TR Forums

This is a thread for ranting about stupid software.

This week, an application that warns you if you have less than 100GB free disk space when you install it. Yes, it is related to DVR stuff, but it does the check before you even pick what components to install. The client-only install uses less than 1GB.

Also, an honorable mention goes to a piece of software where the dev's are too lazy to store the data in a folder other than the program's folder under C:\Program Files. How many programs are guilty of this, and then the developers just claim "you need local admin", or "install in a different folder", I've lost count of. This software in question takes the cake though, by just giving all users full control of C:\Program Files. Not just it's own folder. EVERY FOLDER. I'd kick the guy in the shins if I could find him.

There are a lot of amazingly bad devs out there. I've encountered quite a few over the years.

Oh, I thought of another one. Some piece of software that needs an Access runtime. It is a 32bit application. It installs Access 2007 runtime. Then randomly, in a newer version they started installing Access 2010 *64 bit* runtime. In addition to said Access 2007 runtime. I have no idea why. It just breaks some stuff with the 32bit Office already installed. So part of our install process is to remove it. No functionality appears to be lost by removing this 64bit Access runtime (I mean, why would it? the program is 32bit). Whoever cobbled this thing together clearly was clueless.

Fun fact, if you try to log in to Windows 10 for the first time with a Microsoft account and it fails to authenticate, you can find yourself with a freshly rebooted laptop and no users at all.

Software Testing, we've heard of it.

Microsoft's online help for Windows 10. For a long while (and it may still be so) if you searched the help for a number of things you'd wind up at a Bing search page looking at results for "how to get help with Windows 10". On top of that, many of the links in the Event Viewer were and still are 404-compliant. Further, the new Metro-style settings app won't let you tell a program to become default for all the file types and URLs it supports; instead you have to set each file type individually... and like as not, not long after Windows will detect a "problem" that requires it to reset the file types to open with the default Windows programs instead.

Windows 10 is an improvement over previous versions in some ways, but in other ways it is an abortion.

I hate for this just to become a Windows 10 bashing thread, not because it doesn't deserve it, but just to prove Microsoft isn't alone.

Disclaimer over.

If you disabled "Background apps refresh" in the settings panel in Windows 1703 (Creators update), it broke searching the Start Menu entirely. Well, you could search, but the search index would never update again. Search would show results for apps that were no longer installed and it wouldn't show any newly installed updates. This even though that setting appeared to be something just for affecting modern app behavior. I believe Fall Creators update has fixed this, I'm not sure because we had to change that setting in group policy.

Oh I forgot a oldie but goodie. Thankfully now superseded by another application, one we had to create an application shim because the installer DEMANDED UAC be turned off. Doesn't matter if you right clicked -> run as an administrator. The stupid installer just checked some reg keys to see if UAC was enabled in any form. Incidentally, shimming it to lie to it and tell it UAC was turned off, and it installed fine.

Sorry to keep on the Microsoft thing, but... the Win10 bundled version of Skype is absolutely atrocious.

For example, if you minimize it, it keeps running but disappears completely -- not to be found on the start bar or in the system tray. You literally have to go back to the Start menu and relaunch it just to get the UI back.

S.M.H.

K-L-Waster wrote:

For example, if you minimize it, it keeps running but disappears completely -- not to be found on the start bar or in the system tray. You literally have to go back to the Start menu and relaunch it just to get the UI back.

Notifications come through the Windows notification center now, so the 'UI' seems like fluff unless you're actively using the app.

captaintrav wrote:

Also, an honorable mention goes to a piece of software where the dev's are too lazy to store the data in a folder other than the program's folder under C:\Program Files. How many programs are guilty of this, and then the developers just claim "you need local admin", or "install in a different folder", I've lost count of. This software in question takes the cake though, by just giving all users full control of C:\Program Files. Not just it's own folder. EVERY FOLDER. I'd kick the guy in the shins if I could find him.

That just floors me. I mean, I'm super green and I break stuff all the time, but I really want to put things where they belong and make every effort to put stuff where it "belongs". A lot of that is just not wanting to be the guy responsible for "everything does this except for that one package" like you're describing.

The behavior itself sounds like the application is some relic from the Win9x era (where everyone already had full control of that directory), and it was easier to have the installer give all users full control than it was to figure out where to put the data. My bosses would never stand for that. They'd want it done in a hurry but they want it done right.

LostCat wrote:

K-L-Waster wrote:

For example, if you minimize it, it keeps running but disappears completely -- not to be found on the start bar or in the system tray. You literally have to go back to the Start menu and relaunch it just to get the UI back.

Notifications come through the Windows notification center now, so the 'UI' seems like fluff unless you're actively using the app.

Yeah... it's a bit of a problem though if you call has dropped and you have to dig through the Start menu just to get the UI up to call back.

I guess, but you can just pin it as a tile. Or to the taskbar.

K-L-Waster wrote:

Sorry to keep on the Microsoft thing, but... the Win10 bundled version of Skype is absolutely atrocious.

For example, if you minimize it, it keeps running but disappears completely -- not to be found on the start bar or in the system tray. You literally have to go back to the Start menu and relaunch it just to get the UI back.

S.M.H.

On top of that, The latest version of the regular Skype client just tells you to install the Store Version when you try to launch it on Windows 10, yet another thing they're trying to force on users. Using compatibility administrator to lie to it and tell it you're running Windows 7 solves that problem.

derFunkenstein wrote:

captaintrav wrote:

Also, an honorable mention goes to a piece of software where the dev's are too lazy to store the data in a folder other than the program's folder under C:\Program Files. How many programs are guilty of this, and then the developers just claim "you need local admin", or "install in a different folder", I've lost count of. This software in question takes the cake though, by just giving all users full control of C:\Program Files. Not just it's own folder. EVERY FOLDER. I'd kick the guy in the shins if I could find him.

That just floors me. I mean, I'm super green and I break stuff all the time, but I really want to put things where they belong and make every effort to put stuff where it "belongs". A lot of that is just not wanting to be the guy responsible for "everything does this except for that one package" like you're describing.

The behavior itself sounds like the application is some relic from the Win9x era (where everyone already had full control of that directory), and it was easier to have the installer give all users full control than it was to figure out where to put the data. My bosses would never stand for that. They'd want it done in a hurry but they want it done right.

It's too bad more developers don't bother trying to certify their apps on Windows, or even have a foggy clue what Microsoft's guidelines are for developers:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/mt674655(v=vs.85).aspx
In my day job I deal with a lot of software written by engineers for engineers (not the software kind), and it's the rule rather than the exception that the software is doing something boneheaded like storing data files with the application. The sad thing is none of this is new. The concept of a limited user has been around since Windows NT debuted, I don't know why this isn't just a given that your app should work without administrative privileges unless it is doing something rather special. There is some sort of mental block in the Windows world where the mentality that the system is "wide open" basically has persisted despite Windows implementing an actual security model well over 20 years ago.

captaintrav wrote:

In my day job I deal with a lot of software written by engineers for engineers (not the software kind), and it's the rule rather than the exception that the software is doing something boneheaded like storing data files with the application. The sad thing is none of this is new. The concept of a limited user has been around since Windows NT debuted, I don't know why this isn't just a given that your app should work without administrative privileges unless it is doing something rather special. There is some sort of mental block in the Windows world where the mentality that the system is "wide open" basically has persisted despite Windows implementing an actual security model well over 20 years ago.

I've pretty certain derFunkenstein has hit the nail on the head with this one. This mentality comes because MS-DOS and Win9x (still based on MS-DOS) were completely open. NT may have had a proper concept of a limited user, but I bet they were using Win9x much more often.

I think one of the worst applications I've had to deal with is LANDesk. I have never seen so many botched OS images and software pushes that turn OS's to swiss cheese.

Meh, it'll always be Windows Millennium for me. Nothing like an idle desktop, with no programs open, suddenly going to either "Explorer.exe has experienced an error" or just straight up BSOD.

When the only way to fix your bugs is literally install another operating system, it's tough to get any worse.

kvndoom wrote:

Meh, it'll always be Windows Millennium for me. Nothing like an idle desktop, with no programs open, suddenly going to either "Explorer.exe has experienced an error" or just straight up BSOD.

When the only way to fix your bugs is literally install another operating system, it's tough to get any worse.

The Win10 antimalware service suddenly pegging your CPU for no discernable reason isn't quite that bad, but boy is it annoying.

captaintrav wrote:

In my day job I deal with a lot of software written by engineers for engineers (not the software kind), and it's the rule rather than the exception that the software is doing something boneheaded like storing data files with the application. The sad thing is none of this is new. The concept of a limited user has been around since Windows NT debuted, I don't know why this isn't just a given that your app should work without administrative privileges unless it is doing something rather special.

In my work with software developers, I can think of two other contributing factors.

1) The developer needs to store the files *somewhere* and they may not have been given a specification telling them where that is. They know where the application folder is, though, so for now, just put it there. Then they forget about it until QA complains....
2) Developers pretty much always have full admin rights to their own systems so they can develop what they need. So they never have problems writing to restricted folders because, for them, they aren't restricted. So the problems aren't discovered until very late in the process.

None of the above makes it *right* of course -- but I can easily see the route the pathology took.

LostCat wrote:

I guess, but you can just pin it as a tile. Or to the taskbar.

The fact it can be worked around doesn't stop it from being really really bad design....

Why does every other piece of software need to install an always running update service, particularly when only a very small number will ever do updates when the application itself is not running (not that I want them to in the first place). Maybe it's a permissions thing and there's a good reason for it?

TwistedKestrel wrote:

Why does every other piece of software need to install an always running update service, particularly when only a very small number will ever do updates when the application itself is not running (not that I want them to in the first place). Maybe it's a permissions thing and there's a good reason for it?

In the case of PaperPort, it's so they can advertise new for-pay versions at you.

This was ages ago (2006, probably), but the software that came with a Philips digital photo frame I bought refused to install if you had less than 10% free space on your HDD. It didn't matter if you had a 40 GB drive or a 400. I ended up having to move a bunch of stuff to my D: drive, install the software, then move everything back to C:

Would it really have taken the programmer more time to code a limit in MB instead of %? Baffling.

I remember way back in the day there were some installers that got confused once HDDs got bigger than 4GB. The free space calculation would blow up and no matter how much you had it would think you didn't have enough.

just brew it! wrote:

I remember way back in the day there were some installers that got confused once HDDs got bigger than 4GB. The free space calculation would blow up and no matter how much you had it would think you didn't have enough.

I've unfortunately encountered some of those installers more recently. In fact one software I install at work from time to time does that, but just warns you and you can install anyhow.

caconym wrote:

This was ages ago (2006, probably), but the software that came with a Philips digital photo frame I bought refused to install if you had less than 10% free space on your HDD. It didn't matter if you had a 40 GB drive or a 400. I ended up having to move a bunch of stuff to my D: drive, install the software, then move everything back to C:

Would it really have taken the programmer more time to code a limit in MB instead of %? Baffling.

Windows 7 shows a red bar for any drive that's below 10% free space. Some users phone the helpdesk worried that their mapped drive is showing red when there's 190GB free space on a 2.4TB volume. Fortunately, or maybe annoyingly for the server guys, they usually have been increasing the size of the volumes when this happens.

This is a pretty niche example, but back in 2013 I was working with a terrestrial lidar scanner which generates point-cloud data that was usually ~10gb per scan. The vendor specific software meant for processing and viewing the data however, was a 32 bit application. They had coded some workarounds to make the software somewhat functional, but by and large any sort of processing on the data we wanted to do caused the application to crash. I've never forgiven them for having such a flawed piece of software that caused endless frustration and grief, though they did release a 64-bit version of their software around late 2014 if memory serves.

just brew it! wrote:

I remember way back in the day there were some installers that got confused once HDDs got bigger than 4GB. The free space calculation would blow up and no matter how much you had it would think you didn't have enough.

One of the super-old installers (installshield?) used to do a 'system check' of sorts to see if the computer was 'good enough'. It, of course, used 32 bit integers for all the size related data, as well as timing a moderately hard calculation to guess the CPU speed.

Of course, on a desktop with 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB of C: drive space and a modern 4.8 GHz CPU it loses it's mind. The RAM and Disk meters would all report some huge negative number, and the CPU calculation was using the normal Windows ~16 ms 'tick' so it would report the calculation took 0 seconds snowing an infinity MHz CPU.

SuperSpy wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

I remember way back in the day there were some installers that got confused once HDDs got bigger than 4GB. The free space calculation would blow up and no matter how much you had it would think you didn't have enough.

One of the super-old installers (installshield?) used to do a 'system check' of sorts to see if the computer was 'good enough'. It, of course, used 32 bit integers for all the size related data, as well as timing a moderately hard calculation to guess the CPU speed.

Of course, on a desktop with 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB of C: drive space and a modern 4.8 GHz CPU it loses it's mind. The RAM and Disk meters would all report some huge negative number, and the CPU calculation was using the normal Windows ~16 ms 'tick' so it would report the calculation took 0 seconds snowing an infinity MHz CPU.

I was wondering if this was due to 32-bit integers. The is also the reason why standard AmigaOS (at least as far as 3.1) could not work with hard drives larger than 4GB. There were later patches I think in 3.5 and 3.9 that fixed it, but the versions that came with the actual machines I think had the limit.

To be fair, a lot of old software installers broke on later generations of software and hardware because they were written to deal with software or hardware limitations in previous versions, and in some cases they never anticipated that hardware larger than "x" would even be possible. Anyone else remember the history of Windows disk and partition size limitations? Pepperidge Farm remembers.