"This program is used rarely"

[Jenny]

I agree with Chris on file associations. My Windows experience started on version 3, so I still tend to open the program first, then open the file, purely because that's the way I originally did it.

I still move, rename and do all that stuff to files by opening the DOS window and typing in the commands. I would like to say that I launch applications that way too, but to my shame, I actually use the Start menu. Not icons, though - that really would be a little too chavvy.

[Neil Jones]

.... which is absolute bollocks. I use Firefox, MSN and Winamp almost daily and it still comes up with "rarely" on the addremove list. What gives? Is there a special way windows predicts how much we use programs? Or is it just an utter pile of steaming wank?

Apparently its measured over the last 30 days. So if you don't launch anything in 30 days, it gets flagged as "used rarely".

But having said that, my FireFox (launched from a shortcut on the desktop) is flagged as being used often (which it is - daily), and my Internet Security package, despite running at startup, is flagged as being used rarely. Meanwhile a program that Windows claims hasn't been used since August last year has been flagged as being used "occassionally".

[DJGM]

I hardly ever launch programs from my Start menu. I've always used desktop icons or the Quick Launch bar next to
the Start menu. In fact, in any new install of Windows XP (or Server 2003) on my PC's, that two columned Start
menu is usual the first thing to be switched back to "Classic" mode. I've never liked it at all.

The "Group Simiar Taskbar buttons" option is another feature I like to get shot of, since I rarely have more than
one window open for any running applications. And the "Hide Notification Icons" get turned off too. It is one of
those ever so slightly mithering annoyances I've never liked about Windows XP or Server 2003.

I'd have to say though, that the default configuration of any OS, be it Windows, Linux or Mac OS X is usually far
from perfect. I'm surprised at the number of installations of Windows I've encountered before now, that have
been left with the default configuration, and no customistaions applied whatsoever.

Equally so, I've surprised quite a few people when I've shown them how customisable an OS can be.

[Nick Harvey]

I hardly ever launch programs from my Start menu. I've always used desktop icons or the Quick Launch bar next to
the Start menu.

I've always been slightly puzzled by the ability to have icons in the quicklaunch bar AND icons on the desktop.

What's the difference, except for the size of the icon, the lack of a description in the quicklaunch bar and the need to have the desktop visible to click on desktop ones?

And why does your average user manage to have Internet Exploder and Microsoft Outlook in BOTH, when you only need the ONE icon to start a program?

That's why I have NOTHING in the quicklaunch bar, except "Show Desktop", as already mentioned; and all the stuff I might want to start on the desktop.

[cwathen]

I agree with Chris on file associations. My Windows experience started on version 3, so I still tend to open the program first, then open the file, purely because that's the way I originally did it.

Dirty old habits die hard!

Ah, you'd have loved the original Windows experience, Nick. As an aside here, Microsoft released Windows providing a wizzy bangy graphical way of using your computer...yet thought it a tremendous idea to have a text-based file manager not only to do your file management tasks, but also as the only way to open anything! This charming fellow, The MS-DOS Executive, graced Windows versions 1 and 2 (and was also included as an alternative shell in Windows 3.0 for some unknown reason - probably the same one that keeps Microsoft putting Program Manger in Windows XP):

Program Manager doesn't look so primitive now does it? MS-DOS Executive has even less functionality than the old DOS Shell program from DOS 5. So to launch a program, you had to navigate to the directory where the program was installed, find the executable file for the program, and then run it (a few pieces of software actually put the main executable file in the Windows directory itself so that you could readily see it when you first started Windows, but most were not so well behaved). So you can see why starting programs by navigating to where your document was stored and using file associations rather than having to identify the correct executable file to run (in those days, applications always seemed to have numerous similarly named .EXE files, yet only one was the right one) was more popular then.

Oddly enough, it would probably be easier to make the transition from Windows 2 to Windows 95 than from Windows 3.1 to 95.

[Nick Harvey]

The machine immediately to my right at this very moment, runs a mix of DOS and Windows 3.11 to this day.

There are stlll applications which are much happier in one of those environments.

I never experienced Windows 1 or 2. Sounds like they might have been fun.

I like the idea of control programs being named "Executive". This was the case when I worked on both ICT 1500 and ICL 1900 series mainframes.

(By the way, there are moments when you sound even older than me, being the analogue Astra and Windows 1 and 2 expert. Watch out!)

[cwathen]

I never experienced Windows 1 or 2. Sounds like they might have been fun.

My first PC had Windows 2. No exciting colour VGA mode like that in the screenshot for me though, my machine has CGA graphics in all it's 640x200 monochrome glory (it never ceases to amaze me how long that standard managed to survive for; EGA came out in 1984, VGA in 1987, yet there were still budget machines (like mine) sporting CGA as late as 1991. An interesting feature about Windows 1 and 2 was that if you had two floppy drives but no hard drive you could install it to floppy disk and run it from two floppys (double density floppies at that). This is how I ran it. You had serious problems with saving files though because Windows readily moved about between the A: and B: drives so you couldn't easily take one of the disks out to save, and there was little disk space left on the disks after the installation. I got around it by having a small RAM Disk to store files on whilst within Windows, that I'd then copy over to disk when back in DOS.

It's interesting how many of the subtler details have survived into Windows XP - blue is still the default colour for title bars, the accessory programs still use 8.3 filenames despite long file names having been around for over a decade now (i.e. the executable for Calculator is still CALC.EXE when it could be CALCULATOR.EXE now). The Clipboard Viewer was replaced with the Clipbook Viewer years ago, yet the executable is still CLIPBRD.EXE. And even though good old Windows Write was replaced with WordPad in 1995, Windows XP (and development versions of Vista) *still* has a stub called WRITE.EXE which redirects to launch WordPad.

(By the way, there are moments when you sound even older than me, being the analogue Astra and Windows 1 and 2 expert. Watch out!)

Watching.... I even thought of growing a beard recently

[Nick Harvey]

I even thought of growing a beard recently

Hehe!

I hadn't thought of growing one back in the sixties, when I was working on my FOURTH machine!

This'll give 'em a laugh!

[Sput]

Heaven runs on magnetic tape?

[iSon]

I even thought of growing a beard recently

Hehe!

I hadn't thought of growing one back in the sixties, when I was working on my FOURTH machine!

This'll give 'em a laugh!

Good to see you were gracious enough to even do the dishes back in those days Nick!

[Nick Harvey]

Heaven runs on magnetic tape?

And the 8Mb discs in the foreground. They were HUGE in those days.