File Extensions And Monopolies

A_Non_Moose sent us an article from Salon that talks about how file extensions are one of the tools used by Microsoft to extend their mind and market share. It's a very simple idea but its honestly something I'd never thought about. Definitely worth a read, and a few neurons to realize how its really the simplest of things that will guarantee that this monopoly isn't stopped even if Microsoft's deep pockets didn't let them buy the law.

Comments

Monopoly for the illiterate...

[neema]

This "attempt" at a monopoly through file extensions is something that would only be successful for those who know nothing about the OS at all. Using Win2k as we speak, right clicking on any file and going to "Open with" seems easy enough. Better yet, it has a check box of "use this program to open up the file as default". Very easy. Of course, if no one bothers to look for it, I'm sure it can be considered hard.

I agree that Microsoft does things specifically to retain a monopoly, but does everything it do have that purpose?

I doubt it.

Nitpick point.

[DunbarTheInept]

In unix they aren't file extensions. They are suffixes. The difference is that in DOS/FAT they got stored in an actual seperate field in the directory. (I don't know if NTFS also does this. I stopped paying attention to MS technical details a while ago). In Unix, they are just ordinary parts of the filename, and don't mean anything special unless a particular program is written to parse the filename for "stuff coming after the last period".

An analogy:
/*Unix*/
char fname[PATH_MAX]; strcpy( fname, "foo.c" );

/*original FAT/DOS*/
char fname[9]; strcpy( fname, "foo" );
char exten[4]; strcpy( exten, ".c" );

Re:And he thinks Macs are better at this?????

[Have Blue]

A more technical explanation:

The Mac's file system stores 2 equivalents to the file extension for each file, the type and creator codes. The type code indicates what type of file it is, the creator code indicates the application that created it. The key concept here is that on a Mac, those 2 bits of metadata are orthogonal, and with a simple file extension they cannot be without some serious filesystem hacking, which MS hasn't bothered to do.

Also worth noting that Mac OS X has most of the features this guy requests; you can remap a file's ownership from the Get Info window, and make your change global from the same location.

Re:Its not just MS . . .

[ConceptJunkie]

Yes, Microsoft has been bragging for years about they are making software easier and easier to use, but have failed completely to make certain tasks, like file extension association, among many others, not require a power user to understand, or an eidetic memory to remember where they hid the dialog box for all these features.

For filename extensions, Microsoft's brilliant idea was to automatically hide the file extensions in Windows 95 and above by default, meaning you have to rely on the stupid icons to know what your file type is, and things like the SirCam virus can come along and fool people into thinking they are viewing a JPG when they are in fact launching an executable that will bombard me with 200 copies of their "Jun 2000 Sales Report" or something.

Furthermore, until recently, you couldn't search or sort the filename extensions access through "Folder Options" by extension name. You had to know what they are called, or vgrep through a huge list of every file extension ever considered since DOS 1.0 (the list looks practically like .AAA, .AAB, .AAC, etc.) looking for your extension.

A simple example: I want to reassociate ".BMP" back to the SpiffoPaint program after the BogoPaint trial version stole it away. Prior to Windows 2000, you _had to know_ what file type name the extension is regsitered as (and many weren't obvious). Again that could be any old dumb thing the software developers (like Bogosoft above) decided to call it like "BogoPaint Document" or whatever. If you didn't know that, then good luck finding it by hand, Chester.

In the NT 4.0 days, I personally had to resort to using 4NT's file association feature (I think the NT Resource Kit had something too) because otherwise it was just too much trouble.

And as far as editing the regsitry goes, remember that Microsoft's first plan was to not allow users to edit the registry at all?

Given that I remember in the late 80's that I had to rewrite the installation batch files for most software I installed, the idea horrified me. Now in 2001, not being able to edit the regsitry still horrifies me.

"Where do you want to go today, and how lost are you going to be before getting there?"