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I wonder if they kept the ODBC driver installer window with the win3.x-style file tree unchanged, just so they could be compatible with random old legacy odbc d

by 0x0 4y ago

I wonder if they kept the ODBC driver installer window with the win3.x-style file tree unchanged, just so they could be compatible with random old legacy odbc driver installer program that might try to programatically automate interactions with that UI? I don't know first-hand of any such program, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some old important enterprisey installer that expects the file chooser dialog to be just so and would freak out if the UI didn't still follow win 3.x conventions..?

justsomehnguy 4y ago
I think it was the thing somewhere in the earlier 00's, with the move to Vista/7 they didn't touch it and then anyone who could or cared to change it already left the company and the cool guys who decided what 04 Apr 04 is a fucking great placeholder for choosing between M/D/Y and D/M/Y format didn't knew what ODBC even means.
EMM_386 4y ago
That's why they have to leave a lot of this stuff alone. It's why there is both a Settings application as well as a legacy Control Panel. There are thousands of applications in the wild that still do all sorts of insane hooks deep into Windows controls, expecting them to be "just so" and would break if they weren't. So every screen rewrite is a dance with all of the legacy software, and sometimes you end up with a modern version of the screen, as well as the old version for backwards compatibility. Eventually enough of the software is brought forward (or abandoned) and the legacy screens can start being dropped.
- Alupis 4y ago
  This cannot possibly be true. Yes, legacy software is a big deal for Windows, but legacy software is not literally clicking buttons in these old archaic menus. A shim or compatibility layer should have been added, and all settings migrated into the single Settings menu. There is no reason to have multiple versions of the same thing... especially when one of them is permanently hobbled and users have to guess which version exposes the buttons they need. How long has Win10 existed? Nobody smart at Microsoft has figured out how to unify Settings and Control Panel in all that time? Literally means they have not tried. All of these things hack on the registry when you get down to it... What probably actually happened was someone found out all the deeply nested menus and ad-hoc buttons in Control Panel didn't cleanly port into their "elegant" Settings app, so they just stopped there and left it to rot. We want to look beautiful more than we want to be functional, apparently.

by 0x0 4y ago

justsomehnguy 4y ago

I think it was the thing somewhere in the earlier 00's, with the move to Vista/7 they didn't touch it and then anyone who could or cared to change it already left the company and the cool guys who decided what 04 Apr 04 is a fucking great placeholder for choosing between M/D/Y and D/M/Y format didn't knew what ODBC even means.

EMM_386 4y ago

That's why they have to leave a lot of this stuff alone. It's why there is both a Settings application as well as a legacy Control Panel. There are thousands of applications in the wild that still do all sorts of insane hooks deep into Windows controls, expecting them to be "just so" and would break if they weren't. So every screen rewrite is a dance with all of the legacy software, and sometimes you end up with a modern version of the screen, as well as the old version for backwards compatibility. Eventually enough of the software is brought forward (or abandoned) and the legacy screens can start being dropped.

Alupis 4y ago
This cannot possibly be true. Yes, legacy software is a big deal for Windows, but legacy software is not literally clicking buttons in these old archaic menus. A shim or compatibility layer should have been added, and all settings migrated into the single Settings menu. There is no reason to have multiple versions of the same thing... especially when one of them is permanently hobbled and users have to guess which version exposes the buttons they need. How long has Win10 existed? Nobody smart at Microsoft has figured out how to unify Settings and Control Panel in all that time? Literally means they have not tried. All of these things hack on the registry when you get down to it... What probably actually happened was someone found out all the deeply nested menus and ad-hoc buttons in Control Panel didn't cleanly port into their "elegant" Settings app, so they just stopped there and left it to rot. We want to look beautiful more than we want to be functional, apparently.