Window’s Flotsam and Jetsam
March 20, 2006
According to the Maven’s Word of the Day:
Flotsam is the part of the wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on the water, and jetsam is cargo or parts of a ship that are deliberately thrown overboard, as to lighten the ship in an emergency, and that subsequently either sinks or is washed ashore; but both words have also developed equivalent broad senses, meaning ‘useless or unimportant items; odds and ends’.
So what has this got to do with Windows? Well the Brothers were annoyed to get their brand new Windows laptop home, turn it on, and see all the flotsam and jetsam on it. Even before they had used it for any productive work the computer was a mess: the desktop is covered in totally useless shortcut icons for programs and services that the Brothers don’t want and will never use.
Window’s Flotsam and Jetsam—The Puli Brothers Larger view…
Several of these shortcut icons are for probably for duplicate services, for example it appears that ‘AOL’, ‘AOL for Broadband’, ‘Easy Internet Sign-up’, ‘Get High Spe…’, and ‘MSN’ are all about getting connected to the Internet, and do absolutely nothing for users that already have an agreement with an Internet Service Provider. There are at least two icons that would appear to be about managing music: ‘HP Music’ and ‘iTunes’. Other shortcut icons are totally indecipherable, for example the Brothers like ESPN, but they have no idea what ‘ESPN Motion’ is, why they need it, or what changes it will permanentally make or tatoo onto their system if they dare click on it.
So you’re probably thinking if the Puli Brothers are so smart why don’t they just delete all the icons or use the desktop clean-up routines?
Okay, they could right-click on each of the shortcut icons they don’t want and delete them, or they could try to find the clean-up the desktop wizard:
- Open Display in Control Panel.
- On the Desktop tab, click Customize Desktop
- Under Desktop cleanup, click Clean Desktop Now
- Follow the directions in the Desktop Cleanup Wizard.
But there are two fundamental problems with this. First, why should the user of a new computer have to bother with house-cleaning right out of the gate, and more second, while doing this does remove the shortcut from the desktop, it does nothing to clean-up or remove any related program files or Registry entries.
The Brothers acknowledge this is not all Microsoft’s fault, the manufacturer of the computer has likely made agreements with other companies to prominently feature their software and services on the desktop. In fact, the manufacturer has likely received a payment for putting the software in the users face—think of it as an ‘iconic pay-for-view’. A curse on both their houses.
Nonetheless, the Brothers hold Microsoft primarly responsible. After all, it is Microsoft who designed the system where programs write information into the Registry and install applications into Windows in a manner that makes it extremely hard to successfully and completely remove them. Don’t get them wrong, the Brothers realize that users can hunt down the ‘Add or Remove Programs’ control panel and try to remove the program, but that excercise is also fraught with danger and requires that the user can make the connection between the name of the desktop shortcut and the name of the underlying programs.
In the name of full disclosure, the Brothers have to acknowledge that they bear some reasonsibility for why ‘Add or Remove Programs’ sucks, but that is another story for another time.
Microsoft actually has an acronym to describe user’s first experience: ‘OOBE’. The ‘Out-Of-Box-Experience’. Having bought both Windows and Apple computers, the Brothers have to say, the Windows OOBE is computer equivalent of buying a car: you get a computer but you’re not confident that you got the best price, you’re pretty sure you paid for options that you didn’t want, and the computer doesn’t run nearly as fast or reliably as the dealer said it would. In no time at all instead of being excited with your purchase you quickly end up with buyer’s remorse.
Compare this with the Apple experience. A new Apple computer also comes with software preinstalled, but it is not cluttering up the desktop. Any included or sample software is installed in the Applications directory, for example, the following illustration shows Quicken 2005 and Nanosaur 2 (a game) installed in their own folder in the Applications directory, where all good applications belong. The desktop remains clutter-free.
Apple’s Application Directory—The Puli Brothers Larger view…
The Applications directory on an Apple-computer is fundamentally the equivalent of the Windows Programs Files directory, but the Applications directory doesn’t need to have the warning that you really don’t want to mess with the contents. So Apple merely puts the software in the logical place, and even better, if you don’t want it, simply drag the folder to the trash. That’s it. No junk is left behind littering the computer and the operating system for the rest of its life.
By the way, if you ever get the chance to talk to Microsoft about how Apple does something you will get the song and dance that Apple controls all the hardware so you don’t get as much choice, and that much of the OOBE comes from the manufacturer, but this falls apart on two points. First, buy a Windows laptop with Office pre-installed by the manufacturer. A laptop is like an Apple in that rarely does the user add or remove hardware or change the configuration. But with a Windows computer even if you add nothing to it, the Windows computer will still slowly detoriate as the Registery becomes full of configuration information. Second, Microsoft is responsible for how programs are installed and show up in the start menu and shortcuts, and they run the logo program for defining a ‘well-behaved application’. And applications from Microsoft are some of the worst behaved Windows programs you will ever encounter.
But wait, it gets worse. Take a look at the system tray on the other side of the desktop.
The Cluttered Window’s System Tray—The Puli Brothers Larger view…
The problem with items in the system tray is that they typically start when the computer starts and continue to run, using resources from that point on. If you think it is scary to remove a desktop shortcut, then go ahead and try to take something out of the system tray. And what do the icons mean? The Brothers are afraid to click on the ‘Rocket Ship’ (the first icon in the System Tray) because NASA is having enough problems right now without the Brothers help, and they can’t think of any reasond for there to be any rocketry of space programs on their computer.
Take a closer look at the System Tray. This is from a brand new computer. Note that two of the icons have a ‘X’ overlay? This would seem to imply that something about this service or program is either broken or not working. A new computer and at least two items may not be working correctly—a great OOBE.
The Brothers aren’t really expecting that this will get any better in the future. Computer manufacturers want to get deals with software and service providers to preinstall their products on the computers. As Paul Thurott reports some manufacturers have already approached the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the European Union (EU) to line up support against Microsoft:
The complaints are centered on Vista’s first boot experience, which is typically referred to as the out-of-box experience (OOBE). PC makers say Vista’s OOBE, named Welcome Center, won’t give them the customization options they require.
So good luck! Cleaning up Window’s flotsam and jetsam is about as much fun as cleaning up the real thing. And just when you think you’re done, the next wave brings in more.