Many years of sucking
July 25, 2003
Dear Microsoft: What the fuck?
Ten years ago, Windows 3.1 was the current version of Windows. I'd been using Windows for the better part of a decade then, and was moderately impressed with the system and thought it was pretty decent. Today, I'm running Windows XP service pack 1, the latest desktop operating system you've released. On my server is Windows Server 2003, which is even newer and is, overall, a fantastic server OS. But there's one prominent indication that the lot of you are incompetent morons.
When I go to install a font, I see this bit of idiocy. It's almost the exact same dialog box that you had eight years ago. When Windows 95 came out, you had the good sense to at least make the font system look as if it were a regular folder, indicating that someday we'd all be able to drag a font in and just have it work, like any sane person would expect. But that's never happened.
Even more amazingly, it took half a decade just for the font dialog box to recognize long file names. No, seriously. You had that wacky DOS-based FontNa~1.ttf thing going on forever. And you still can't even get this one dialog box to look like every other one in the operating system, with a little My Computer over on the side. You've got the "Drives:" dropdown box still partying like it's 1994. It doesn't even let me type in a network path unless I map a drive letter. Sweet, that way I can easily connect to my Netware 3 server over Token Ring and install the font I downloaded on my 9600 baud modem! Kickass!
Please understand: You have about fifty five thousand employees. That's bigger than the town I grew up in. That's enough to fill a stadium. I know everybody still wants to see the company as being just Bill Gates, even though he's not even CEO any more, but you've got piles and piles of humans lying around. What incredibly massive pile of bureacratic idiocy has to be weighing you all down that you can't get one little box changed in a decade? You've amassed more than forty billion dollars since the last time you took a look at this dialog box.
Here's my offer. For less than 10% of your outstanding cash on hand, a mere four billion dollars, I will personally create a working, usable, UI guidelines-compliant version of this dialog box. I'll even create it in .NET managed code. I'll make sure it's compatible with all the apps out there and regression test it against even the most obscure configuration.
Then, I'll fly myself to Redmond and smack the product manager for Windows on the ass on his way out the door. For an additional eleven dollars (that's a total of four billion, eleven dollars and zero cents) I'll provide a swift kick in the nuts to every male member of the font team. Presuming there is a font team. Finally, for no additional charge, I'd be glad to berate the person who originally created this dialog box, or his/her heirs if the person has died or been murdered by angry font users in the intervening years.
Now, I should confess that I don't really care. I'm not a designer, I pretty much only think about fonts when playing with CSS, and I always tend to stick to what's on the system. But I thought I would demonstrate my generosity by showing you how cheaply and effectively your operating system could be improved.
I eagerly await your response, and you may feel free to send me the four billion and eleven dollars via the PayPal link on my About page.
Update: Yes, yes, to those of you who've gotten in touch, I know you can drag fonts into the fonts folder. That's beside the point, though. It's about sucking! And four billion dollars in my pocket!
8:24 PM
17 TrackBacks
Anil is mad at Microsoft because the font installation interface in Windows XP is the same archaic dialog box that's been there since Windows 95. I agree. But Anil... psst. You can drag and drop fonts into your Windows Font folder to install them now. ... Read More
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Dear God, THANK YOU!!!
This just made my day.
I so agree with you! The whole windows font thing sucks...not only the installation process but the stupid limits on the number of fonts it will "support". Suck this Windows oIoo !
Mac OS X is kind of nice !
I remember fonts. I used them all the time on my Mac. Was not aware of them being used in Windows. You've just explained why, for which I'm thankful.
I missed this one, but I wrote up a whack of other Windows XP visual inconsistencies a last year.
Anil,
This had me laughing: 'You've got the "Drives:" dropdown box still partying like it's 1994.'
Thanks for that.
Anil, don't hold back, okay?;-)
Seriously, another reason I'll be teaching the older ladies how to use computers using Mac OSX, period.
Life in the Zu (below) is correct, drag and drop font installations have worked since at least Windows NT4! What are you bitching about?
Go ahead, bash them, it's nice :)
There's this nifty OS called Mac OS X where you just drag your fonts into a folder and no matter what type they are, they just instantly pop up in all your applications once you relaunch them.
Okay - I couldn't resist :D
This one falls in the comfortable canyon of Microsoft bashing. I am all for it. Their arrogance, stupidity, incompetence and dishonesty makes for a nice target.
"Things are not the way they are; they are the way we are." -- Nin
Kind of a cheap shot as most Microsoft criticisms are.
More incomprehensible is that WinZip uses the same retarded window for *saving* and *opening*, a task that users actually *do* perform *all* the time (who messes around with fonts??).
If you were using Windows before 3.1, it definitely wasn't the better part of a decade.
Hm - go to Start, Run, "fonts" [Return], and there's your navigable font folder. That is what you wanted, right? I haven't used anything else (e.g. that admittedly brain-dead dialog box) for quite a while.
Hilarious post, thanks!
Go Anil !!! Go Anil !!! Go Anil !!!!
So why don't you stop whinging and change operating systems?
Calm down! It's not arrogance or stupidity, or whatever else we project into this factoid, but simple atrophy. It's just a fossil in the code. That dialog has rarely been seen for yrs, people just drop fonts in.
Thanks... a billion. No, make that 4 billion. Made my evening. :-)
Our creative team uses mac our writing team uses ms. Creative created a poster that reads "When microsoft finally comes up with a program that does'nt suck it will be a vacuum". It's been there for nine years. Showed them you post and they are now trying to play off your "Drives:" dropdown box still partying like it's 1994" for a new poster. Thank God I waited till Friday to show them.
Stevie B actually just purchased part of Diamond Head island where he has had a 50 Million dollar beach crib built. Do you really think he gives a flying fluck about the fonts dialog box..? Keep your eye on the ball Anil.
About time somebody had the guts to take on Microsoft fonts people.
What next, their WC3 standards team?
What a Sucker, you knew it sucked in 1994 and you still bought it!! Why do you think the new version is called "Long Horn"? Lets make a deal, I will pay you the 11 Dollars and you pay me all future fixes and support to run next version of my magnificent OS.....I know you will buy it!!
Loved reading this.
For all those going on about drag and drop-ing fonts, heres a reminder...this is Windows! Nothing always works the way it should! I've had stupid error messages bursting at me on simple drop actions in the font folder. But if i use the dialog, they dont appear, and - all together now - the dialog sucks!
For all the sneering comments about Microsoft, tell me how many times you've seen an apple product that would allow you to get into it's guts. When OSX whatever can be run on an open intel box, then the apple crowd will have something to talk about. Until then, I'm still waiting for an explanation of why my Apple //gs went the way of all flesh... after a promise that Apple // forever really meant something.