My OperaWindows 7 and my hatred of change for change's sake
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 3:54:25 AM
Maybe I'm getting old, but I generally resist change just for the hell of it. What do I mean? I'm referring to things like Windows 7, the Ribbon, and perhaps Opera 10.50 removing MDI (maybe, they're not sure). Why am I no longer so interested in new interfaces and shiny new toys?
I think it's because I have a job. I no longer need something random to keep me entertained when I run out of Anime to watch, or video games to play. When I have to spend time learning something new, I like to know I'm actually, you know, moving forward - I'm able to do something I couldn't before.
Case in point, the new Windows 7 start menu. Great idea with built in search. But what does the actual start menu get me that I would lose if I was able to choose the old Win 95 one? Why would the Win95 start menu preclude a new search option at the bottom? Now, for me, and because I've become used to Find and Run Robot on XP, it's not even really a new feature - and it probably isn't for any of the thousands using any desktop search programs, it's just integrated a little differently. So, for a feature I already have (basically), I get to learn all new muscle memory to... *dum de dum*... get back to the same functionality I already had. No thanks.
Same thing with scripted domain joins for Windows. In XP and older, you would use the great NETDOM. Now, pray tell me, what am I gaining from having all my scripts break because Microsoft decided that wasn't a good way to do it? They could have coded the powershell back-end to still be run by a new NETDOM.exe with the same arguments. But no, that would have let me do useful things at work rather than re-creating all my deployment scripts. What fun, who doesn't like re-doing something for the hell of it. And specifically, there is posted (google if you care) a powershell script that as far as I can tell DOES THE SAME thing as NETDOM, but with slightly different syntax (and you get to have all sorts of fun getting Powershell to actually run some script - see the technet article).
Maybe I just haven't been enlightened, but why would Microsoft feel the need to break all sorts of backwards compatibility (while supposedly doing entirely the opposite) with x64 having all 32 bit apps in C:\Program Files (x86). Why would you do that? Change the directory for the frackken NEW apps that are being written NOW (and deployment scripts etc) rather than all the old stuff no one is going to touch.
I can see the benefit of getting rid of the horrifically long and command line unfriendly C:\Documents and Settings\, but really, why did you go to that from C:\Windows\Personal (IIRC) to that and now back to C:\Users? I mean, how long has UNIX had /home? Was this really needed experimentation?
Much of this smacks of make work for Windows Admins the globe over. Was everyone else playing solitaire? Because there's lots of work for me setting up *new* functionality rather than trying to re-create a bunch of stuff that used to work and changed for no apparent reason.
Oh, and by the way, all that SID changing? That was a mistake, and a big ass waste of time apparently. So much so that you can't do it in Windows 7 (Sysinternals has EOLed NewSid). So lets learn a new way of scripting cloned computers name changes while we're at it.
I think it's because I have a job. I no longer need something random to keep me entertained when I run out of Anime to watch, or video games to play. When I have to spend time learning something new, I like to know I'm actually, you know, moving forward - I'm able to do something I couldn't before.
Case in point, the new Windows 7 start menu. Great idea with built in search. But what does the actual start menu get me that I would lose if I was able to choose the old Win 95 one? Why would the Win95 start menu preclude a new search option at the bottom? Now, for me, and because I've become used to Find and Run Robot on XP, it's not even really a new feature - and it probably isn't for any of the thousands using any desktop search programs, it's just integrated a little differently. So, for a feature I already have (basically), I get to learn all new muscle memory to... *dum de dum*... get back to the same functionality I already had. No thanks.
Same thing with scripted domain joins for Windows. In XP and older, you would use the great NETDOM. Now, pray tell me, what am I gaining from having all my scripts break because Microsoft decided that wasn't a good way to do it? They could have coded the powershell back-end to still be run by a new NETDOM.exe with the same arguments. But no, that would have let me do useful things at work rather than re-creating all my deployment scripts. What fun, who doesn't like re-doing something for the hell of it. And specifically, there is posted (google if you care) a powershell script that as far as I can tell DOES THE SAME thing as NETDOM, but with slightly different syntax (and you get to have all sorts of fun getting Powershell to actually run some script - see the technet article).
Maybe I just haven't been enlightened, but why would Microsoft feel the need to break all sorts of backwards compatibility (while supposedly doing entirely the opposite) with x64 having all 32 bit apps in C:\Program Files (x86). Why would you do that? Change the directory for the frackken NEW apps that are being written NOW (and deployment scripts etc) rather than all the old stuff no one is going to touch.
I can see the benefit of getting rid of the horrifically long and command line unfriendly C:\Documents and Settings\, but really, why did you go to that from C:\Windows\Personal (IIRC) to that and now back to C:\Users? I mean, how long has UNIX had /home? Was this really needed experimentation?
Much of this smacks of make work for Windows Admins the globe over. Was everyone else playing solitaire? Because there's lots of work for me setting up *new* functionality rather than trying to re-create a bunch of stuff that used to work and changed for no apparent reason.
Oh, and by the way, all that SID changing? That was a mistake, and a big ass waste of time apparently. So much so that you can't do it in Windows 7 (Sysinternals has EOLed NewSid). So lets learn a new way of scripting cloned computers name changes while we're at it.
