Changes to The Fundamental Failings of Microsoft Windows between r10 and r11
'''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'''
11. Why they are a failure
111. 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. They do not add value and they provide an artificial constraint on path names. Consider the path "`A:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32`", the "A:" is the drive letter specifier and it contains only information we do not care about that might be related to the physical hardware of the system (which we would like to be abstracted away).
11. Why they can never be removed
111. 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.
11. Notes
111. 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
22. Graphical versus Service versus Text Mode
22. Makes it impossible to have one executable to execute in different manners according to context.
3. Open Files may not be Deleted
33. This is just retarded -- there's no reason not to allow this operation.
Windows users are the real prisoners as described in the [http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf | UNIX-HATERS Handbook].
Only in r10
Only in r11 --> Modified slightly between r10 and r11