Very good point!!! Can I add that to the list?
When companies don’t stick to the standard spec. Applies to both software and hardware

I hate the person who invented the Windows Registry and everyone inside Microsoft responsible for implementing it.

I would pay to have them tortured and killed. Or I would personally volunteer to kill them with my own hands. I'm serious.

Leolo wrote:

I hate the person who invented the Windows Registry and everyone inside Microsoft responsible for implementing it.

I would pay to have them tortured and killed. Or I would personally volunteer to kill them with my own hands. I'm serious.

Why? It's a much better idea than having an assortment of differently named, located, and formatted text config files.

If we're proposing candidates for torture, I pick whoever is responsible for current trends in web interfaces. ESPECIALLY those infuriating sites that only show search results on a single page, and slap "load more results!" at the bottom (or just bring up more and more crap as you scroll down).

Whoever came up with that was truly shooting for the retard prize - thanks for complicating navigation, breaking bookmarking, preventing me from skipping pages, making me scoll/click repetitively, hogging my browser with useless javascript, and leaving me with a mile-long mess of a page that's impossible to locate anything in. Look at Google Images these days... I'm dumbfounded that people are actually getting paid to deliberately make websites less useful and more actively annoying.

SquallStrife wrote:

Leolo wrote:

I hate the person who invented the Windows Registry and everyone inside Microsoft responsible for implementing it.

I would pay to have them tortured and killed. Or I would personally volunteer to kill them with my own hands. I'm serious.

Why? It's a much better idea than having an assortment of differently named, located, and formatted text config files.

No, it isn't. It's prone to corruption. It has performance issues:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2 … /22/536920.aspx

And the security is a complete joke. You cannot export registry permissions from the command line. Microsoft used to have a few tools that were very buggy and difficult to obtain, but they're now obsolete and useless:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/264584

If you try to use the REGDMP tool (if you manage to find it anywhere), you'll notice that the files it generates are not compatible with REGINI. I don't know who was responsible for that, but he should be tortured and killed also.

The Windows Registry exists only to make it harder to port Windows programs to other platforms (unix, mac os, etc). That's the only purpose it has.

By the way, it seems that it's possible to export and import registry security settings after all:

http://www.domainwebcenter.com/?p=697

But I still think that this is much more complex than it should be. The numerous downsides greatly outweigh the supposed benefits of the Registry.

The Windows registry pisses me off as well. I've always said that I would much rather have it so that every program on Windows has an individual, human-readable, easily-editable ini file.

I'm really beginning to hate on the winsxs folder - it just grows and grows will no *obvious* way of stopping it to. If you're like me and install-test-uninstall lots of games/software you're stuck with a ton of garbage in there you don't need for "compatibility" purposes anymore. It would be nice if MS had a tool to manage it.

edit: also hate the new eBay UI and search!!!

files being stored in the winsxs folder can be eliminated by either:
-running your apps in administrator mode
-changing the folder permissions for your particular app... you need to know which working folder the app stores data in and modify the permissions to include full change permissions for your user

VileRancour wrote:

If we're proposing candidates for torture, I pick whoever is responsible for current trends in web interfaces. ESPECIALLY those infuriating sites that only show search results on a single page, and slap "load more results!" at the bottom (or just bring up more and more crap as you scroll down).

+1 for this one. Every page seems to have a search option these days, but more often than not they just don't work, no matter how specific you are with your search terms (I'm looking at you Vogons). It's google to the rescue!

We seem to be sliding toward pet-peeves of software rather than of users, but I hate that...

-The Windows Vista+ Move dialog doesn't handle folders well anymore, frequently leaving behind empty folders. Windows 8 has the same problem and it amazes me that something as simple as file moves is screwed up for so long.
-The Windows 7 desktop frequently gets into a mode where it doesn't update it's contents /wo pressing F5.
-The Windows 7 libraries don't allow the addition of network locations OOTB.
-Recent Quicken's claim to not support QIF format imports, forcing manual revisions to files to get them to import to accounts.

Leolo wrote:

But I still think that this is much more complex than it should be. The numerous downsides greatly outweigh the supposed benefits of the Registry.

The implementation in its current state is less than ideal, I completely agree.

But I still think it's preferable to config files that could be anywhere in the filesystem on the whim of a cantankerous developer.

I hate it when an uninstaller doesn't get rid of ALL files and registry entries 😒

kolano wrote:

We seem to be sliding toward pet-peeves of software rather than of users

I changed the title of this thread to reflect that. 🤣 But yeah, the original purpose of this thread was so that people here could complain about the dumb things various other people do with their computers. I don't really mind the direction things are going in however.

TheMAN wrote:

files being stored in the winsxs folder can be eliminated by either:
-running your apps in administrator mode
-changing the folder permissions for your particular app... you need to know which working folder the app stores data in and modify the permissions to include full change permissions for your user

Totally sucks. I have it down under 8 and that takes daily purges with 3rd party apps. Hate the whole idea. Missing on XP

When someone clearly has a PC that looks like it is running terrible, complains about it, and when you suggest to help they shrug you off despite them being aware that you know a lot about computers. Hopefully I am not the only one who experienced that.

The modern web design trend towards heavy active scripting. HTML is simple, safe, consistent, easy to print, save, etc. It works. I generally liked the usability of the web much better 5-10 years ago vs today.
It was inevitable that web developers would become discontented with HTML, but I don't appreciate them hijacking my browser with scripts for everything. The sites that drive me the most nuts are the ones where somebody got out Applesoft BASIC and wrote a whole new user interface just to piss me off and make the browser see the site as little more than a big scripting box. Just send HTML and let the client render the interface according to the client configuration - that's the way it's supposed to work. Not exciting enough I guess.
NoScript helps, but some sites won't work until you've allowed scripts from 15 different domains.

Being asked to fix a technical problem on Windows Vista, 7, or 8. I can hardly use them.

16:9 monitors. The primary function of my computer is not to watch movies. I have a 5:4 and I'd love to have 3 of them, just at a higher resolution.

People throwing out or destroying hard drives because they're worried about their data. Good grief, it's not hard to thoroughly wipe a drive. I know many people just don't understand how to do it so they get scared, but it's such a waste.

Over-proliferation of USB ports leading to the removal of legacy ports. Reviews and users insisting that nobody could ever need said legacy ports, because they don't themselves, and that there's something wrong with a motherboard that has them.
What's the appeal of 10 motherboard USB connectors? A hub is far more convenient than plugging everything directly in.

#1 irritation I have with users - malware addiction. I don't understand why so many people insist on installing random junk that slows their computers to a crawl. I now put Microsoft Security Essentials on everybody's computer except mine.

I hate installers in windows period. Most of them are needlessly complex, don't uninstall the software properly, and take FOREVER for absolutely no reason.

I have NEVER found a program I couldn't repackage with an installation monitor, a batch file, a reg file and winrar sfx.

I too hate the windows registry, it's a giant pile of shit. I'll take 8 billion .ini files thanks. The persons responsible for it should be shot.

I hate apple period, and the douchebags who use them (except Douglas Adams), and I have since 1982.

I hate the coders of the Windows API who thought it would be a great idea to leave an entire debugging API present in a home use operating system, and then ship helper .dll's along with it, which completely bypass any kind of security with absolutely no effort. Stupidest insecure thing ever.

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

sliderider wrote:

GXL750 wrote:

Why hasn't the VGA port died yet, why are there so many different display connectors and why does my phone have better pixel density than most new laptops?

It practically has. You really only see it on low end video cards, motherboards and laptops, I'm guessing because the royalty to use it is cheaper. Even DVI is starting to go away now. DisplayPort and HDMI are pushing all the older interfaces aside.

The reason your phone has better pixel density is because it is easier to make a high density small screen without a lot of dead pixels than it is to make a larger one of the same density without a lot of dead pixels. That is one of the reasons why 30" LCD's are so expensive. They don't get as good a yield on the screens as they get with smaller screens because of the dead pixel issue. When you pay thousands of dollars for a monitor, you don't want to see a single dead or malfunctioning pixel anywhere on it. Manufacturers usually consider 2 or 3 dead pixels on a cheaper monitor to be acceptable but not their flagship products. They are trying to cater to a different type of consumer with those and those people are usually much more demanding than the average consumer so dead pixels simply aren't acceptable. I can only imagine the number of screens that fail quality control and get trashed so as not to sully the reputation of the manufacturer.

DVI LOW bandwidth? I guess you must be talking about hdmi

Who said anything about DVI bandwith? I just said that DisplayPort and HDMI are replacing VGA and DVI for everything. There was a meeting recently of monitor and television manufacturers and the concensus was that VGA and DVI were done and new product from them would not have either interface anymore.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

*shudder* […]
Show full quote

PowerPie5000 wrote:

I think 30fps is perfectly acceptable for gaming (would prefer not to go below that though). A modern PC game with low/medium detail settings is still going to look better than it's console counterparts 😉

*shudder*

At least a constant 60fps is what I' after.

Now what is real bummer: Modern LCDs still haven't caught up with the good old CRTs in terms of black levels, input lag, (lack of) ghosting and viewing angles, all in one package. Can't wait for OLED.

120hz refresh televisions solve some of those problems so i don't see why they can't make computer monitors with 120mhz refresh.