Mac Power Book

well, if your "program files" directory is getting cluttered with too many apps, or perhaps you mispelled something when entering in the directory spec. those are two things that have to be very common. i realize there's more going on that just a file someplace, but that's kinda my point. the registry seems like such an obtuse way of dealing with things. or perhaps the problem rests with the programmers/publishers since some programs have no trouble moving from directory to directory. either way, i blame windows if for no other reason than the culture it promotes -- a user moving directories of programs is not acceptable and doesn't need to be accounted for.

and yes, it does make it easier if you go by accepted convention. that's what i was saying earlier. if you just click okay anytime windows asks you something, you're probably going to be fine. but as a "computer guy" having a computer dictate how it will be used just doesn't sit well with me. it's 2006, there's no reason why a computer can't cope with somebody who wants to move the "program files/adobe" directory into "program files/multimedia/adobe".

 

i usually put an alias or shortcut wherever i want










next

 

yeah, that leads to a nice neat system.

 

Oh stop it. That's just the facist commie liberal bastard in you. :imagestor

 

communist = linux
liberal = os x
facist = windows

 

Why do you care what's in Program Files? You should never need to go in there... all of your data should be in my documents...

In Windows, when you move anything other than an application, Windows tracks it (if you have a shortcut pointing to a file, move the file and the shortcut is updated).

That said, applications have been poorly coded for a long time, hard-coding defaults and such. That's the vendors fault. MSFT's fault is not in the OS, it's in the development languages that resulted in applications being location dependent. .NET removes that - apps are installed, moved, etc. by simple file copies/moves/deletes. But it takes a while to update the 50,000 apps that are available on the Windows platform...

 

You can designate any folder you want when you install things.
Why would you want to move a program once you've installed it? Of the operational needs of any PC, I have to figure this is really low on anyone's priority, but you have the option at install, which is the only time you'd need to monkey with it anyway.

 

why should i never go in there? there are plenty of apps that store things there by default. perhaps log files from crashes. perhaps configuration files. or maybe the app didn't provide a short-cut and i need to run it directly. or perhaps i didn't want to create a short cut.

i remember coding on the mac when it first came out was a nightmare because they were very restrictive about how you did things. so much so that i never wanted to learn it. but now i see the wisdom of holding programmers to higher standards than you hold your users to -- you uphold a level of sophistication. like i said earlier, the whole concept of it being okay for the computer to not let you move applications seems odd to me, but it's widely accepted in the windows world and so it self re-enforces.

glat to know that .net fixes this sort of stuff. honestly, i have little clue what .net actually is. i thought it was a java work-alike, but i guess it's not or it's more or something.

 

it's funny. i've spoken with software designers in the past about features that i'd like to see and so many times i've heard the response "why would you want to do that?" the reason isn't really the issue, in a certain regard. the fact is, i do and it should be trivial for a computer of today to handle it.

maybe you missed the examples i gave earlier tho. i've misspelled directory names on occasion. it seems ludicrous to force and un-install and re-install to simply move an item to another directory. or maybe i'm in the mood to clean stuff up and i've noticed i have a ton of different networking utilities that i'd like to categorize -- maybe it's related to how i want to back-up my system. maybe it's just to keep things organized. maybe i purchased a system with a lot of installed software and i wanted to re-organize it.

i understand people might feel like they need to defend windows from unwarranted bashing, but c'mon. does it make any sense that you can't move apps around? i doubt i'm the first person to get a brand new computer and see a bunch of stuff in "program files" and think it's okay to re-organize it to my liking.

is it minor? sure. but so is the ability to have quick-start items in the your tool-bar. or auto-hide your toolbar. or be able to move your toolbar to the different sides of the screen. there's a ton of convenience features in windows that you could live without. but why should you? isn't convenience what you're sort of paying for?

 

Why can't I eject a disc on a Mac without going to a submenu of some other menu? I know it doesn't matter but I am picky.