   Software that annoys the hell out of you
  There's a lot of badly designed software out there and I figure it would be therapeutic and helpful to those use studying software design to bash crappy software we have to deal with. So I had 19 pages worth of stuff to scan for my dev blog. My HP scanner has software that forces me to preview a scan before I can save it. It has this auto crop which is never correct and useless in this case because I want the whole page. After I adjust the scan to include the whole page, I accept the scan but for some reason I have to wait it scan the page over again.Is there any way to disable the preview? No. Is the anyway to just to get it scan and save the page directly? No. Can I just hit scan, next page, scan, next page, scan, next page, scan, next page, etc like I want it to? No.Lesson learned: Software should not do something automatically that the user doesn't want it to do.   
  Anything and everything that comes on a computer sold to you by a company that does not come on a fresh install of the same operating system from media provided by the producers of that operating system.  Anything and everything that comes on media provided to you by any such company, or any company selling printers, routers, or any peripherals that is meant to be sold to 'the common computer user', on media labeled 'install disk' or 'setup disk' or media accompanying media labeled with the previous two titles.There is other bad software out there, but I do believe that this covers an enormous amount of it.   ;  Every piece of software that uses Windows Installer for its setup. The amount of crap Windows Installer dumps in the registry is insane!Considering the fact that this information is only needed during updates/uninstallation and the fact that registry bloat is a very real cause of Windows slowdown makes me wonder what the hell the designers of WI were smoking. Why didn't they use separate databases for instance?   ;Quote:Original post by kanzlerEvery piece of software that uses Windows Installer for its setup. The amount of crap Windows Installer dumps in the registry is insane!Considering the fact that this information is only needed during updates/uninstallation and the fact that registry bloat is a very real cause of Windows slowdown makes me wonder what the hell the designers of WI were smoking. Why didn't they use separate databases for instance?Actually, WI does keep the databases from installers. The C:\Windows\Installer directory keeps each database (detached from stored files, however) as well as storing icons in subdirectories based on one or another GUID found in the installer databases.Dumping a bunch of stuff in the registry should only be happening with sloppy installer databases (like the ones InstallShield generates). Show me an installer that does nothing at all but flag itself as installed, and show me a diff of the registry. I'll bet it's a lot smaller than you'd like to claim.   ;Quote:Original post by  coldacidDumping a bunch of stuff in the registry should only be happening with sloppy installer databases (like the ones InstallShield generates). Show me an installer that does nothing at all but flag itself as installed, and show me a diff of the registry. I'll bet it's a lot smaller than you'd like to claim.I challenge you to export the following Windows Installer keys and see for yourself the amount and nature of useless information that is stored there:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\InstallerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InstallerYou can also check out Opera which provides a Windows Installer setup and a WISE (classic) setup. The classic setup stores its uninstall information in a log file, not inside the registry.EDIT: InstallShield usually == Windows Installer   ;  Actually, thanks to taking the time to understand how WI works, I don't see much uselessness in there. And what I do see as useless is vastly outnumbered by things that should be stored to prevent problems like DLL hell (you wouldn't want to deal with that again would you?) and broken uninstallation.Besides, it's barely 15% of my entire registry (determined by comparing the file size of the exported files (which are text) to the actual binary registry hive files -- when binary/text differences are figured in the real size is probably closer to 8-9%). I have more leftovers in there from programs that didn't use WI for installation, that have left cruft behind when they uninstalled. I'm not buying your argument at all.If you don't like it, go use Linux and deal with scattered configurations that you can never be sure about changing, lest updating screw it all up.In addition, registry slowdown issues are a 9x concern, and is actually quite rare on NT-based Windows. I hope you're not using one of the former.   ;  Have you ever heard of the "We-hates-software" mailing list?There are some real gems here.   ;Quote:Original post by coldacidActually, thanks to taking the time to understand how WI works, I don't see much uselessness in there. And what I do see as useless is vastly outnumbered by things that should be stored to prevent problems like DLL hell (you wouldn't want to deal with that again would you?) and broken uninstallation.How exactly does storing oodles and oodles of file & directory listings in the registry prevent DLL hell? As far as I know DLL hell was solved by not writing dll's to the Windows directory anymore and SxS.Quote:Original post by coldacidBesides, it's barely 15% of my entire registry (determined by comparing the file size of the exported files (which are text) to the actual binary registry hive files -- when binary/text differences are figured in the real size is probably closer to 8-9%). I have more leftovers in there from programs that didn't use WI for installation, that have left cruft behind when they uninstalled. I'm not buying your argument at all.10% is a lot when it's information that's not needed very often. And Windows Installer is just as bad as other setup technologies at removing all traces of a program from the registry. Try uninstalling Office.Quote:Original post by coldacidIf you don't like it, go use Linux...What the hell? How old are you, six?Quote:Original post by coldacidIn addition, registry slowdown issues are a 9x concern, and is actually quite rare on NT-based Windows. I hope you're not using one of the former.So loading the entire registry into memory and indexing/searching it suddenly became free when Microsoft created NT?   ;  Windows Mobile 5 PocketPC for phone.Imagine a phone whose primary method of dialing numbers is a dial-screen where the numbers make up about 20% of the screen area--so small, in fact, that my wife tried several times to call someone and eventually just gave up.Imagine a network/internet device where you are forced to explicitly split up what addresses it should connect to via wireless broadband and which it should connect to via wifi based on whether the target address has dots in it or not.I could go on and on, as anyone who owns a WM5 PocketPC phone knows.  Its user interface is an abomination before God and man.   ;  iTunes! I regret ever buying a iPod. My favorite hate object now is Adobe Director. I really hate that program. The documentation is crap, the UI is crap and there is so many bugs and missing features.* No anti-aliasing* Debugging is random at best * Fails to display pictures with alpha correctly in some cases* Fail to update some of the windows* Crashes* Has a lot of useful but undocumented features. * Code editor is awful.* No multiple undo   