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A software Idea.


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As a long time Windows user, since version 3.0, (and DOS since 2.1), I've experienced much of the utterly stupid things in Windows.

What I've wished for is what I'd call "Sledgehammer For Windows: Make the @#@%# thing work like it ought!"

Sledgehammer would have features like "Nail it down!" that absolutely blocks ALL attempts by _software_ to bring any window or dialog box to the front, accepting only real mouse clicks or Alt+Tab for bringing windows to the front. This would also have the option to force ALL windows and dialog boxes to create a Taskbar button.

Another feature would be "HEY! I'm typing here!" that puts a total stop on any attempts by software (ESPECIALLY forms on web pages) to yoink the cursor somewhere other than where the user is entering data. You've all experienced it, you've entered your username and tabbed down to the password field then YOINK you're typing your password in the username field IN THE CLEAR for any shoulder-surfer to see, or you're clear down on the 15th field of a form then ZAPPO! the cursor has been shanghaied back to the top of the page, or just as you hit Ctrl+V to paste into the e-mail body *FWIIIING* it's moved the cursor and you've just pasted a 359 character URL into the To: field.

Next is the "New Hardware Install Idi*t". Since Windows 95, Microsoft has proven their "skill" at NOT being able to create a "Wizard" that deserves the name.

As you all know, the "Wizard" creates lists of locations in the Registry that point to where drivers are, where the Windows install files are etc. The stupidity that has been kept through so many versions is that the "Wizard" constantly forgets to use those path lists!

"New Device found. Duh, where are the drivers?"

__"Right here!"

"Awright! Dem's da right ones!"

"Duh, where are the drivers?"

__"Right here AGAIN you $#@@$!"

"Otay!" *copy-copy-copy* BONK.WAV!

"Duh, where are the Windows xxx install files?"

__"Oh bloody #%%@#! The exact same place they've been ever since Windows was installed!!!"

"Otay!" *copy-copy-copy* BONK.WAV!

"Duh, where are the drivers?"

__"AAAAAAAAAGHHHHH! Who wrote this POS 'Wizard'?!"

;)

See, a "New Hardware Install Idi*t" would only need to be told ONCE where anything is. The Idi*t would also allow the user to go DIRECTLY to "Have Disk", bypassing all the PnP and scanning and other useless, time wasting garbage.

One more fun feature of Sledgehammer would be "Reverse Gear!" which would EXTERMINATE the auto-forward "feature" in web browsers. This would not only stop those annoying website hijacks that zip you off to porn sites, it would also force the browser to make the Back button actually go BACK one page at a time, stopping on any page that bumped you to another page automatically. It would even have a pop-up saying "This page wants to automatically go to another page. Let it do it? / No f-in-way!"

Yes, Sledgehammer For Windows would have a BAD ATTITUDE because that's what all these STUPID things have caused Windows users to develop. For those of a more 'sensitive' nature, Sledgehammer could be provided with a 'Milquetoast' checkbox that delivers 'work safe' dialogs.

There's more, but I can't think of them right now at 4:29AM Mountain Daylight Time!

Please post your own stupid things Windows does, and suitibly "attituded" names for the Sledgehammer feature that'd fix it.

Then wouldn't it be nice if someone could make Sledgehammer for real? :blink:

(Yeah, right, dream on! Never happen! My bet is Longhorn still won't be able to remember where anything is.)

Edit: Just remembered a Windows irritation that lasted from Win95 through 2000. NO ICON GRID! Why was it removed from 95 and why wasn't it restored until XP? Sledgehammer would somehow restore the icon grid feature to Win9x, Me, 2000 and NT4.x.

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I've got a couple, how bout a

NAIL THAT #*$@(@ ICON DOWN

this would stop windows from moving the bloody desktop icons around the desktop everytime it resized to due to d3d or other.

maybe another one called

SHUT IT DOWN

the dialog would be something like

Some *#@& programmer decided that you will not be able to shut down this application, would you like to bomb the S**T out of it?

ie: it would do an IMMEDIATE, rather than waiting five hours, bsod, and reboot to kill an application

then maybe a KILL WINDOWS function

considering how long it takes windows to shut down, maybe this could kick in at the 10second mark and just turn the bloody thing off

this could be applied to the idiotic 'Saving your Settings' dialog that always takes forever, this leads onto a FORCE WINDOWS TO BACKUP ROAMING PROFILE; something that would force it, for every change made, back up the server... no more 'Saving you *#$# settings'

also a KILL THAT #$$^$^# FOLDER

maybe it could pop up saying, The piece of S**T program you are running decided to create a folder in your 'My Docs' would you like to delete this folder and stop it from doing it again? This could be applied to windows itself, maybe on install it could ask, do you really want the worthless 'My Music' and 'My Video' folder, no, then NUKE THEM

only ones that come to mind at moment

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then maybe a KILL WINDOWS function

considering how long it takes windows to shut down, maybe this could kick in at the 10second mark and just turn the bloody thing off

this could be applied to the idiotic 'Saving your Settings' dialog that always takes forever, this leads onto a FORCE WINDOWS TO BACKUP ROAMING PROFILE; something that would force it, for every change made, back up the server... no more 'Saving you *#$# settings'

There's a registry setting for this...

also a KILL THAT #$$^$^# FOLDER

maybe it could pop up saying, The piece of S**T program you are running decided to create a folder in your 'My Docs' would you like to delete this folder and stop it from doing it again?  This could be applied to windows itself, maybe on install it could ask, do you really want the worthless 'My Music' and 'My Video' folder, no, then NUKE THEM

Want to stop a folder from showing up? Create a hidden file with no extension that uses the folder name you want to kill off. Since Windows won't allow you to have a File by the name of My Music and a folder by the same name you won't have to worry about it ever comming back.

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I thought of another one.

"Save the bloody settings immediately!" There are so many things on Windows where settings can be changed but are not actually saved until the program is closed or Windows is restarted.

This leads to problems when there's a setting that has to be altered to fix a problem, but the pocking thing keeps crashing so the setting doesn't get written because it can't do a normal restart to save the setting change that'll fix the crashing. Ye olde classic 'catch 22'.

One more.

"Totally ignore this @#%%ing device!"

You know what I mean. When you have some built in device on the motherboard and it's "disabled" with a BIOS setting or a jumper, yet Windows still insists on detecting it and attempting to install drivers. You're stuck with this yellow (!) or red X sticking out there in Device Mangler, which just looks bad, and leads the (L)user to trying to "fix" it and mucking up the system.

Sledgehammer would "invisible" such devices, blocking Windows from showing them in Device Manager, or preferably from even "detecting" them.

(In an ideal world it'd also THWACK the clooless BIOS coder(s) with a #10 clue-by-four for not doing things properly so a disabled device will be completely ignored!)

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Here is a thing which annoys the crap out of me and my colleagues every day: Disable Script Debugging in IE 5.x or 6.0 often stops working after you install some of Microsoft's C compilers. For the 117th time: NO, I DON'T WANT TO DEBUG SCRIPTS ON OTHER PEOPLES WEB SITES. If that C compiler installed a script debugger (although I carefully unselected everything even remotely associated with web-development during setup), then PLEASE KILL IT!

:D

PS - Actually I just found the stupid reg entry which keeps overriding the Disable Script Debugging checkbox. THANK GOD. :thumbup

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