft) to be evenhanded.
> Windows "SUCKS": How I'd Fix it by a retired Microsoft Windows engineer.
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#83I wish this was more of a full tour than a random sampler of Windows versions. For instance I feel like Windows Me introduced the online search but it's been like... 26 years... since I've used it. > Now there's a big gap. I don't have access to anything between Windows XP and Windows 10. So, Windows 10 (2015) is next I'm guess these are just what the author already had set up. They're not really difficult to find or…
[flagged]
You're right of course, but a comment like this is a bit on the mean side, so probably best avoided.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#84I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…
I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. I'd choose XP instead. People disputing the performance maybe should consider the hardware at that time. Real problem with 9x was low-level stability. Juggling with compatibility was difficult, file access comes to mind, it was a kludge. It was possible but hard to maintain the system in a sensible state. XP was the first to bring NT architecture to desktop. It was a huge success.…
XP also introduced activation, which is one of the reasons I prefer Windows 2000 to XP.
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#85I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…
Windows 9x did not feel ‘performant’. This is a false memory people seem to have. Spinning rust hard drives were slow. It took ages to launch a program - loading screens typically had time to display a progress bar and a series of notes about what they were up to - ‘loading extensions’, ‘reticulating splines’, etc. Word would stall whenever it was autosaving. Carrying out an operation like spell checking or doing a f…
> It took ages to launch a program - loading screens typically had time to display a progress bar and a series of notes about what they were up to - ‘loading extensions’, ‘reticulating splines’, etc.
Just like today, without the progress bars. And some "apps" even cheating by being preloaded in memory.
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#86I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…
Nah, that goes to either Windows 2000 or Windows 7.
Windows 2000 was the last version of the Windows NT lineage with Dave Cutler in charge of everything.
His no-nonsense attitude towards fixing known bugs was sorely missed in later versions as Windows quality began its decline.
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understood why file open/save dialog is a separate thing. I want to use my file manager to open and save files!
You need a separate UI to handle things like entering the file name and filtering for appropriate files. Windows was designed so that the same file browser component is used in the Explorer and in open/save dialogs (but with Windows 7-era UI), but on Linux, which file manager should GTK use? GTK sometimes likes to pretend it’s separate from GNOME.
I'd love if that UI was part of the file manager. totalcmd.exe or Finder.app or mc or Krusader etc.
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#88Windows has had a few of these "look online" options for decades now, to look up unknown extensions, to find drivers for unrecognised devices, etc. Not a single time in the many, many years of using Windows did any of those ever find anything useful for me.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft just put them in there to mock us.
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#89I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…
Windows 9x did not feel ‘performant’. This is a false memory people seem to have. Spinning rust hard drives were slow. It took ages to launch a program - loading screens typically had time to display a progress bar and a series of notes about what they were up to - ‘loading extensions’, ‘reticulating splines’, etc. Word would stall whenever it was autosaving. Carrying out an operation like spell checking or doing a f…
By 2000, Windows 98 felt extremely performant. By 1995, Windows 95 was the bloated thing trying to replace Windows 3.11 that would take ages to boot and needed minutes to respond to a click at random.
Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file
#90This is such a typical pattern of enshittification from Microsoft. Something Windows 3.1/95/2000/XP made easy - adding a File Type Association - became increasingly contorted over time.
If I recall correctly, in Windows 7 they removed the File Types Manager and you had to either edit the registry directly to adjust existing associations, or resort to a third party app.
By Windows 10 even simply creating a new association for an unrecognized extension seems to require more clicks and scrolling down to a hidden option.
I would love to meet the mastermind morons behind this himan-unfriendly UI and give them a piece of my mind.