The 20 Worst Windows Features of All Time

PC World Magazine ^ | 6-26-2007? | PC World Editors

[Turbopilot]

Introduction

In November of 1985, Microsoft released Windows 1.0. And thus began Windows' 22-year reign (to date) as the world's most popular, most irritating computing platform. Which Windows features have been responsible for the most angst? We tallied this list of offenders with the advice of PC World editors and contributors as well as members of the PCW community. Our roster includes several kinds of worsts: Just plain bad ideas, good ideas gone awry, and a few ideas that started out terrible but eventually became surprisingly decent. Click on the images above to see 'em all, starting with number 20.

[Turbopilot]

B4L8R

Huh?

[stainlessbanner]

Don't be jalousie

[dfwgator]

I think Bill Gates should have reconsidered this feature before putting it in:

[Turbopilot]

I just wanna know what the “Pastry” option is...

[discostu]

I object to Paint being on the list. Paint is great for exactly the reasons they don’t like it: it’s simple, it’s quick, it doesn’t do anything exciting. Anybody trying to write a bug about weird screen stuff loves Paint, instead of spending a paragraph failing to describe the problem, alt-Print Screen, open Paint, ctrl-V, save, attach to the bug report. It’s the Notepad of image editing.

[antiRepublicrat]

Is that the thing in Office where the menus hide most of their options by default, unless you click the little down arrow to display everything?

That's it. It blows some main rules of human-computer interaction, like consistency and motor memory.

But AFAIK nothing in Windows itself uses such menus, does it?

It's called "Use personalized menus" in the settings for the "classic" start button. I always said this should be an option you have to turn on, but then nobody would turn it on because it sucks, so why have it in there in the first place. You appear to be a perfect example for Windows.

[Still Thinking]

The Start Menu will do the same thing.

[RightWhale]

Windows originally had the time zones showing on its time zone map. Now it doesn’t. Why even bother with a time zone map that doesn’t show time zones?

Yes, this counts as a major complaint. The vast misuse of CPU cycles is not important since my programs run in an eyeblink even in the faux simulated DOS ASCII window.

[Still Thinking]

They have a time zone map with no time zones????? < droops head, shaking it sadly > I didn’t think even Redmond was THAT lame.

[kidd]

I have some old Windows 98 installation CDs.

I found out that if you play them backwards that you can hear satanic messages.

But its even worse if you play them forwards...it installs Windows.

[Turbopilot]

I agree 100%. That was the most glaring error, IMO. I've also never had any problems with the search, and I don't understand the complaint about the shutdown - shouldn't computers be able to be turned off?

They also failed to distinguish between things that are current issues with XP/Vista and things that used to be a problem but are either fixed or no longer part of the OS. But mostly, I laughed because I remember most of these issues from the past 22 years of Windows.

[RightWhale]

Yes. It’s somewhat like finding no jelly in your jelly doughnut.

[Turbopilot]

It's called "Use personalized menus" in the settings for the "classic" start button.

Wow, I never even noticed that (I guess because I've never used the classic-look Start menu). I'd still argue that it's not as big a deal because you have to enable the "classic" mode manually and so by default it's not part of the Windows experience, but it's definitely worse than some of the other items on the "Top 20".

[Turbopilot]

Windows originally had the time zones showing on its time zone map. Now it doesn’t.

LOL! You're right! I never even noticed. In fairness, the map does scroll so as to center on the currently selected time zone, but what a dumb thing to omit. Fortunately not something you should have to change very often :)

[Ocracoke Island]

Thanks. I could have used that back in the day.

It’s just a matter of paying more attention to what I’m doing now, but it’s true what they say - using Linux has taught me more about Windows than I ever knew when I used it.

[antiRepublicrat]

I'd still argue that it's not as big a deal because you have to enable the "classic" mode manually and so by default it's not part of the Windows experience

It's the standard setup for server installations (Themes are turned off, giving you only classic), but then that is Server 2003, not XP, although they have the same user interface.

[Kevmo]

Hey, FreeBird:
I didn’t think it would be this hard to steal your bump-for-later reference. Are you sure this code is tested?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1855791/posts?page=39#39

To: AFreeBird
I like that way of bumping for later, I might steal it.

B4L8r

39 posted on 06/25/2007 12:37:14 PM PDT by Kevmo (We need to get away from the Kennedy Wing of the Republican Party ~Duncan Hunter)
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To: Kevmo
Have at it.
Keep in mind that it’s OpenSource, and released under the GPL. :-)

40 posted on 06/25/2007 12:49:32 PM PDT by AFreeBird (Will NOT vote for Rudy. <-— notice the period)
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[AxelPaulsenJr]

Just another bone thrown to the Mac Elitists.....

[Turbopilot]

D’oh! You know, you could easily read that line as “before later”, maybe meaning “sooner” or “now”. It’s not fair to mix abbreviations with txtspk :-p

[Lady Jag]