The Fundamental Failings of Microsoft Windows r19 (See the current copy)

Why Microsoft Windows Can Never Be Fixed

Microsoft Windows is a poorly designed system. Most people would agree with this statement and cite implementation issues such as poor security, poor performance, and poor support systems. However, these issues can be addressed and solved over time. Microsoft Windows however, will always be a poorly designed system due to fundamental flaws in its design. These flaws are so fundamental that most Microsoft Windows administrators and users do not even understand that they are flaws at all -- instead they think of the limitations as features or do not think of them at all, and just accept them as the way things are.

  1. Drive Letters
    1. Why they are a failure:
      1. Drive letters are a very distinctive feature of Microsoft Windows -- no other modern operating system uses them. There is a reason for that. Drive letters are a failure.
      2. They do not add value and they provide an artificial constraint on path names. Consider the path "A:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32", the "A:" portion is the drive letter specifier and it contains only information we do not care about (i.e., information related to the physical hardware of the system which we would like to be abstracted away).
    2. Why they can never be removed:
      1. Well, they actually CAN be removed as they have been Microsoft Windows CE and Microsoft Windows Mobile. It would take a lot of reworking, especially of mounting network volumes (which are typically done with the scope of a particular session), and the end result would be unrecognized by users.
    3. Notes:
      1. Some have argued that it is possible to overcome this limitation by treating "C:" as the root node. This is apparently not possible to do due to the way network shares are handled.
  2. Different Types of Executables
    1. Why they are a failure:
      1. Having different types of executables to represent different tasks on the surface seems like a good idea.
    2. Why they can never be removed:
    3. Notes:
      1. Graphical versus Service versus Text Mode
      2. Makes it impossible to have one executable to execute in different manners according to context.
  3. Open Files may not be Deleted
    1. Why this behavior is a failure:
    2. Why this behavior can never be removed:
    3. Notes:
      1. This is just retarded -- there's no reason not to allow this operation.

Microsoft Windows users are the real prisoners as described in the UNIX-HATERS Handbook.

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