I don’t know why I even bother opening the settings app
You go deep enough and very Windows 95 looking menus pop up. Like are they building over the old system? It’s all very strange.
yes they are, actually. Backwards compatibility is a huge thing in Windows, it’s why you can’t name files certain names such as CON, and why you can find things from 3.1 etc. still.
Fun Fact: Every single Exe today still checks prior to running whether it is Barbie Riding Club (1998) or can it run normally?
Because when you update your OS and your game breaks - you don’t blame Hasbro, you blame Windows every time. You can’t just call up Sierra Games and ask them to update - they don’t exist anymore and so you must carry everything forward - bugs included.
That fact does seem really fun and interesting. Why barbie? Got any links so I can read up on it?
I know there was an old hack for simcity but I’ve never heard about barbie. I’ve checked and the claim seems to come from (now removed) @pwnallthethings twitter account. What he refers to there is that Windows indeed maintains a compatibility database, which, unlike the normal compatibility menu, allows more compatibility tweaks and works entirely automatically. On my fresh win11 install, the compatibility administrator tool lists a few hundred compatibility shims and thousands of apps listed, with “Barbie Adventure Riding Club” indeed being one of them
DesktopHorse/HorseHook.dll
Great find :)
I see PwnAllTheThings is on Mastodon:
PwnAllTheThings: Twitter was special. But it’s time to leave
I found the mind share that Apple enjoys makes this kind of inverted when things don’t run right on OSX or iOS whereas android is more in the Windows boat.
it’s why you can’t name files certain names such as CON
To expand on this: The reason you can’t name files CON, etc., is because of a program from the 1960s called Peripheral Interchange Program (PIP), a program used in Digital Equipment Corporation’s computers. The overall OS that PIP was part of was called CP/M.
DOS, which came out in the 80s and was made for IBM computers, was modeled after CP/M, and it kept and expanded the capabilities of PIP.
Then Microsoft came along and created a modified version of DOS called MS-DOS which IBM started using.
Eventually, Microsoft created Windows 95, merging two initially separate products: MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Microsoft left in the code for handling CON, etc., but they hadn’t put in any limitations for filenames, which caused some bugs. So, from the next version of Windows onward, they disallowed the ability for anything to name a folder or file “CON”, among other related things.
So the reason you can’t name a file or folder “CON” is because of a 60-year-old file-copying program nobody uses anymore.
That’s what happens when your entire business model is promising to support [your business name here]'s favorite feature forever. It makes a lot of money, but boy does it make for a terrible product
There’s some even older UI bits buried around in there:
At some point last year I had a Japanese program launch a popup window that was clearly from pre-NT Windows. So bizarre.
That looks to be an Access prompt, from the MS office suite. If you’ve ever written a macro you know how ancient the UI looks behind the scenes with those apps, and this isn’t even a main line office app since it deals with databases and they push excel to work with sets of data like that.
So yes it’s a Microsoft product, but it’s not really native Windows and it’s not an app that makes a lot of sense to spend a lot of time developing.
Just for accuracy’s sake. I’m certain there are better examples.
Anyways, I’m perfectly fine with dated UI as long as it’s efficient and does what it’s supposed to do. If they perfected this stuff way back when you had one chance to ship out a working product, is it really necessary to reinvent the wheel just for aesthetics? Cause that’s how you get a neutered settings app instead of a fully functional control panel.
“Wait- It’s all Windows NT?”
🌍🧑🚀🔫🧑🏽🚀
Always will be
Yes, actually.
Well, it’s more like they update the old stuff and still add new stuff on top of it. That way, generally speaking, Windows can remain compatible with older programs.
It’s actually insane how difficult it can be to find settings in windows. Especially when the indexing breaks for the 1000th time and you can’t just search for it in the start menu.
Hey, maaaaaybe you wanted to search how to do that in Bing!
-Windows
nope, they definitely wanted an AI answer.
AI answer: Type the setting into the start menu search bar. The first result will be the setting you’re looking for.
This is the start menu experience:
“Photoshop”
*Wait 15 seconds *
“Here are some results from bing:”
😡😡
Mac and Linux it’s instant, and not some garbage AI/ads/web search results.
Lol I installed open shell several years ago and have not looked back since. If I wanted to search the web with your shitty search engine, microsoft, I would have opened your shitty browser, now please sit down.
Probably shouldn’t have installed it on my work computer for security compliance reasons but it’s such an improvement in my workflow that I couldn’t not install it. Highly recommend. Legit cannot imagine using windows without it anymore. https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
I have no idea why it breaks like this so often too. And it’s such a pain in the ass to try to fix that I’ve generally given up on trying. At least when something very rarely happens with the indexer on Linux I know where to look to fix it.
Especially when you start typing something and it already started searching with your partial input and you your further and notice the thing your search for is first so you press enter, for it to now place another thing first with the extra input 😡
How can “displ” open display settings, but “display” opens a help page in Edge
This. You seem to have to give it less. Also it is just broken. I have excel installed, if i start typing excel ( even with app filter) it can’t present it to me, it wants to hand me an ad or info page about what excel is and where to download it from
I have a dual boot machine, windows takes forever to find sometging with or without indexing in use. Boot to linux I type 2-3 letters and GNOME/tracker index hands me files instantly. if I mount the NTFS windows partition in Linux and use the aearch in Nautilus it finds files faster than windows.
I just install list art on all my computers. I occasionally test the windows search but it fails spectacularly, 9.5 out of 10 times
I’ll have you know windows has changed.
Now you can’t move the task bar
Is this real?
Since Windows 11.
wow, microsoft is really putting all the me-repellants into windows 11 aren’t they
Username checks out.
In 11? I know I still can in 10.
Remember when they planned to move over all the Control Panel settings to the Settings app?
In Windows 10?
I still extensively use:
Win+R
ncpa.cpl
It’s still the only way I know how to easily and quickly change my NIC settings.
The worst part is to change some things it adds like an extra 4 clicks to the old method.
You can reduce keystrokes on that. Just tap the Win key instead of Win+R. Type ncpa.cpl and hit enter.
If you work on as many servers and desktops as I do, you’ll eventually encounter machines that have slow loading start menus and search, or search the web for some stupid ass reason instead. I’ll save that time with adding R. Still a 1 handed move anyhow
or search the web for some stupid ass reason
The reason was actually documented at the end of Halo 3; when Cortana got rampancy and subsequently infected all of our windows 10 start menus.
If you’re such a server and desktop expert, why are you not setting a GPO to disable the start menu web features??
If you’re such a server and desktop support expert, how do you gpo random client that call in, or new client and environments when you know nothing about them, or friend and families computers?
Listen, kid, when you’ve been in the game long enough you’ll come across unique scenarios enough to a point where it is God damn annoying.
Also who the hell GPOs network settings?
Kid. Lol. I’ve been in the game since before the invention of Windows servers
The start menu searching the web isn’t a network setting. It’s a setting for the behavior of the start menu.
You change a single flag in the registry on Windows and it tells the Start Menu not to do the behavior of searching the web. The unusual scenario as you cannot it is a common feature that can be turned on and off. The GPO lets you set that flag administratively. It’s not unique, and it’s something my level 1 help desk guys under my teams had no problem learning.
You’ve either been in the game long enough to become senile or the more likely case is your the kid and have no idea what you’re doing.
Bonus: there’s another flag to set the Start Menu to not search files. Set that one too and the search is lightning fast and only shows you programs and settings options.
Only 23 years?
I don’t think this bad lad has changed since Windows 3.1
3.11 as 3.1 had no networking capability.
Whenever I saw that old dialog it felt like a comfort blanket… that won’t ever let you go and entangle you in it’s comfy iron grip.
3.11 but yeah
deleted by creator
Ah yes. Well when I want to modify my IP address I do:
Win+R
Then I enter:
Ncpa.cpl
And hit enter. So easy.
Not so easy is the more useful printer settings:
Win+R
Then:
shell:::{A8A91A66-3A7D-4424-8D24-04E180695C7A}
🤦🏻
its faster to change the ip using the win11 settings app than with Control panel, also DNS over HTTPS is missing from control panel and only available in the settings app
I am really going to miss the old settings when they finally remove what is left of Control Panel. So far they have removed things or moved shit to force the Settings app. But they keep failing to make the new things have anywhere near the level of control. The power settings from Control Panel still matter way more than Settings and seem to actually stick when applied. And I just really have no idea how they have made stuff like resetting networking/connection issues worse over time. Fucking right-clicking on the networking icon on the taskbar and picking “repair” would actually get shit working again 8 times out of 10. But just seems to be a placebo at this point. There are still so many times that using different resets in Internet Options fixes more stuff I see regularly than the resets in Settings->Networking.
And the newer Troubleshooting options never fix any of the Windows Update issues I come across. Just a glorified verification of the failures I already know are happening. I never thought I would so badly miss being able to tell Windows Update to ignore updates if they were bugging out (not to avoid them all together but at least stop the OS from just constantly going through the motions of installing and failing during each reboot/shutdown). So many of the updates that used to give me issues were really either down to them trying to install out of order or due to a fuck-up on MS’s end that pushed bad updates.
The push to so deeply embed these AI models into everything so fast is really pissing me off. Shit is known to have issues with just outright making shit up. Which is IMO reason enough to not be adding them to end-products (especially since the end-products are also still not finished with removing old versions of things). One thing that really worries me in my job with fixing people’s PCs is the AI and search that pushes web content (and the now inescapable placement of ads) above local resources/programs/settings/etc. The main issues people have aren’t actual viruses like in the past. It is the massive levels of scams and fake alerts followed by fake “repair techs.” If the average person is so easy to trick when it is people scamming them. AI is going to blow shit up waaaaaaaay worse and will be able to do it so much faster and completely. Average people are still under the impression that these AI chats are giving completely real and accurate information (reminds me of how people used to believe that if something was said on TV that it was real).
Shit is fucked and going to get much worse at a dramatically faster rate due to rushing things in order to make as much money as fast as possible. Even Microsoft used to ship things in a more complete state. But gaming has made shipping broken products completely normal. So no reason to care about keeping any level of quality.
I was honestly excited about the new Settings when Windows 10 arrived. I was a Windows sysadmin for more than a decade and am intimately familiar with control panel and think it sucks. I hoped Settings would modernize and streamline. But here we are, so many years later, and many common tasks still lead us to control panel. Such disappointment.
And I just really have no idea how they have made stuff like resetting networking/connection issues worse over time.
While I generally agree with your comment, they did add an option (don’t know how long it’s been there) where you can right-click on the Internet icon, click the troubleshooter, and there’s a button immediately right there in the troubleshooter to reset the adapter.
Like why is it so hard for them? The underlying settings database doesn’t have to change, only the UI. Unless it’s all so messed up nobody dares touch it.
It’s like Windows is devolving into really, REALLY early Linux, where a single Control Panel application is broken up into a half dozen separate parts and scattered throughout the interface in a dozen separate sub-sub-sub menus.
You should NOT have to hunt for the “print” button in a freaking word processor.
Ctrl + p still works?
Because Microsoft went full Apple and adopted the “we know what’s good for you so don’t defy our decisions” philosophy of UX design.
The difference is that Apple usually executes it well, and Microsoft doesn’t.
You set a Windows PC to dark mode, half of the system is still bright white. Apple wouldn’t dream of doing that shit.
You start searching in the start menu, it’s slow, gives you different results each day, misses a bunch of stuff, and tries to send you to Bing. Apple wouldn’t dream of doing that shit.
Microsoft comes up with a new UX, but it’s only a thin veneer, most of the system doesn’t even use it and instead uses Win7 or earlier menus. Apple wouldn’t dream of doing that shit.
For all their flaws (and believe me I know they have many. I don’t intend to ever own an Apple product), Apple actually gives a shit about having a polished and consistent UX.
They wouldn’t have a dark mode that still leaves half the system white, they wouldn’t have 20+ year old UI cruft, etc.
The issue is that Apple had that mentality from the start. Microsoft tried to Frankenstein it in after the OS had already matured under a different UX philosophy, not only that, they also didn’t commit all the way to changing the philosophy since they still wanted legacy support. They basically ended up with the drawbacks of both philosophies and very little of the benefits of either.
They went full WEF
It’s not that because Microsoft is changing their own UI. IMO this is the typical corporate climber problem all corporations have. No one gets promotions maintaining software. So you get designers changing stuff for the sake of change so it can go on their resume.
As much as I hate apple, at least apple also caters to power users somewhat. Windows became so, so dumb.
Install Linux, be done with the Microsoft windows shit.
Wow, I had to scroll past 5 comments to see a Linux circlejerk. What’s happening to Lemmy??
I’m here to be jerked off by a Linux user, can anyone let me join in?
Meanwhile the KDE settings panel has been designed and redesigned like 20 times in the past 20 years. Much better, but also… Dude, please focus more on stability and less on “let’s redo this from scratch again!”
I kind of wish they would stop moving things around in the KDE settings. But at least the search works in submillisecond timing and I can always find what I’m looking for
Honestly KDE has the best settings of anything I’ve ever used. Everything is exactly where you would expect and the search is just about perfect if you somehow can’t find something.
I assumed they would try for feature parity at some point, but I think they forgot.
21st century Windows developer: “Hey! You know what people REALLY want in a text-based Office Suite? VERY very light gray text on a white background!”
Removed by mod
According to Dave Plummer, a retired Windows Engineer, there are actually bugs in some of the windows components because he intended for them to be temporary solutions, like the CPU or Hard Drive usage numbers had to be Massaged to be lower than 100%, for example. When the Task Manager doesn’t respond you can actually use Ctrl+Shift+Esc to queue up a new Task Manager if the old one doesn’t revive itself. That stuff hasn’t changed since 1996.
He also wrote the File Formatter, which has a file size limit of 32Gb for the Fat32 format for the same reason: it wasn’t supposed to be permanent, but it hasn’t changed for over 20 years. The concept at the time was that Cluster Slack would make a large drives like a terabyte more than 99% wasted space in the format, so 32Gb was arbitrarily chosen as a limit.
fyi Dave was involved in some scareware bullshit as one of the main actors and sued for it. Fuck this guy.
Very unfortunate to hear. I wonder how much of his YT Channel were lies?
I aggree. I really liked his videos until came across this info (back then on reddit).
file size limit of 32Gb for the Fat32 format
The limit was a 4GB limit, tho
The limit on formatting drives as fat32 is 32GB on windows though anything above 32GB and you have to go find a 3rd party tool to convert larger disks to fat32
They’re talking about the overall size, not the per file size limit.
