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'Stupidware' nominations gratefully accepted
here
by Alan Zisman
(c) 1999. First
published in Vancouver Computes,
May
1999
First, there was just-plain software. Later, shareware
and freeware
developed. In the 1990s, users started complaining about
?bloatware??programs
that took up tens or hundreds of megabytes of drive space while
replacing
older versions that could fit on a humble floppy disk.
And the ?90s also brought us just plain ?Warez?for
commercial software
pirated over the Internet.
I?d like to add one more X-ware to the list. My humble
contribution
is ?Stupidware?.
You?ve all seen it. Programs, often expensive software
from big-name
companies that insists on doing things its way, regardless of how you
want
to work with your computer.
Some things I?d like to gripe about include:
- All those programs that will only install onto your
C: drive, even if
you
have other drives available. Or won?t let you choose a folder name or
location.
Even worse are programs that allow you to install them into an
alternate
location, but then won?t run properly (ATI?s Video Player is one of
those.
Shame!)
- Programs that insist on cluttering your Windows
Start Menu with yet
another
sub-menu dedicated to just their program (and perhaps its silly Readme
file and Help file. Does anyone actually access a program?s Help file
from
the Start Menu)? Better-designed software, like Electronic Arts? games
show you a list of your current submenus, and let you choose to put
your
icons there. In some cases, you can force icons into a submenu?type the
menu?s name followed by a backslash?replace ?Jedi Knight? with
?Games\Jedi
Knight? to put the icons into a Jedi Knight folder inside your existing
Games folder.
- Programs that don?t let you choose between
different setup alternatives
like Minimum, Typical, or Custom installations. Or don?t give you
enough
information to choose between the options, or make the choices actually
meaningful. Netscape Navigator, for instance, gives several options,
but
none of them let you choose not to install the AOL Chat program or
Netscape?s
e-mail program?even if you?re using alternatives ICQ or a different
mail
program.
- Speaking of AOL Chat, it not only gets dumped onto
your hard drive, but
it insists on starting up automatically, using up system resources and
space on your Taskbar tray. And it?s not loaded with an easily-removed
Startup icon?it takes messing with the dread Windows Registry to make
it
go away for good.
- And that leads to all those other programs that
lurk in the background.
Maybe you even want them there? but in too many cases, they insist on
leaving
their little icon in the tray. Do you really need a visual reminder
that
they?re running, taking up space? I like the little speaker icon
there?so
I can easily adjust volume levels. And a few others are useful for when
I want to change the program setup. Kudos to programs like McAfee
Viruscan,
for including the ability to turn off the tray icon, if you don?t want
it. And all the rest of those unwanted little icons deserve the name
?stupidware?.
(If you?ve got unremovable tray icon clutter, you may want to get
the free TrayManager from: zdnet.com/swlib/pcmutil.html.
It?s
a
tray icon that can store other tray icons, reducing clutter
considerably).
- Then there are all those programs that dump a bunch
of files into your
main Windows and Windows\System folders, often replacing newer, more
capable
versions of those files along the way. This is a major reason why
programs
suddenly stop working. Kudos to programs like Jasc PaintShop Pro where
the Setup program offers to backup any files it over-writes. And shame
on Microsoft for allowing this ridiculous situation to arise in the
first
place. (Though Windows 98 does a much better job of checking the
version
of common shared files when it starts up). The Mac equivalent, by the
way,
is stupid extensions, which can interfere with one another.
- Then there are the programs that ignore common
conventions of how the
Windows
or Mac user interface works. For years, for example, Windows users
could
count on the keyboard shortcut Alt+F/X to exit a program. With Windows
95, Microsoft changed that to use Close instead of Exit to shut down
its
system windows. Sometimes. Even within Windows 95/98, some shut down
with
a Close command, while others use Exit. Come on, Microsoft!
An interesting collection of poor user interface designs is on display
on the Web in the Interface Hall of Shame: www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm.
Not
surprisingly,
Microsoft seems to have garnered the most ?awards? in
this category.
If you have nominations for the ?stupidware?
designation, please
let me know? maybe we can have our own awards celebration.
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Alan Zisman is a
Vancouver educator, writer, and computer specialist. He can be reached
at E-mail Alan
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