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Longhorn Drops 'My' Prefixes
ryanjm writes "Microsoft has decided to drop the "my" prefixes for Longhorn. Instead of "My Computer," it will be just just plain simple "Computer". "
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Can't wait what they'll come up with next!
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
How will I know whose files they are?
My My, what a shocking change....
I guess it means that with the new DRM technology, it really IS no longer your computer.
Test your net with Netalyzr
It will be Bill's Computer
And in the next release, they'll replace it with "Our".
--MarkusQ
Honestly, who cares? I heard in the next version of the Mustang, they are gonna change 'gearshift" to "gear changer"
Oh thank god for that. The whole 'my' thing has always bugged the hell out of me.
I was undecided about upgrading to Longhorn in the future, but this solidifies my decision. This is definitely going to be worth the $300 upgrade!
So what?
oh my
actually this is good, i hate those prefixes.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
My Word!
Wow! That's news!
I can see the need to eliminate the "MY" in My Documents, it does tend to cause verbal stmbling when telling someone to go to MY "MY documents", but who really cares about MY Computer?
Talking to geeks is like eating jello with a chainsaw, interesting, but painful.
...can I be the first to say, "My My..."
With palladium it's theirs.
How will malware authors know where to infect people's systems without the My Viruses, My Spyware and My Trojans directories? Think about your customers, Microsoft.
Oh, instead of My computer its Computer. How long till it's "Our Computer"?
Stop all the downloadin'!
Who said MS cant innovate?
Does this mean that Bill Gates no longer considers your computer to be his?
Seriously though. Now how will I know who's computer it is I'm double-clicking on?
No really seriously though. Now I can't say "My Computer!" in a big retarded voice whenever I have to double-click on it.
Really though, this is some big news, a drastic change like this to the windows UI hasn't happened since 3.1.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
And there was much rejoicing. Yea!!
With the new DRM lockdown mechanisms maybe they want to break their customers of thinking of the machine as their own :) I imagine "My Computer (except for the parts the MPAA and RIAA own) was too long to fit in the explorer window easily.
How am I going to know who's computer I'm working on then huh? Think of the mass confusion when people forget where they are sitting without the reassuring 'my' prefix, telling my that I'm at my own desk in my own parent's basement? This is an outrage!
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like screaming, "SO WHAT?".
This is news?
Since with Longhorn, nothing on your hard drive is really "yours" anymore.
Whenever someone uses the argument "if open source kills commercial software, it will also kill innovation," now I know what they're talking about. My attitudes have changed. Long live commercial software.
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
It wasn't really useful nor did it make it easier for people to understand. (Especially when they were on someone else's computer). It was just an extra space to make it harder to program for and use the DOS prompt.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have to say that I always founf it very annoying how Windows constantly seems to shift where they think documents should go with each release, at one point being under the Windows directory...
Hopefully this sigals the last time these folders chage location/name. Then perhaps people would start to use them. I always use the default Documents/Music/Pictures folders on OS X but over the years I have avoided using the Windows equivilent because I knew it would shift and I'd have to learn the new placement again.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not entirely sure if this is really stuff that matters. The fact that MS drops it probably means it doesn't matter.
Who wants to be bet that there will be a MyClassicWindows Theme that changes XXXX back to MyXXXX just for the sake of it?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
FRIST PEON!!!
So!?
Those file names should change depending on the true owner.
i.e. Pwned by BonziBuddy.
An applaudable step towards transparency from Microsoft.
Pip pip.
I guess that the next version of Microsoft's SQL Server won't be called My SQL Server.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
...do i get the feeling that this is indicative of their future liscensing practices? Is this going to be an OS that reminds us of liquor: you don't actually buy it, you just rent it? Their removal of 'my' has me worried that they are going to consider everything on your computer is simply rented from them...good thing im in love with Ubuntu...I don't have to worry about longhord screwing me.
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
In this DRM age, we wouldn't want consumers to belive they own anything. now CONSUME!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well, this will actually be helpful when I'm trying to help my dad over the phone. For the longest time, I'd say "double click on My Computer" and he'd ask why he's going to my computer instead of his.
Sigh.
I expect to see it in shelves by the end of the month
Remember, you heard it from here first.
How is this on the front page of /.? Seems like a waste of bandwidth to me...
once everyone and their dog P0wnz your computer, very little of it can be considered "yours" anymore anyway :)
It's just another step in taking away our personal freedoms. Trying to commandeer our poor computers... geez. Damn those Zombie machines out there. Longhorn's only going to make it worse, but atleast Microsoft is making it slightly more obvious. Yes, that's right folks, your computers are no longer yours!
Apple picked up the prefix at auction on the cheap, along with the now much-maligned 'e' prefix and several other vowels.
Later, at a press conference, Steve Jobs announced the new, updated G5 eMy eioMac. Old MacDonald could not be reached for comment.
That green slime had it coming.
They must have figured that, with so many Windows boxes overridden with trojans, spyware, adware, and zombie software that is being used to remotely send zillions of pieces of spam, *no one* can really say the computer is "theirs" anymore.
And wait until we rent our software. Then the concept of owning your computer will truly be a thing of the past.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
the insensitive clods finally got a clue.
There goes my plan to cash in on a bunch Malaysian TLD URLs when Longhorn is released.
Ah well, it was a myopic business plan at best.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
... with Longhorn, it will no longer be YOUR COMPUTER!
I'm coming from a Mac perspective--am I way off base here?
blarg.
Microsoft releases a whole new version of Windows so that I don't have to type "F2 -> Home -> Delete -> Delete -> Delete".
Must have saved me at least 5 minutes.
"New streamlined interface! No "My" prefix means 2 less letters to read, increasing productivity!"
-Randy
But what'll I do without My Porn???
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
Don't be so easily fooled!
WinFS simply doesn't support spaces in filenames!
How will I know whose files they are?
With patentened Weak Windows Security (tm), they are EVERYONES files!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, with all these exploits and whatsnot p0wns your computer, I guess we cannot claim it as My no more.
you mods got some reduntant points to give out :)
Exactly like how said folders are labeled on MY iBook?
any effort to degayize windows is welcome
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Why is this a big deal? If you don't like the 'My' on there, change it yourself. I always edit the desktop icon names to 'This pooter' and 'Net hood', respectively. Or, if you're only accessing one network, use the workgroup name for the Network Neighborhood icon.
I mean, it's not rocket surgery or brain science, after all.
"Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing - and it was everything that I thought it could be."
My God! iWonder what Microsoft will replace it with.
What's funny about this is that the same people who needed to be coaxed into using a computer by prefixing common icons with "My" will now further be confused because they will think that the folder is somehow different in its function.
"But that's not *my* Videos, it must be someone elses. Doesn't that have to do with it being multi-user?"
An appalling user-interface gaffe finally corrected. I guess getting rid of the screwdriver and clawhammer folder for the Control Panel next would be too much to ask. Although I guess they are appropriate since most of the time when I run Windows I wish I had a hammer... to beat myself senseless with.
This is just part of Microsoft's agreement with the RIAA and MPAA to remind the consumer that, no, that music/movie/etc is not yours, and you have no right to believe it is. After all, files in these folders are becoming less and less accessible to the consumer in reasonable ways.
They were going to call it "Our Computer", but decided against it on the grounds that users might think they were sharing something, and didn't want there to be any confusion. Microsoft doesn't share anything.
(For the humorless: This is a joke. But it's funny because you know how close to the truth it is. Or maybe it's scary for the same reason.)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Not an improvement to shell out cash for, but still an improvement
... since when a computer is shared between people it cannot be called "My Computer". The cyber café's box is not "My Computer". :-)
Microsoft should check if there's more than one user registered in the machine and put an "Our Computer" label below the icon
They'll be changing the popular "Shut Do..." button to the even less meaningful "Do..."
Now this is the kind of innovation Msoft can really overtake Tiger with.
Finally a Longhorn improvement that Msoft will not have to backtrack on and say that it will not be included in Longhorn after all.
Bill shifted weight from his left buttock to his right. Seriously, are we this hard up for news items?
I cannot stand how programs dump their config files and other crap in "My Documents." As soon as you fire up WMP, you get "My Music" or "My Movies." Start Acrobat Reader, and you get "My Books." FUCK OFF. It's "My Documents," not yours!
Microsoft is dropping all the great features we have come to love, like the wn in Shutdown. Now the My prefix, what should I do with my life?
Now people are going to go "computer won't work!" and you go "click computer" and it'll go round and round... fantastic for tech support all over.
I like muppets.
good
They're just finally admitting that between their EULA, the Dept of Homeland Security, and spyware, nobody actually owns or controls the MS Windows in their home or office.
I wonder if M$ knows they're copying Gnome interface features
were they ? Everytime I tried it to be my way, windows will hide and change it in some strange way.
So will the "Computer" icon open automatically whenever you say "Computer" to the mouse.
I've been having to keep from hitting things every time I see and hear that 'My' crap.
It's just unnatural and fucking stupid. "Go to your My Documents folder", "Open your My Computer", and if you drop the 'your', they think you're talking about your own computer.. "Open My Computer".. "I can't get to it, where are you?"
GAH
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
I don't think it was every "My" computer in the first place. When I was married it was "Our" computer; when we divorced it became "Her" computer.
Geek Of The Day, "A geeky place for geeky faces."
Just part of the Palladium (or whatever it's called these days) specs, right?
MyCrosoft - My = Crosoft?
Scotty: Computer. Computer?
[Bones hands him a mouse and he speaks into it]
Scotty: Hello, computer.
Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard.
Scotty: Keyboard. How quaint.
FINALLY, after all these years, real change!
Hey they should rescurrect MS Bob and call it "Bob's Computer" and "Bob's Documents" and "Bob's Network". And for a sidekick, MS Bob could have the little search puppy that we all know and love.
Thankfully there's Linux.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
since it's only a matter of time until Microsoft owns your computer with Longhorn anyways. It won't be 'My Computer", and putting "Bill and Steve's Bitch" seemed a bit too offensive.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
[faced with a 20th century computer]
Scotty: Computer. Computer?
[Bones hands him a mouse and he speaks into it]
Scotty: Hello, computer.
Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard.
Scotty: Keyboard. How quaint.
and why do i care?
Helpdesk: Double click on "My Computer"
User: I can't see your computer.
Helpdesk: No, double click on "My Computer" on your computer.
User: Huh?
Helpdesk: There is an icon on your computer labled "My Computer". Double click on it.
User: What's your computer doing on mine?
Ah, but with the new SuperAmazingFantasticSearches (tm), you no longer need to worry about where you store documents at all. This is just the first step in phasing out directory names altogether.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
They're replacing "My" with "Our"
Why would they do this? Windows ME made me feel like it was a Windows all for ME, and they took that away, and now this? Windows isn't making me feel very special anymore.
This is a very insightful question to be posted, congratulation Slashdot editors, and you scores your readers comments!!!!!!!!
Your score is zeroooooooooooooooooooooo.
Such arrogance, Bill!
Ohhhh, I get it, built in P2P folders for "Pictures" , "Videos" and "Music". Now it all makes sense. And with industry-leading Microsoft security. (I didn't say WHAT industry... haw haw!)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
heh
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I mean really, the second that virus... windows was it?... gets on your computer, its not yours anymore.
I cant count how many times I heard "I dont see your computer" when asked to right click on "My Computer"
Supplies!
The physical location shouldn't matter one whit... under Winnt\profiles, Windows\Desktop, or C:\Docu...\%username%, the path of any given file isn't really all that relevant to how the file is used, is it?
This means that half the applications will put music in "Documents\Music" and the other half will put music in "My Documents\My Music".
The cake is a pie
Computer (TM), Documents (TM), Networks (TM)...
Oh well, what the hell...
Since so many Windows machines get 0wned, it seems logical not to call it "my" anymore.
Will longhorn's file system support symbolic links?
The real reason they're dropping the "My" prefixes is that too many people realized that it was BillG that was saying "My".
oh, come on now, the paths arent that bad
b lisher.inygdbru5tfs5gd0evj4st5ukkctchco\AssemFiles \Publisher.inygdbru5tfs5gd0evj4st5ukkctchco\Applic ation Data\IsolatedStorage\32w4syu4.acn\21yxg0lq.lam\App lication Data\IsolatedStorage\32w4syu4.acn\21yxg0lq.lam\
*goes back to command prompt*
C:\cd C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxxx\Local Settings\Application Data\IsolatedStorage\32w4syu4.acn\21yxg0lq.lam\Pu
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
That is right, a major feature of IE 8 will be the name change to just plain Internet. After all, the Internet, along with 51% of the world belongs to Gates.
They're Balmer, they're Balmer and the Gates, Gates, Gates, Gates, Gates.
Some users may not know that it means "their" computer. They might think it's someone else's. I assume this is why MS did this to begin with.
In all seriousness, I'm very glad to see that MS has made this change. Windows will be less of a toy now, and a bit more grown up real OS like linux.
MAKE YOUR TIME
Help Computer.
The prefix should've probably always read "MS's" anyway.
Carefully read your EULA. You'll find some wording in it that actually puts it that way, too... or at least really makes a strong case for it.
OCO is Loco
Happy
Finally, no more quotes or escaped spaces.
Rumor has it that idea of file location may be a thing of the past. I checked out some of the promo videos and propaganda that is surrounding Longhorn and it looks like they are moving to ways to help you find it regardless of who has it or where it is stored. Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/productinfo/con ceptvid/default.aspx">http://msdn.microsoft.com/Lo nghorn/productinfo/conceptvid/default.aspx for more info. The higher education video talks particularly about the sharing of resources and leveraging your social network for information. I know that these are only concept videos but if they can pull it off it may be a step in right direction.
Honestly I don't care where or how content is stored if I can get at it and use it quickly and easily. Sadly up to this point I haven't been able to access and use information quickly so currently I do care where and how it is stored.
If they get it right where it is stored wont matter if you can use it whenever you want the way you want.
...touching my network places... :)
DaGoodBoy
My God! It's full of Voids!
... MacOS X? Wake up guys, you may not like Apple, but everyone's copying them.
You call that news for nerds, stuff that matters?!
Then again, if this move is inspired by DRM, I could see your point. It used to be *your* computer, now its only a computer.
Microsoft is simply acknowledging that any files you save to your system will probably be in the hands of crackers by noon tomorrow.
Well, in celebration, I will drop 'My' pants
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
all you computer are belong to microsoft
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
I honestly hope they will drop "Program Files" in favor for "Programs" as well.
There's a lot of programs that mishandle spaces in filenames. Half the problem if all you need to do is to enclose the filename with path in quotes. But only very recently I figured out the "surplus parameter on command line" error generated by quite expensive CAM program was caused by its defaulting with its save to "My Documents" and can be fixed by saving files to directories without some damned ASCII Art in the name.
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From TFA:
The "My" prefix was apparently an attempt to create a personal connection between people and their computers at a time when the idea of using a computer might have been forbidding.
Funny how people feel much stronger personal attachments to their Macs than to their PCs. Perhaps creating a user experience that doesn't suck might be a better way of creating a personal connection between people and their computers.
Microft just doesn't want to give people the wrong idea. It's not like you actualy own your music or those photos you took.
"What does slashdotting mean?"
"You've never heard of slashdot?"
"I know it makes websites not work."
I haven't used Windows properly in over 5 years, but I seem to remember you could click on the "My Computer" text and replace it with whatever you wanted. So how is this news?
Letting the icons show the contents of the file...
Renaming the My Documents folder to just Documents...
KDE has had all of this for years, and MS is just copying as usual. What's next? Will they ship with a bash console?
)9TSS
the "Mi"-graine I get whenever I have to work with windows...
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
(... fill in with any of the innumerable possible problems with windows ...)
....
Tech: "Okay, ma'am. I think I know the problem you are having. First, double-click on My Computer"
User: "Your computer!?@? How the @#(%) can I click on your computer????"
Tech: "On your desktop or in your start menu there should be an icon called My Computer, please open it"
User: "I can't find anything called Your Computer either on my desktop or in my start menu - Does this mean I have a virus? Is my data okay?"
Tech: "It's probably okay, but first you must open My Computer - it will be called 'My Computer' on your end because it's yours"
User: "Oh I get it now... My Computer. Okay. I click on it but nothing happens"
Tech: "Double click..."
Ah, the memories...
When are you going to make an OS suitable for us 2D, 3D, and media users? I don't care about some stupid file names, after 30 mins of setting out project names, templates and subfolders "my" is very sensible compared to the mess me and Maya make!
How are you going to make my life easier as a 3D type? I dont use media player, or some other rubbish like that and "My Documents" gets lost under the clutter. Give me a stripped down, fast and stable OS, BAH to media player. And linux is a no-no because of software not available for it. I got my Mac! that works GREAT, has never had a "My.." thing going on, but it sure as hell works better and I got all my software for it. I think I have just answered my own little rant, toole-pip!
Aside from being able to make oh so clever MS jokes this post is pretty damn pointless.
On a side note anyone else feel a tad bit pissed that the story they submitted got rejected but this made it!!!
M$ it's whats for diner!!!!!
Wow, and you guys said that Microsoft weren't innovators! Who's laughing now, huh? :)
already does this. I guess they just wanna be like GNOME then, huh?
I regret to say but MS just keeps on copying.
M$...
fucking awesome.
maybe people would be scared to click on "my longhorn".
We finally get the truth about whats been delaying the release of longhorn for so long. Someone better get promoted for this one.
such huge system requirements, with features like this! Removing the "my"... that is some heavy-duty stuff there, I'm surprised you don't need a supercomputer for that.
Once again, Microsoft has stolen cutting-edge technology from Apple! Where's the lawsuit????
I'm glad they're dropping it, but it's already too late for the rest of the popular, user-friendly software and firmware industry. Cell phones, and digital cameras now have those prefixes in everything, and I find it to be rather annoying, since it's not helpful for anything.
I don't know why it became such a fad, but perhaps companies think it makes people identify with their technology? I won't miss it for a second.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
I know there is an "all your base are belong to us" joke in here somewhere.... I just can't come up with it. Anybody willing to help?
-steve
How will I know that I am working on MY computer and not THEIR computer? The internet is scary and all that...
KhyronAlmost all of the responses so far are the obvious DRM "not my data" jokes or "what's the big deal" statements. The first few jokes are funny, but most need help. The "what's the big deal" statements are accurate for the most part, except that I think this is a really good idea.
It's always annoyed me how MS went overboard in trying to simplify document locations. My grandmother knows that her documents are in the "My Documents" folder now, but is smart enough to understand that they'd be under "Documents" if it existed. Adding "My " to the beginning of every default folder location does nothing to help anyone, and as such should be done away with. It makes sense.
Not to mention the fact that writing Perl scripts with hard-coded Windows directories is a complete pain in the ass. By giving the directories 1 word names, you reduce the path from "C:\Docume~1\Blah\MyDocu~1" to "C:\Docume~1\Blah\Documents". Once they change "Documents and Settings" to "home", I'll be even happier. Ideally, it would be "C:\home\Blah\Documents".
I would think that a lot of Slashdotters would actually like this, since getting to certain paths through Samba can be a pain if you have to deal with Windows filenames.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
You can easily change this yourself....its not something hardcoded.
This "news" amounts to the same had they changed the default wallpaper, no difference....
I actually did rename "My Pictures" to just "pictures", "My recieved files" to "recieved files" and the same with "My Music" because of a windows feature: "type-to-find"! Some brilliant engineer in microsoft (or someware else in case they copied it off someware) who came up with typing the first letters of a file or directory to select it must have been very pissed off at all the "My"s making his feature harder to use. Then all the other pieces of software think it's a good idea and we have "My Skype pictures" and "My Virtual Machines". But hopefully the insanity stops here.
...have a Scottish accent and you have to hold the mouse up to your mouth and speak into it at the same time. ;-)
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
When Microsoft touts their R&D budget and ability to innovate I am often a bit skeptical.
Oh how wrong I have been. Way to break new ground Microsoft! Keep these paradigm shifting features coming!
it could mean that the new shrink wrap license agreement has changed so you no longer own the files you manage with Longhorn...
Microsoft, the defender of innovation in the world cluttered with open source madness, once again leads the pack!
What can we expect next? The "Start" menu to be replaced with "Menu?"
Oh, it's just speculation... but, I can always dream, can't I???
I always just took it for granted that "My" meant "Bill G's"
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
In order to align itself with "progress" in Digital Rights Management and to emphasize its full support for DRM, Microsoft has decided to remove the "My" prefix from its user file structure and document naming convention.
You didn't really think they were YOUR files, did you?
Microsoft: Where to you want your fair access rights to go, today?
MS: Microsoft Tech Support, this is Hajid, where do you want us to let you to go today?
Angry Customer: I'm trying to download the latest patch for my software and your (obscenity) software is saying something about DRM violations.
MS: Yes sir.
AC: Well, FIX IT!
MS: I can't do that sir, as part of our new "Personal Freedom" policy, combined with the BSA/RIAA/MPAA taskforce, we decided that too large a percentage of ftp users were using it to committ violations of intellectual property, or to use non-"Microsoft Approved (TM)" software. Therefore, we have added a DRM restriction to our software to prevent unauthorized access.
AC: I don't care.. this is MY COMPUTER you're restricting..
MS: No sir, it is no longer your computer.
AC: What the (obscenity) do you mean.. I PAID FOR THIS COMPUTER!
MS: By agreeing to the 185 page EULA that came with the Microsoft Longhorn (TM) software you run, it is no longer your computer. We even make it obvious by referring to the computer currently in your computer as "Computer" instead of "My Computer". We now have joint ownership of the computer, as required to maintain Microsoft's market share... er deter piracy and terrorism, for as long as you run Microsoft software.
AC: Fine! I'll just format it and run Linux instead.
MS: (checks box off that states "Customer mentioned Linux, Set up Customer for "random" BSA raid") on his Com.. um.. the "Computer" he is currently running.)
AC: You can't do anything about that, can you, you (obscenity obscenity obscenity!)
MS: Sir, I don't think you want to do that. By uninstalling Microsoft Longhorn you would allow us to take control of all data on your machine and post publically, such as user profiles, URL's visited, and documents you created using "Microsoft Approved" software..
AC: (pauses)
MS: Sir, why don't you take some time to think it over, and then call back in to let us know that everything's fine with your "Microsoft Approved" software.. otherwise, we'd hate to lose you as a customer, it gets so sad to see what sometimes happens to our former users..
People Talking in Movie shows.. people smoking in bed.. people voting republican.. GIVE THEM A BOOT TO THE HEAD!
Earl Grey, hot.
every user will end up with "My Documents" directory right beside the "Documents" one?
I already have "Moje Dokumenty" (original name by Windows with polish localization) and "My Documents" right next to it, created by some dumb program.
Windows resides on D:, but of course there's "Program Files" with something in it on 510MB FreeDOS C: partition. I cleaned up the Start Menu so there's just "Aplikacje" and whatever created "Applications" went there. Sure there are system variables that default to proper directories. Just not every application uses them.
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goodness!
..It'll be just 'Living Hell' from now on then, fine.
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Think how many people wouldn't know what to do to get on the internet if it wasn't called "internet" or "internet explorer."
Now THIS is what I call "innovation"...
It would be nice if microsoft removed "My Patent" and "My Annoyance" and "My hair-tearing headache."
It would also be nice if they added "My Compiler" to the default install of the OS.
I can dream.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
This is a help desk support nightmare! Hello Help Desk? I'm having trouble finding my My Documents folder on my desktop?
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
What I'm getting at is that this change by microsoft is so superfluous as to be rediculous. Sure, people who buy and own computers these days probably don't require as much "personalization" of the names of things, but these names have always been changeable, at least since Win95, afaik.
I'd be fifty times enthused if they could just make it possible for me to uninstall IE, frankly.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Help computer...
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
What they didn't say is they're replacing it with "Microsoft's"
I guess becuase of DRM, it really will be their computer.
When my mother bought our computer with windows 95 on it she didn't know much about computers. So a couple days later she comes in and gets mad becasue the My Computer icon was named My computer, she thought I was laying claim to the computer. I told this was standard, seh wouldn't believe me, So I changed it to "A computer", and she walked away happy.
"Beware the squirrels"
Call me nitpicky, but I know I wasn't alone in hating the "My xxx" folders when MS introduced them. It's extraneous information that lengthens the directory path. Perhaps this is a sign that Microsoft is starting to treat users more like adults and less like children that need their hands held as they cross the dangerous street into computer land.
,.- ..thank god they didn't replace 'My' with 'Meesa'..
-.,
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Well .. I guess we can count on "My Sharonna", by the Knack, not being the big song for the release.
I KNEW they were communists.
Considering how frequently Windows boxes get pwned by worms and viruses, it isn't really your computer any more, is it? :)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Microsoft is also test marketing some replacements for the word Computer . Finalists are:
(1) BSD Generator
(2) Source of endless M$ licensing fees
(3) Patent #44548-4395-974351
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I personally would like to thank Microsoft. Thank you for giving me a job. Now I will have another 15 people a day calling me asking where the "My Computer" icon has gone and I can bullshit my boss and tell him I was helping 15 clients for half an hour each. Keep up the good work, so I don't have to.
$5 says the paper contacted a random or well-known professor for their take on it, even though they had nothing to do with the decision, and she came up with the properly smarmy nonsense that makes for good copy filler.
Instead of this why don't M$ just stop recreating folders like "My Pictures" and directing all picture saves to it whenever I reboot?
It's so damn annoying to have to delete the useless folder, browse to my preferred folder... only to repeat again when the system restarts. And if I don't delete the folder, every file save keeps going there.
eTrade SUCKS
[Bones hands him a mouse and he speaks into it]
Scotty: Hello, computer.
Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard.
Scotty: Keyboard. How quaint.
Was it just me?
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who
Actually they will still use prefixes indicating ownership on some folders such as MPAA Movies RIAA Music
MPAA only asked them to rename "My Music". Microsoft then realized it would have to rename the rest for publicity's sake...
I guess that this also means that Windows Longhorn will call home to Microsoft headquarters to let Microsoft know about what user is doing.
I always hated the 'MyThis, MyThat' nonsense. Always seemed to be a very immature naming convention.
Now if only MySQL can follow a fine example and find a better name. Although I wonder if the 'My' has been the best marketing idea to promote a software product. Feels so much nicer to know that it's MINE !
*end rant*
All your documents are belong to US. Another step by the RIAA, just so people forget the idea that it's "their music".
I'm glad we don't get a headline on Slashdot for every textual change with GNOME or KDE.
will be to add the monicer Microsofts Computer.
Just three more hours seapeople and you can finally take me away from this crappy God Damned planet full of hippies
How will we know whose computer we are accessing if they don't have it labeled anymore?
Just when the "ownership society" b.s. is gaining momentum, too...
This is a sign that Bill Gates is getting more mature. Now he's comfortable with his world domination, so his inner three year old no longer compels him to label everything "mine".
Taking away "My" is kinda like when they find something vibrating in your luggage...
Narrator: Was it ticking?
Airport Security Officer: Actually throwers don't worry about ticking 'cause modern bombs don't tick.
Narrator: Sorry, throwers?
Airport Security Officer: Baggage handlers. But, when a suitcase vibrates, then the throwers gotta call the police.
Narrator: My suitcase was vibrating?
Airport Security Officer: Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while...
[whispering]
Airport Security Officer: it's a dildo. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a dildo, never your dildo.
Narrator: I don't own...
Not "My" computer, but "The" computer...
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
Microsoft postponed dropping the "My" from "My Computer", "My Documents", etc. due to technical difficulties. I like how this is, "a big change" according to the article. Wow, I'm impressed. So innovative.
This is a good start. 'Soft should think of replacing other things on the 'c. Like 'nting, or 'uments. Remind me a little of the guy who couldn't pronounce the t in the middle of planet arium. Why is this headline news, again? Imagine the brouhaha if they decided to rename the start button go. This is such an inane post, it is hard to come up with stuff to beat it.
I'd actually like to see this as a domain-triggered change. If you're in a workgroup, fine. Put it in a domain and "my" goes away, because the computer probably belongs to your employer. Just like you do.
It's about time they stop the playskool themed mindset of users. The windows XP theme was horrid, made me feel like I was in toys R' us. That service got shut down FIRST. It's about time they stopped the "MY" theme, it makes me sick.
A neat little trick you can do on other people's computers is to make a shortcut of "My Computer" and label it "Your Computer". Put the shortcut next to "My Computer".
So this is what they've been working on for so long. No wonder it's taking ages and they've had to cut back on other plans.
Yes!
Not that I use Windows for anything other than WoW. But, still. Yes!
>a drastic change like this to the windows UI hasn't happened since 3.1.
well, except for that whole '95 thing...
This is windows , you probably share it via the convineant Zombie network trojan installed by your freindly Global Black hats via the easy access features and buffer under/overflows .So My computer is not that relevant ,its "our computer".
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Ah, but with the new SuperAmazingFantasticSearches (tm), you no longer need to worry about where you store documents at all. This is just the first step in phasing out directory names altogether.
and returning to the good old days when men were men, women were women, mice ate cheese, and all files were in the root directory?
Wait... I think we've discovered the true secret of WinFS!
The "My" prefix has always reinforced to me how Windows is a sucky server platform. A few years ago I worked on a server appliction that ran on a farm of about 20 windows servers - each one had the "My Computer" on the desktop, and none of them were 'mine'. It just seemed like the designers of the windows desktop never really thought about how their OS was going to be used. Even on a desktop machine, its very inconsistant when the user of the computer is referred to both in the first person ("My Computer") and in the second person ("Are you sure you want to delete that file?").
w00t w00t w00t
ISP Tech Support: "Go to 'My Computer'..."
Me: "That's about a 15-minute drive. Aren't you downtown?"
ISP: "Uh... What OS are you using?"
Me: "Debian - Sarge."
ISP: "Uuhhhh..."
Now it'll be:
ISP Tech: "Go to 'Computer'."
Me: "Go _where_? It's right here, at arm's reach."
Actually, in all seriousness, I renamed it "Bill's Computer" a LONG time ago, 'cuz that's who _really_ 0wnz it, this is no new thing.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Hmm... They are preparing Longhorn for the era when by simply booting longhorn you expose your PC to the entire world. Most probably the the Longhorn will be so good that will be able to handle thousands of remote access connections on same time.
you can sound just like Scotty. (it helps if you hold the mouse up to your mouth when you say it)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Then again, you are starting the shutdown ;)
One of my favorite uses for My by Microsoft was the "Steelhead" routing technology released for Windows 2000. Once you installed it, instead of having a friendly text file or a control panel or two, you instead got "My Internet Router."
I was hoping, really, that they'd continue the trend with "My Disassembler" or "My Kernel."
How about "The RIAA's Computer" or the "MPAA's Computer" depending on which one you love more.
This is incredible. The only thing more earth-shattering would be Apple dropping the "i" prefix from the entire product line.
Is it a sign of a dying company when marketing innovation exceeds technical innovation? i hope so
I'm tired of hearing people referring to everything computer related, prefaced with the word "my", as in "my windows is broken", or "my excel needs reinstalled". Not that this will probably curb that trend, however any lessening of the obnoxiousness that M$ perpetrates on modern culture is welcome in my eyes.
Likewise another completely obnoxious thing is the number of things that people substitute the brand name for the item name. Like "I typed this document in
Microsoft" [Word], or "can you show me how to turn on the Proxima" [LCD Projector].
Not M$'s fault but, have you ever noticed how many people make everything possessive, especially relating to brands or stores? Like I got this shitty clothing at Wal-Mart's, or I have 10 CD's. It's stunning how completely ignorant the majority of people in the US seems to be with regards to speaking even their mother tongue (and probably only one) with any competency.
...I was part of the group of people who refused to actually use "My Documents" as their place to put their home directory stuff. I just thought the name was stupid. Besides, I had my own habit of creating folders either on the root (leftover from my MS-DOS days) or on the desktop for that sort of thing.
:-)
When XP rolled around I eventually gave in. I realized that those folders really are useful. I mean, I'm just gonna end up making my own folder in another location called something like "Docs" and containing all of my personal data in categorized subfolders. I've decided that the location is unimportant since the modern open and save dialogs have tiles or buttons that go directly to your docs dir.
Embrace the [My ]Documents folder. There's no more excuses
How will I know if it's actually my computer? Someone could replace it without my knowledge!
I think therefore I am. Therefore, I think, I am.
User: Do you mean double click on my modem? Helpdesk: (groan)
But at last I am interested in buying Longhorn!
My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Computer, My Videos, My iTunes Folder, My Visual Studio Projects has always made my eyes bleed
Absolutely fucking remarkable, I'm so glad I have Slashdot to give me such important information. I mean no more my? Although this is probably the first step, they get you to stop thinking of it as your computer, then next revision of windows will have a "The RIAA's" prefix.
Not to be a troll or anything (really), but I have -absolutely- no idea why a story where Microsoft changes the names of icons merits a story.
No, they're not patching security flaws in XP, or making it possible for me to remove Internet Explorer entirely, or opening the Office format so I can share documents as a Linux user more easily, they're CHANGING THE NAMES OF ICONS.
Asinine. And we lend them legitimacy by putting it on the front page of one of the most widely-read websites out there in the computing world. Fantastic. Tomorrow they'll change the default wallpaper for Longhorn and we'll have a bloody parade.
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
I think that this is all part of Microsoft's DRM scheme. Maybe they want to make sure that that you understand that if you are using a computer running Windows, it is no longer "your" computer.
Whoop-de friggin do!
from Longhorn. Although I doubt that this one will be missed. Somehow I always implicitly knew that it was *my* computer, containing *my* pictures.
I think that's because after a few minutes exposed to the 'net, it's no longer your computer anyway.
(*ducks*)
Maybe they should just name it "your computer"
After all, it IS your computer, right?
This change will obviously be the heart of longhorn. All the other features they've thrown out by now (grin)
Is it just me, or does this sound like a PR unit leaking little bits of stuff over the months to the press in an effort to keep Longhorn in the news? I imagine we'll be hearing more little "gems" like this as the year proceeds.
For example, if I set up a policy to redirect Joe's "My Documents" folder to a server, the folder name appears as "My Documents" to Joe, but as "Joe's Documents" to others (such as Administrator).
Now try writing a script that references that folder. What name do you use?This + this = Longhorn.
Oh well, I guess Apple asked for it.
I can't can't believe that that nobody else has has noticed the the typo in in the headline.
I wonder how many slashbots already have posted a reply containing something that goes like like: Of course it's not longer "My computer" because the latest internet worm already ownz0red it and turned the machine into a friggin sp@mbot.
--- Eat my sig.
"OK, glad we all could make it! Everyone on the phone hear me OK? Great! Ok, first we will start out with Bobs PowerPoint on the exciting history of the word "My" and its long association with MicroSoft, then Shelly will............"
bang.
Brains splatter against wall.
Down the stairs, that is.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Did you intended to be funny? If yes, don't consider the answer...
Yes, the physical location shouldn't matter, but on Windows, it does*. How do you acces your files by net, or how do you find them on those programs that don't display "My Documents" at top level? There are a lot of tasks I needed to do at Windows by the time I used it that required knowing the path to the documents, like acessing other peoples stuff** or fixing an account.
* There is a register key telling the path, so, I guess, a well written program can access it. But it is hard, you have to acces a key, and can't do that at command line (this contrasts a lot with the simple '~' expansion of *nix). No surprise several people don't use this.
** There are plenty of situations where you need to acces someone else's documents. There is a shame that Windows, with a so nice permission system have a unusable interface, so you either can't safely let people access your "My Documents" or can't have any work done while adimistrating your account (also contrasts with the simple permission system of *nix).
Rethinking email
What's wrong about "my" anyway? In fact, the best would be to call it
my $computer;
Linux and all Unix variants came to a common naming consensus to completely spell out directory names (ie. /usr will become /user, /dev will become /devices, etc) so the directory naming convention will make sense to Joe Q. Computeruser, thus attracting new OS supporters from Microsoft's grasp.
..."Bill's Computer", "Bill's Desktop", and most importantly, "Bill's Wallet"
"Mein Comp..."
Just close enough to "Kampf", I suspect...
Unlike /usr/sbin/, /bin/ /usr/bin, /usr/var/local/bin and /bin/local/var/usr/bin.rc pico.
I always know where to find my tools! I put them all in my bookmarks folder of my web browser. The internet age is NOW!!!
Wait a sec, Am i connected to "MY" computer or am i still connected to the "OTHER"'s(hacked) computer still?
buffering...
There's nothing worse than saying, "Ok, click on 'My Computer'."
:)
"Your computer? How can I do that"
"Umm, no, click on your 'My Computer' icon."
"But all it says is 'My Computer.' Not 'Your My Computer."
*sigh*
Use it. Love it.
Your home directory will now be called 'My Home'. And it's not a directory anymore, it's a 'Folder' because that's somehow easier to understand. TTYs are now called 'DOS' and shell scripts are 'Batch' files.
/' when the system is installed and then chmod will be removed from the system.
/Program\ Files. To facilitate backwards compatibility, ~/.appname will be symlinked back to the appropriate directory.
/srv will be automatically regenerated if they are deleted or changed. The regenerated file will not be the same version as the one that was deleted.
KDE and Gnome will be merged and renamed to 'Bob'.
All Windows networks will be identified by Samba as 'My Network' to reflect how easy it is to 'pwn' the network. Linux network security will be removed by uninstalling firewalls and opening all shares to anonymous r/w access, thus integrating perfectly within the Windows network.
To make everybody's life easier, distros will now default to 'chmod -R 777
The new standard will be for all applications to save configuration into their app directory under
'Core' system files such as everything in
To facilitate easier use of the command line for new users, the following application renaming will take place:
ls to 'show me what is in this folder'
mv to 'move this somewhere else'
cp to 'copy this somewhere else'
cd to 'change folder'
exit to 'close this DOS window'
(I am currently accepting applications for other application renaming options).
I'm also petitioning to have Firefox renamed to 'Aiiieeey'. Please sign below if you support this effort.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
This story will be on Slashdot's Hall of Fame page for most comments.
Oh that should just be arse they will now then. Hmmm
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Further, the sites I choose to remember on the web are not always favorites -- if I'm doing research on racism, I don't have any particular desire to mark some bigot's soapbox a ``Favorite.'' And the Start menu wants to suggest some kind of damn computing adventure I'm gonna have -- which is sorta true in that every new release of Windows re-orders crap according to some schizophrenic scheme. But, really, they ought to call it the "Unwieldy, Confusing, Labrynthine, Mystery Way to Get to Your Programs and God Knows What Else That May or May Not Accessible Through the (My) Computer Icon" menu.
And so, now, they're gonna call it "Computer" which is less cloying, but really doesn't improve on the fact that the Mac metaphors Windows is based offer a reasonable pleasant working environment and Windows is, at its core, a screwed mess.
Or should I say "God, how nice!"
Reminds me of the quote, "MTV has devolved from a focus on music to the shiny things network."
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Saves me the trouble of doing it.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
...for the PowerPC eieio instruction.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Jesus, and people wonder why I hate Microsoft!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
...because your computer does not belong to you anymore. It is Microsoft's property now.
Unless you install GNU/Linux!
Oh wait... but an Intel rep confirmed the 945 would help implement Microsoft's DRM at a chip level! AMD all the way!
All joking aside, this is a good change.
I manually made this change to my machine because once inside "My Documents", I have to type three extra characters to be able to open the sub directory I want.
http://brandonbloom.name
> Microsoft has decided to drop the "my" prefixes for Longhorn.
> Instead of "My Computer," it will be just just plain simple "Computer".
Why, of why, must they make it so easy for Windows-bashers to find reasons to say they are copying the OS from that fruit company? The tenth version of their OS already has folders named 'Documents', 'Pictures', 'Movies' for every user.
Caller: "I can't find My Computer!!! HELP!!"
Helpdesk: "Sir, maybe you should call the police?"
Caller: "What!?"
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
In Mother Russia, to computer you are My User!
... It's OUR computer
... Computer owns YOU!
... computer is State property!
Cos I was at a friend's house and got confused.
I wonder if they'll replace "My Niggaz" with just "Niggaz"
Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- http://bugmenot.com/
Maybe they changed the name to avoid jokers calling tech support and complaining about "My longhorn"? Which reminds me of Pete's Coffee. They have coffee brand called "Major Dickanson". According to a friend of mine who worked in a Pete's store, more than one male customer referred to it as "Major Dick"
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
1. My Documents --> Documents
2. ????
3. profit
It's MY computer, not Bill's.
Question everything
But has Bill Gates dropped the My Money for Longhorn yet?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
big news
Not "My Computer" but "My Viruses" and Internet Explorer can be "My Spyware"
that with all the shoddy spelling here on /., Microsoft will become Crosoft???
Actually they may change it to owned not our.
Got Code?
Only on Slashdot would you find 300 comments examining the big picture significance of 'My' Computer.
"Derp de derp."
iComputer = Apple
Computer = Embrace & Extend.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Jeez, these proprietary software guys never do anything innovative or original. The "Computer" and "Documents" icons are just so obviously copied from Ubuntu. All these proprietary software guys are great at reverse engineering stuff other, open-source developers have already invented, but you never see them innovate or create anything new. This is all just another example of it. Before long they'll kill the whole software industry and plunge us into a global recession, costing us jobs and putting all the world's software developers out of business!
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Please don't joke about that.
A while back I had to replace a drive in one of our Dells. I backed up the user's My Documents folder, formatted the old drive, installed the new drive and then shipped the old one back to Dell, as it was a warrenty replacement.
A couple of days later the user complained that she was missing a bunch of documents. It seems she kept the really important ones in her Favorites folder cause, well, they were her 'favorite' documents.
When I asked her why on Earth she would store her documents there, she looked at me as if I was crazy!
I don't care why you're posting AC
I for one couldn't stand everything having a "My" in front of it ...
So all I can say Microsoft is, Thank My God!
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
Now, now, the first step in the long way towards estabilishing the equality of rights for computers.
First, let's eradicate the concept of computers being slaves to humans from human mind, by removing the "my computer" entry.
Then we protect the computers from abuse by users by using the DRM technology.
Then finally we reveal MS Word contains distributed Artificial Intelligence program and is sentient, covering whole world.
And then we vote equal rights for computers...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The term "Computer" has been used as the "root" of the Mac OS X Finder since version 10.0. Also, assuming the "my" drop is universal, Windows'll now have "Pictures", "Documents", and "Music". How unique.
I know that these terms are really generic, and Apple holds no rights to the usage of them without the word "My" preceding them, but it's just par for the course. Thank God "Program Files" isn't a place most users go, or Microsoft might rename it to "Applications".
As a perl coder, and someone whom has used cygwin, or heck, just mounting up your c: drive on a *nix machine to browse it, pathing becomes a pain:
:) That got fixed, but um...you can't fix fat32. ;)
HOME=c:/Documents\ and\ Settings/numbski
export $HOME
Okay, so that one isn't so bad, but come on, not one, but TWO spaces in the path to your default home directory???
What about the default path for OO.o to save your documents?
c:/Documents\ and\ Settings/numbski/My\ Documents
pfft. It gets to be insane. Dropping the 'my' will be nicer in that respect, and the fact that FAT32 and NTFS are case insensitive helps with the tab-completion problems. At least OSX is case-respecting case-insensitive. I can just imagine what happens if you install cygwin, perl, and then install LWP from CPAN. It will find head, and then LWP will try to install HEAD.
On OSX, originally this clobbered your head command (for unix-know-nothings, if you type head file.txt, it will print the first few lines of your text file to the screen), and made for all sorts of fun.
Tired of the Slashdot effect and broken links? I think I have found a working solution.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Ultimately your material possessions mean nothing. Matter is conserved; you cannot truly own anything.
Whoah.
Breakfast served all day!
I guess they decided to stop bullshitting everyone about who really owns your computer.
.NET passport terms and conditions from 2001 (before people started reading it, which made them "update" it... and make it look prettier) should've been a clue...
the
Yet another knock-off of OS X. Jeeze..
needs to drop "My" from the default Downloads folder, as well. It's the only application that uses "My" in my Linux box.
I always found the "My" prefix annoying. Good move from microsoft, though Linux desktops never had this annoying "feature" in the first place.
VStrider.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/31/132122 7&tid=217
And MSFT wants to compete in search? Good luck.
The pic in the upper left hand corner of the article shows an XP screen with a "Taurus" symbol. Sounds like a lot of bull to me.
Here's how moderation works:
1. Get mod points
2. Use mod points
3. If "2" was executed in an acceptable manner, "1" will occur more often
I wish I just hadn't wasted my last mod point for this week, I know what I'd do with it.
Does anyone who reads Slashdot actually use any of the "My" documents?
I heard (in an IRC chatroom) that the "My" folders are prone to be accidentally deleted. I'm not sure if this is true, but this is why I don't use these folders.
I create my own folders and decide how I want to catagorize my files.
it to say "My Computer", you can always rename it. Hopefully.
yes, it's just you. more like some nobody working at MSFT leaked it to technewsworld.com, and technewsworld.com having no real concept of technical news, released an article. the next phase was someone posted it to /., knowing how /. users love to bash MSFT, and knowing this would be a lame but effective excuse to do so.
also, LEAK is pretty strong. i seriously doubt MSFT gives a crap whether people know this or not.
Unlike /usr/sbin/, /bin/ /usr/bin, /usr/var/local/bin and /bin/local/var/usr/bin.rc pico.
Yes, few systems are immune to the peril of programs being put in wierd places.
But I am talking about users documents, where in a UNIX system you know will end up in your home directory. That is simply the best system for just about anyone as at least you have a starting point that doesn't include all of the directories you mentioned ealier!! Compare that to the madness of looking for some programs configuration files in your "home" that is deep in the Windows directory. Or possibly elsewhere! What joy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
are belongs to us.
Bill Gates.
1) Remove "my" 2) ??? 3) Profit!
Read about it before knocking it.
Who knows, you might learn something.
That's just great....
Now how am I going to know whos computer it is.
F:\DownloadSoftware
and
F:\Horrible Untrustworthy Dangerous Software
The My Documents folder names sucked, and their location was annoying when you first start because of your very point. I'm a Mac fanboi anyway, but I think the Pictures/Movies/Music/Documents of OS X are more sensible.
Just the other day I removed their contents from my system hard drive and replaced them with aliases to other partitions, so the 4 categories point now to 4 differently defined sectors of the hard drives.
Of course, while possible with extended partitions, I don't think you can do this with Windows because of how it'd really annoy your average user when trying to defrag, or use other utilities, but with heavy read/write in these folders, why not have them able to be backed up on other partitions easier, making formatting easier for when defragging won't cut it?
Maybe I'm wrong to feel a little more in control of the space where my files, classified by type, reside. And I guess people would just baulk if instead of "Oooooh, your lovely files are in this specially named lovesy wovesy Folder. Yes they are. Yes they are :-)" their folder names were F:\Music, G:\Documents, H:\Pictures, I:\Movies..... iPictures? WTF!?
Sure in the file dialogues and SOME explorer windows you get quick access to My Documents.
But then sometimes you had programs that decided they would save settings in My Documents. Only they had to have a fixed idea of where that was, and over time that ended up being wrong. Every time the location of this folder changes you orphan information there you did not even know you needed.
For whatever reason, like I said it ended up being annoying enough having the location change that I simply stopped using the default location even though I use the defaults in other places (like OS X).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This will make sygwin sightly easier to use now they just need to hurry up and rename "Documents and Settings" and "program Files"
Reminds me of a call I got when working in tech support at BT - users would often offer up their own explanation of the cause of a problem, so once we had a computer that was "overheating because there were too many files in the root directory."
Still makes me laugh.
Sorry.
As you were.
"Computer"? "Documents"? "Music"? How dull. How about some more interesting labels, like "Milliard Gargantubrain" for Computer, "Googleplex Starthinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity" for Network, and "Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus XII, the Magic and Indefatigable" for Documents. "Multicorticoid Perspicutron Titan Muller", "Pondermatic", and "Deep Thought" are good ones too. Come on Microsoft, stop being so corporate and live a little...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Love it WAY more.
Can you guess which of us will first fall to RSI?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have been told that one original purpose to do the "My Documents" thing was to force application writers to deal with spaces in the path. Since the user will usually save into the My Documents directory, the bug of not properly dealing with that path would come up quite readily.
The computer will answer, "I'm sorry my user, I'm afraid I can't do that."
User interface features, such as mouse movement and clicks, use of the scroll wheel, keys pressed, menu selections, and other events pass through a special filter when they occur in any part of the interface not controlled by safe Microsoft code. Any time such an event occurs, Windows will display a dialog, asking the user if he is sure he wants to perform that action. The user will have to select "Yes" and enter the administrator password to proceed. This process will be known in Longtooth as "Authenticating an OS event to the user," or simply, as "authentication."
The network layer will be heavily protected. Each network packet received or sent over any interface will require authentication, unless focus is in a Microsoft program at the time, in which case all security checks, including the Microsoft Personal Firewall, if activated, will be completely bypassed. Users will also have to authenticate the loading of any program, unless it is a Microsoft program. Any APIs called will have to be authenticated, unless they are called from a Microsoft program. Any assembly instruction executed in a non-Microsoft program will also have to be authenticated.
By the way, to make sure that a "bot" or some other automated system isn't automatically clicking "yes" and entering the password, and to foil password cracking programs, Microsoft will implement several innovative new technologies. Sometimes, the user will be asked to enter his password backwards. Other times, the password form will request every other character of the password, or every third character, or an ASCII sum of characters located in prime number locations (e.g., the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 11th, etc., characters of the password) in BCD notation, or characters located in Fibonacci number locations (e.g., the 0th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, etc., characters of the password). In the case of Fibonacci numbers, 0 will refer to the first character, 1 to the second, etc. Longtooth will provide a reference guide and a programmer's calculator to assist the user during this process. Additionally, Windows will sometimes display an image of text that is slightly warped (to foil OCR algorithms that might be present in password crackers) that the user must enter correctly before typing the password.
Again, these authentication checks take place only when running non-Microsoft code. Microsoft understands that so much authentication will make any non-Microsoft program totally unusable for all practical purposes. Instead of getting any work done, the user will spend all of his time entering passwords. Therefore, Microsoft will release what it internally calls a PoK, or "patchwork of kludges," known for marketing purposes as Microsoft Longtooth Password Accelerator 2003. This accelerator will function by capturing authentication events and entering the Administrator password automatically each time, preventing the window from appearing and bothering the user. Since this means the security gained through authentication will be lost, Microsoft Longtooth Password Accelerator 2003 will, at random intervals, disregard authentication events, causing the window to appear. This means that you could be playing Doom III, and suddenly a window appears asking you if you really want to execute MOV EAX,EBX. Or you might have Nero burning a DVD while you're watching TV in the other room, and the burning process will get screwed up in the middle because some window will wait for your password before continuing. These programs will be frozen until you enter the Administrator password. But since Microsoft understands
Huh!, another feature not in Longhorn! ;-)
I've always said that since W2K MS have produced a very capable operating system held back by an interface designed with nothing but contempt for users.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
YOUR MOM'S computer!!!
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
don't forget "your other right click"
Rumor has it that idea of file location may be a thing of the past.
Instant searching that is constantly updated is indeed very nice.
Where it fails is in the realm of backup or partitioning.
I keep a pretty structured set of directories. Now a lot of times I may not know quite where in a structure I've placed something, so I use spotlight and I can easily find it.
But when it comes time to backup files, I can backup the root of that structure and know I have everything I cared about backed up. Similarily, I can prune a subtree and move it elsewhere secure in knowing I have what I need.
Now compare that to the land where all you have to work with is a query representing a set of files. How do you KNOW you have EVERY file you really want in a large set? You have to manually verify and even then you might have something wrong. What if you mistagged one file by accident? That's how you loose data when moving subsets between one drive and another.
That's why files will ALWAYS need some sort of structured "home" to live in, and a mere set of keywords will never be enough to properly describe where a file "lives". Underneath it may share a database but for users you'll always need a pairing of structure with any other organizational overlay (like queries) on top of that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A Microsoft employee has divulged that the next step would be implementing the Darth prefix to all components.
After an unexplained profile implosion on Windows 2000 several years ago, I stopped putting anything important in the default location (a broken profile rendered the directory structure under "c:\documents and settings\\" inaccessible). I now create a folder right off the root and put a shortcut to it on my desktop in the "My Documents" folder.
My ItsAboutTime.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
See the following: http://www.microsoft.com/money/support/manual/scre ens/fig5-2.jpg
First they take your money (My Money - Microsoft Money!), then they take your computer.
But remember kids, as long as you use Free Software
THEY CAN NEVER TAKE YOUR LIBERTY!
You won't be able to NOT know whose files they are since you'll have to enter a password, give a biometric scan and activate online every time you want to see that picture of your new little niece. See, that's the whole point of dropping the "my" prefix. They're not your files, not if MS has anything to say about it. You're merely renting those ones and zero's, and MS is arranging them in a logical order as a service to you.
I just made these changes to my Win2K box at work. Now I have "Computer" and "Documents" in the upper left corner. Opening "Documents" yields "Pictures", "Music" and so on.
Now I'm up to date with all useful Longhorn changes! No need to install!
Wow *that* sure was enlightening....
Gee thanks M$-Slashdot for ignoring all of the submitted stories about things like Novell hiring programmers onto their payroll to contribute full-time to projects like Apache, MySQL, RSync, etc. while at the same time making sure that we know about great M$ news such as this!
The worst was when IE and Navigator would continually fight over naming HTML documents "Microsoft Web Document" (?) vs. "Netscape Hypertext Document".
Whothefuckcares?
it's now "our" computer. er, komputer.
in soviet russia...
Replace it with
Microsoft's Computer
Monopoly...DRM... who thinks they'll get away with it?
I removed the 'My' prefix years ago, I guess they are finally catching on.
Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:
:(
* 2005-05-30 11:22:20 Microsoft to nix "My" prefix (Index,Microsoft) (rejected)
Not the first time, won't be the last
One of the major problematic features of Windows is it's inherent, integrated, pervasive notion of one's personal possessions, to the point of paranoid stinginess, which I think reflects directly at the heart of Redmond. It's not just "My Documents," as any new install of Windows XP will reveal. Because underneath the "My Documents" folder are the "My Pictures," "My Music," etc. folders. WTF? Of course their mine, they're in the "My" Documents folder. Long ago I deleted the "My Documents" folder and replaced with a much more friendly place for my personal files, namely "Home." Thanks, Linux.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain
With the number of security holes it's bound to introduce, may as well call it "Anybodys Computer".
Do you see what I did there?
"This Computer" or localized "This Here Computer" for you southern folks. "The stuff inside the box connected to this TV screen, and that thing you're typing on." in beginner mode.
Finally the Perl folks have gotten back one of their most important reserved words.
MS never uses strict anyway, they didn't need it.
That's what "my this" and "my that" always reminded me of. The icons might has well have looked like crayon sketches, too.
Maybe I'll be able to switch OS's by the time Longhorn comes out and still play all the games I want to play now.
You will, it's called OS X + XBox 360 (isn't that cute, even the X'es match up!). All the interesting PC games are going to be going there first from now on pretty much.
Heck, you'll even be able to play Half Life 2 on the XBox 360 or PS3. And on a larger screen to boot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They could alternatively put "my" in front of every file and every icon on the whole system. My Pr0n, My Natalie Portman.jpg, My Paris Hilton.xls, My ILoveYou.vbs and so on. ;-)
With DRM, your computer no longer is "your computer", it is the music and pictures industries computer.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were still alive, and if Costello tried to buy a computer from Abbott: http://xynext.com/Abbot-Costello-Whos-on-First-Com puter-Joke/
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
That's about all there is to say about it.
"Bill's Computer"
It won't be _your_ computer, anymore.
becomes Crosoft?
I renamed it on my dad's to "Dad's Computer", but he soon changed it to "Damn Computer".
Write letterz n shit, yo.
Tomorrow's headline: "Revolutionary 'My' Removal Has Been Cut" Microsoft Chief Muckety Muck released a statement today saying that the planned removal of the My prefix has had to be cut from Longhorn in order to meet the new expected ship date of 2008. The day after tomorrow's headling: "Microsoft to back port the revolutionary My prefix removal to Windows XP" Ending speculation that Microsoft will be unable to drop the My prefix, muckety mucks at the software giant today announced plans to back port the My prefix removal to Windows XP. No date for this feature has yet been announced. Geez, Mac OS X has had the My prefix removed for *years* now.
I always said I was going to put an icon of a donkey on my desktop and name it "My Ass".
How about His or Her Computer?
Wouldn't it have been great if Microsoft had called "My Computer" "My Ass" instead. Because in Windows XP sometimes you see My Computer on the desktop and sometimes you don't. Imagine people calling Microsoft tech support:
Customer: "I can't find My Ass. Where is it?"
Tech: "Have you tried looking for it on your desktop? It's usually in the upper left hand corner."
Customer: "Nope. I still don't see My Ass."
Tech: "Left click on the start menu. You should see My Ass in the menu."
Customer: "OK. I see My Ass now!"
Tech: "Then left click on My Ass to open it. Or if you prefer you can right click on My Ass to explore it."
Customer: "OK, great! I can see what's in My Ass now!"
Tech: "Thank you for calling Microsoft Tech Support."
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
a nice little hack just to confuse the man.
Now I'll have to make it say something like "The Black Hole of Carnegie Hall".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...and you won't actually own anything.
I don't know when it started, or who with, but my guess is to make linux easier to use for people coming from windows, we have applications that contains links to folders like /My\ Downloads/ its time to get rid of that especially since it's like the only folder I have with a capital letter for the start. and yes I know I could change this myself.Firefox is one of these apps, yeah guys you can change this from being a default. windows won't be so we don't want or need it either.
~ is what it's all about. Forget those %somelongvariablename% things. And it even works in the OS X gui. Sweeeeet.
The XBox was hacked eight ways from sunday (I even have a book on it), I'm sure the 360 will face equal tampering.
Hoppefully you'll be able to do interesting things without a mod chip.
I never did understand why companies are so against other uses. Especially with portables, I'd buy one tomorrow if I could program anything for it myself. I though it would make a great universal remote where you could even have a sort pf Picture-In-Picture mode, where the second channel was playing on the PSP itself and you could swap with the main display!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Obvious Since Alpha! The show dedicated to Old News, Today!"
They're just being honest! With all the new DRM and the XP-like activation requirements it won't really be your computer anymore. MS is just loaning it to you for as long as they see fit.
it isn't really MY computer anymore, now is it?
If you think about it, ~ is even very Zen like as it's almost a Yin/Yang kind of symbol. A bit of up, a bit of down. It represents balance in your life, and thus your files.
:-)
What does %Gobbledygook% do for you? It is un balanced. Both "%" signs point vaguely backwards, away from where you really want to be. The very symbol denotes a thicket or circles and lines preventing progress! It sits above the five right over by the dollar sign, being corrupted eternally by the powerful pull of that symbol.
~ mwanwhile share companionship with "!", generating a field of excitment for the future and your potential. What could be more powerfully motivating?
Hmm, that went a little too far perhaps.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He already did.
Dude, I do the same thing, except I put it all on a completely different partition, that way I can ghost the OS partition after a system problem and keep all my personal data. Any system I reload for personal use, at work or at home, gets a slice off the beginning of the drive for each OS I load on it, and then one large data partition. Shortcuts go on the desktop since it's one step shorter than navigating to the "My Documents" folder. But is it really so strange that I actually started using those home-folder locations in OS X? tgz or dmg of your ~ is easy to backup and restore, but on XP there's all that registry BS. Then there are hidden folders that have equally irritating names, like %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Temp. Come on, /tmp is so much easier, but back in Windows even F:\ is so much easier than the default.
Gimme a kfucking kbreak already.
Or at least did when I used windows. I dropped "My" and "Neighborhood" from all desktop icons. I believe this is the first Longhorn feature I have no issues with. :-)
Instead of "My Computer," it will be just just plain simple "Computer".
Clearly, Microsoft is a great innovator.
No, seriously, this is a bad move -- "Computer" isn't nearly condescending enough on its own to make users feel effectively ridiculed.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Yeah, three times in 20 years. Those bastards.
DCMonkey
Yeah. Someone should come up with a folder where user profiles are stored and the user has full control of, oh, and when they log in, that is automatically their starting directory. Call it "home" or something. Maybe the idea will take root and become popular. Oh, how about "/home" ( home under the root directory ).
I think I am on to something...
I can't afford a sig!
so when will Redmond change the namesover fully too be just '/', 'doc', 'etc'...etc?
By reading this sig, you are now pwnd.
No one wants to admit that they own a Windows box - this will help distance them a bit.
Microsoft should have went further and called it "The Computer that I have to use at work because the company SOE prohibits me using My Mac"
You are, Plan 9.
Meanwhile in the 21st century ...
SCOTTY sits at a nearby Macintosh, surveys the machine quizzically, clears his throat and says: "Computer!"
BONES steps in quickly, picks up the Mouse and shoves it into Scotty's hand.
SCOTTY looks at the mouse, baffled, then puts it to his lips like a mike: "Hello? Computer...?"
NICHOLS (bewildered): Just use the keyboard...
SCOTTY: The keyboard?... How quaint!
I almost thought the title of this article was, "Longtooth Drops My Panties." That would have been a much better and more informative article.
For immediate release: Mikrosoft Corporation (NASDAQ: M5FT) today announced new technology, dubbed Pantydropper 2003 Professional Server. By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions. The software is touted as being the only solution on the enterprise market currently that can drop one's panties.
Gill Bates, Chief Software Architect at Mikrosoft, stated, "This is one I've been trying to figure out ever since my days as a pimply-faced teenaged geek. Now, at the age of 51, I finally have the solution to all of my problems."
you guys seem to forget that now:
Computer is associated with MS(my computer)
Internet is associated with MS(IE)
Email is associated with MS(Outlook)
They are degenerating the line between their product and what the user is doing/percieves.
People who are not computer literate will begin to associate Internet with IE EVEN MORE THAN IS CURRENT.
This is horrible!
ps. i bet that these icons will not be removable from the desktop....
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
Thanks for wasting my time, Taco.
"Cat got *delete-delete" tongue?"
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
The worst problems were anything that used command lines or shell scripts, but programs imported from Unix-related operating systems also tended to fail. The mapping between "Long Name With Spaces In It" and "LONGNA~1" sometimes worked, but often failed, and at best you tended to get non-human-readable names in the install scripts and sometimes have to type them in.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
... shitty ... broken ... virus infected
etc
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I hear that the Sun Java Desktop is going to change the icon labelled "The Computer" to "The Network".
bah duhm bum.
This is THE reason for which I might upgrade to Longhorn. I know, I can rename those folders, but other "My' folders like 'My eBooks' keep comming back everytime I remove them.
There is a register key telling the path, so, I guess, a well written program can access it. But it is hard, you have to acces a key, and can't do that at command line (this contrasts a lot with the simple '~' expansion of *nix). No surprise several people don't use this.
Something wrong with %USERPROFILE%, dear?
You know you can redirect directories like "My Documents" to anywhere you like using group policies, don't you? You could send them all to a fileserver or a more simplified set of subdirectories.
There are plenty of situations where you need to acces someone else's documents. There is a shame that Windows, with a so nice permission system have a unusable interface, so you either can't safely let people access your "My Documents" or can't have any work done while adimistrating your account (also contrasts with the simple permission system of *nix).
Sharing documents is exactly the purpose of the "Shared Documents" folder.
Notice also that Explorer shows the documents folders of every user as subdirectories of "My Computer".
mysql freaks will have to rename their database to SQL.
At my previous work, we had some Windows servers, and they were all behind a KVM. One way to help the poor sysadmin (me) to remember which box he was on was to rename the My Computer icon into the hostname of that computer.
The trend caught on with the more computer-savvy people, but the downside was that there was no consistent "My Computer" icon to click when some of the more computer-savvy people turned out to be less computer-savvy after all. "Huh? I don't have an icon that says My Computer...". We solved this by instructing users to get to the disks through Explorer and the Control panel through the Start menu, and everything was nice and kentucky again.
~rL
my personalized page would be located at '.msn.com'?
I hate all that 'My' bullshit ok, so you can change this in windows if you want but it's too much hassle and some programs will default to that anyway... this is the best thing I've heard so far about longhorn, forget avalon etc, this is why I'll be upgrading
I think we should try to eliminate spaces from standard directories (program files, my ...) In case an old program needs to get to one. Microsoft probably isn't concerned with backwards compatibility in Longhorn. Every program will have to be rewritten.
next step for m$: change it to "ours computer"
in soviet redmond, documents own you!!!
Get your torrents...
I've never understood just why Windows has had all these butt ugly OR patronizing OR useless GUI elements. All the icons and graphics look like the worst clip art circa 1991. All the silly warnings and enforcements of doing computing "their" way. I really have never understood why people put up with all this crap.
doh!
So how much longer is this going to delay the Longhorn release? I'm guessing that Microsoft will need to spend at least six months rewriting hard-coded kernel performance enhancements that refer to the "My" folders. A similar amount of time will be needed to fix all the occurances of "My" folders in the Internet Explorer codebase.
And of course, every change will add in a new security flaw.
This is like shooting fish in a barrel. Mocking Microsoft has just become too damned easy...
hook a brother up.
Note to moderators: insightful means "having insight, perceptive". The above comment does not qualify because most people would have noticed the patronising tone of attaching "my" this, "my" that to folders all over the place.
Shit, thats almost as many wars that the USA has started in the same time period...
Ouch troll alert, my karma is going to take a sizzling from that one!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
There are already "compatibilities" kludged (the nicest word I can think of) into things like the DOS command window, as in:
cd \"my documents"
or for full-andcomplete 8.3 filename compatibility, the infamous:
cd \mydocu~1
OTOH, such programs are pretty damn ancient in net.time, and should be relegated to a directory off of root named something like \user_8_3\
I guess thismeans Longhorn will be "Shorthorn compatible."
Tag lost or not installed.
This has been in Longhorn beta builds since the 4000s. Just "Computer" and "Documents", but IIRC there's still "My Music" and "My Pictures".
Don't ask me where I got my Longhorn beta... I'll tell you WinHEC. Of _course_.
As someone mentioned above for spaces in filenames, this too is probably so you don't get too comfortable with hard coded paths. You should be looking up the location in the registry, or with the appropriate api call. The number of program installs I've seen that hard code to "c:\program files" or worse "c:\appname" .... Mind you, when you're looking for temp to clear it out, or some application settings folder, it's a pain to identify where it really is. And if you are running out of space on your C drive it's almost impossible to change all apps to use D instead.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
take that, Google! Who's the innovator now?
Here's an oldie - Millennium-Year Application Software System a.k.a MyAss will now be called The Application Software System (The Ass).
Tag lost or not installed.
IF only though one could count on reasonable shortcut values to exist. There are a few, like %SYSTEM%, but not %DOCS% (which could point to the real location of C:\Documents and SEttings\[profile\My Documents\.
Oh well.
Maybe the skill from tapping those colored squares they use as the interface on Star Trek screens is directly transferrable to a keyboard.
And to think the standard colored-square touch-screen layout will still be QWERTY.
Tag lost or not installed.
... are belong to me.
Bill
... just stay put. An FBI raid is imminent!
Hasbro has the patent on "My Pretty Foo". You, sir are a IP-terrorist! Evildoer, burn in hell!!
Or they could call it:
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
So this would in essence reduce the footprint of Longhorn by say 3 bytes for each instance of "My "?
Way to trim the fat MSFT!
I could have sworn it changed between:
Win XP.
Win 2k
Windows NT
Windows 98
Windows 95
Windows 3.1
Basically every few years. Sure that doesn't seem like much but it adds up - especially when every time you are helping friends with similar issues.
But more that that it's part of what made you dread each new Windows install. And like I said in another some programs never realized the home directory had changed so you a little fallout for months or years after each change when some program exhibited a quirk because of it. Windows always was the death of a thousand cuts, and that was about forty of them.
To compare, for the last few major releases of OS X my home directory structure has remained the same.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It was decided to drop the word My since the majority of Windows Boxes are 0wned anyway.
incidentally, as someone who already had a perfectly functional filing system in place, i never really had much use for the My* folders. Admittedly my filing was clunkier (FILES -*) but they did line up alphabetically and always bunched together in the folder tree.
what i would much rather see is a system where i can reassign any one of those folders to a different one much the same way that you can change My Documents to a different one so i can have folders called vids, tunage, pix etc...
Seriously, is this news?
ONLY in Slashdot can Microsoft's slight name in file naming in their operating system turn into a conversation about... Star Trek
All I can say is it seemed more often that that because like I said - I ran into issues for quite some time after each shift. I admire your nowing wheich release had it each way...
While OS X has not been out all that long relativley speaking, it has undergone changes the equal of movng between 95->98->2000->XP (I would categorize the Jaguar->Tiger shift as roughly equivilent to the change from 2k to XP). And furthermore since they actually have a plain and practical system, I don't think they'll ever have to change it. Basically Microsoft has with this announcement given up, and decided that simple was best and that Apple had it right in the first place.
Even so they have yet to put such a folder ina good place as ALL user files should be at one location on an HD, not scattered to the seven winds. I'm sure I'll continue to ignore the default Documents fodler in Longhorn just as I always have and thus I'll have some settings files under c:\documents and settings but other important documents elsewhere, making backup or migration a chore as it has always been.
I am not trolling on this issue I am just pointing out something that aggrivated me for years about Windows that I thought was near the core of why I disliked it. A bad default file organizational strategy for the user.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...they would 'fess up that the "My" in question is William Henry Gates III.
When you see "My Computer", mentally translate it to "Trey's Computer" and suddenly a lot of Microsoft's odd attitudes become understandable. Not nice, or fair, or reasonable, or polite - but understandable.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I am counting the transition from no defaulty (Win 3.1) to c:\My Documents as one as well.
That's the trouble with smarmy answers like the original posters "three" comment - when you're wrong you look much more foolish than the person you were arguing with in the first place. I never did set forth a number in the first place, just said every few years...
Thanks for reminiding me of that as I was trying to use a Win98 installtion with a few users set up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think this is a good move on the part of MS. For me at least, the space between "My" and "Computer" (or whatever) is scary. I never used those directories when I was a Windows user. But my distrust of spaces in filenames and directories might stem from the fact that I like the command line, and having to escape spaces is SUPER ANNOYING.
Meh.
Woop-de-fucking-doo!
It's really a result of the truth in advertising laws... it was never "your computer", it was 0wn3d by script kiddies minutes after you connected it to the net.
I just noticed my icon is called "HaXx0r's Computer". What's that mean? Is that hexidecimal or something?
I for one am glad that filenames can have spaces in them.
True, but given the case-insensitive-but-preserving semantics of the rest of the VFAT, the Right Way to do it would probably have been to make space the "lowercase" equivalent of underscore.
Reader's Digest Version (ala Fight Club) "I am Jack's Network Places" "I am Jack's Stash of Pr0n"
<? include ('signature.inc'); ?>
1. I don't trust spaces in filenames or directory names
2. I didn't like the fact that the "My" directories are buried DEEP with the bowels of C:/windows/
3. I never want "intelligent" programs to touch or browser a directory with my important files in until I tell it to. Programs by default like to start in the "My" directories and that bothers me.
So call me paranoid... anyway, I left all that behind many years ago. Now a content and happy Linux user.
Meh.
Because that's exactly where most software will expect to find my files.
Meh.
...when perusing the "My Music" folder and seeing nothing but pirated mp3s.
...that's all I can say...wow...756 comments on this, the ramifications must be HUGE
Reading the posts, I was surprised there weren't more suggestions for a more reasonable or intuitive directory organization, e.g, perhaps "/home/USER" for instead of "Documents and Settings/blah blah blah". The "Documents and Settings" paradigm seems to be confusing enough to baffle even the software application providers.
Many times I've had to traverse the hell that is "Documents and Settings" just to find where some misguided application has dropped my latest "Untitled n" masterpiece. Sometimes, I never find it.
My solution, for myself, and for others I do support for has been to actually create a "/home/USER" where USER is... Then I show users how to set up their software to point to that directory or any subdirectories they've chosen to create. So far, they've all thanked me.
I'm guessing there'll be a bit of flaming at me along the lines of "The standard is Documents and Settings...", but as I mentioned at the outset, educating me, your friends, etc. isn't enough... I've seen off-the-shelf software misuse or completely miss the paradigm.
So, hopefully, this will be fixed too... (while "/home" may be imperfect... what exactly does "Documents and Settings" represent? Especially as Microsoft begins to move more and more to an "object" model.)
Would the GNAA sue?
Without encouragement and reward, such innovation will cease and the world will be a poorer place for it.
Hopefully, it is already patent pending: "names without 'My'"?
</s>
I don't want to sell you death sticks.
why not just drop it all together!? .NET now the 'my'...
First it was
In all honesty, its good to see them remove the white space from system directories...
Then how am I supposed to know whose computer it is? Maybe I'll just give up now. I'm not very good with all this technology.
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
COUGH you should be using that function with the appropriate CSIDL
See also
C:\Program Files or C:\PROGRA~1
nuff said =)
Gee, 5 seconds searching Google turns up this helpful page... Or this one.
Just open Admin. Tools > Local Security Policy > User Configuration > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection.
I just have to say that as someone who nearly blew a blood vessel when the whole "My" scheme came about and just KNEW that nothing ever good would come of it, I have precisely one reaction to this announcement:
! !!!!!
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssss!!!!!!!
I have no tag line
I absolutely welcome this change. It is my belief that all of the My This and My That nonsense in the computer industry has created a kind of computer selfishness among the average user. I don't know how many times I have wanted to poke my eyes out after a secretary called up and said "My Word isn't working" or "My Excel crashed". It's a very subtle thing, but I believe that kind of mindset diminishes one's capacity to grasp the bigger picture every now and then.
Once every version in every version of Windows which means they've changed the default, as a company, somewhere around 12 times.
There was no standard, designated or even suggested area to save files in Windows 3.x, the default was always the application directory.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
are we talking about vaporware? How 'bout we come up with a solution to fix the idiotic patent system that recognizes ideas as property? A way to fix the ridiculous waste of money called TSA and Homeland Security? Anna Nicole Smith's bra size?
of how many bits that will save. HDD manufacturers should start to worry. How unMicrosoft like to actually do something to make the OS smaller.
... about who the 'My' actually refers to. It will henceforth be called "Bill's Computer"
...and it only took them 12 years.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
Just great, now when I tell some computer ignoramus to "double click computer" they'll bang their mouse on their computer! It was bad enough explaining to them that 'double clicking my computer' did not mean I wanted them to manhandle my house through the telephone.
Renaming Network Neighborhood to My Network Places was hard enough. I still (accidentally) call it NN and morons are like, uh...
Oh, and people piss me off that don't know which slash is backslash. I'd like the backhand the next moron that uses the question mark/forward slash on me.
... it's not *MY* computer anymore.
;-)
It either belongs to Microsoft or to the spy/scumware/trojan/virus/worm-writing folks that 0wN most the home PCs
Actually not mine, coz I left the M$ boat some time ago. Maybe yours ? Or your computer-newbie friends ? You know, the one who called you three times last week to get his crap cleaned up.
Even with ohers uses to be had, most people would also still buy games - in fact right now things are slightly worse that way because I know some poeple who have modded XBoxes that do not buy some games because the've been locked out of Live.
It could also be because opening it up at all makes it easier to pirate games. Of course, the counterargument is that people already pirate games so there would be little difference.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Aaw crap! I can already hear my mother phoning me:
Mother: "My computer has dissapeared. Please fix it."
Me: (Looking away from Linux desktop and slamming palm of hand against forehead)
"WTF are you talking about mom?"
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
I always thought the "My" thing was pretty annoying but then they kept adding and adding "my" folders...My Documents, My Pictures, My Videos... I resisted at first, (I always used a "myStuff" directory before) but software apps started defaulting all the save dialogs to open into "My Documents" so I eventually gave in. Now it's actually kinda usefull because they're all listed next to each other because they're all named "My whatever". Always towards the top of the directory because they're capital letters. Now they're all just going to be mixed through the directory? Or are they going to be a "special" system folder? Maybe so they can make sure all the files are DRM? Guess I'll be going back to using "myStuff"...or maybe "!myStuff"...
DOS and Windows 1/2/3 had no concept of a central documents (home) directory.
Windows 95 introduced the My Documents folder. But, it was either under c:\, or c:\windows\profiles, or c:\windows\profiles\"username" depending on whether you had User Profiles enabled, and whether or not you had indivual user profiles enabled.
I don't recall the name of the directory for Windows NT, but it was located under c:\winnt\profiles.
Windows 2000 moved it to c:\documents and settings\"username"\my documents.
Windows XP kept it there.
Then there's the "shortcuts" to my documents under my computer, that would either read "My Documents" or "username"'s documents or shared documents, but you were never really sure where those folders were actually stored. And the names kept changing.
That's a bit more than 3 times.
What is the world, I mean my world, coming to?
Table-ized A.I.
The iWhack
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Maybe you could explain how the big sky-dude has done more for me than, say, Santa Claus??
Please use logic and verified facts. Don't point me to some thousand year old collection of short stories and fiction. Do explain how he is some amazingly moral force (yet, according to the 'standard' references people point to, he condones slavery and forces women to married to their rapists).
Oh, nevermind - I know you can't. Go and spout off somewhere else.
I think "Computer" just sounds stupid, but "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My Music", "My Chinchilla", etc. was just retarded. Keep "My Computer", but get rid of the other crap.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
Even if it is taken away it will remain My Precious.
Bring back My Precious. ohhh. Precious
Or possibly "not your's"
Yay me!
Is it a hint of worse security? Does it mean that everyone can own my computer now?
ROTFLMAOTNTPIMP!!!!!!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
it hasn't been just *My* documents for quite a while now. it's been everyone-in-my-contact-lists' document. but then that would be too long a prefix.
I have the same feeling when I program in Java/C#/Python after years of programming in C/C++. It feels like I am using a child's toy and it isn't fun at all. I don't want the computer holding my hand.
to Copy Apple always surprises me, whats next, white pakaging? :)
{Insert Signature Here}
There a simple reason for all this, once you install longhorn it's not your computer anymore, it falls in the hands of M$
I checked out some of the promo videos and propaganda that is surrounding Longhorn
I read that as "the porno videos". Am I alone?
No, they're Dvorak, obviously!
"Fight for lost causes. You may discover they weren't."
..say 'Deze Computer', which means 'This Computer'. This only goes for 'My Computer' though. The rest of the folders (My Pictures/Documents/etc) are translated as 'Mijn' (My).
my /home directory. In fact, since I've started being a Linux user (about eight years ago), I've been progressively creating a whole bunch of directories such as MyDocs, MyProgs, MyData, MyFigs... I was precisely thinking about getting rid of those "My" prefixes because of shell auto-completion.
Then I'll no longer need to keep hitting "M" to get to the folder I want. Good move - I like browsing by keyboard sometimes - makes life easier. My shortcut to My Documents on the C:\ drive is called "e docs" as I have no folders beginning with e there...
Among the list of GUI strangeness, I think My Computer, or plain Computer is right next to Apple's logic of removing discs by dropping them in the trash can (that's your My recycle bin, dear Windows users ;-)
... What else is on my desktop? Oh, yeah... my computer!"
What were they thinking? This?
"OK we have this desktop metaphor down pat, so there's the desktop, there's a trash can, here's a folder, some documents, yup, here's the pretty picture of wife and kiddies,
I think, therefore I am...I think.
The Danish version of Windows already uses (the Danish equivalent of) "This computer" instead of "My computer" and "Documents" instead of "My documents".
It was soo hard when I hocked someones box to rename the prefix from 'my computer' to 'someone elses computer'... At least now I wont have to worry :)
It should have been "Your Computer."
But then that gives a feeling of not being "connected" with the computer. Now, M$ has decided to treat us like little adults and allows just "Computer", as though originally they didn't think that we would be able to determine who owns the computer we were working on...
Anyway, when you click on "My Computer" you could essentially also receive a window with "other peoples" computer via mapped network drivers, hence "My Computer" could essentially be wrong. Maybe "A Computer" would be more accurate, or even "A computer somewhere". What about "My computer" in a terminal session, shouldn't that be "My session computer"?
Oh the board meetings about this change must have been interesting...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Czech localization of WinXP show 'Tento Poèítaè' which translates as 'This Computer'. Less personal but better description.
I'm not insane. My mother had me tested.
cd /cygdrive/c/Documents\ and\ Settings/User/My\ Documents
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
my internet?
HD Trailers
How quaint.
Now I have a good reason to upgrade from WinXP to Longhorn.
Is this because Sun decided to place an icon called "This Computer" in the Java Desktop?
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
Hmm, no longer My Documents... Is this a tacit admission that Longhorn user permissions can be circumvented?
Just by changing one or two letters by and adding one dot we can achieve more friendly names:
'Mr. Computer', 'Mrs. Documents', 'Mr. Pictures (Mrs.)' etc.
Ugh, I forgot the dot separator separates that evil file extension....
I'm not insane. My mother had me tested.
Personally, I populate My Documents with shortcuts to folders like "Documents", "Downloads", "Programming", "Mail" (Thunderbird profile dir - useful for backup), etc.
Something interesting in Windows XP (possibly earlier Windows too) is that you can now mount volumes (local HDD, local removable media or network locations) into the file system of any logical volume on your local computer. Personally, I don't see why I'd bother unless I was used to that convention. I mean, is C:\CD Drive\ easier than L:\? (I usually use R:\ for recording drives, and never E:\, F:\ etc. as that can be variable)
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
...in reality, you don't "own" anything on a windows box. The "my" normally refers to the person who pwn3ds you!
But I enjoyed typing "c:/documents and settings/matthew surname/my documents/". it's so much easier than /home/matt
In related news, it's still called "Yousa Documents" in the Gungan edition, though.
And, while the BSOD has turned red as well, it's still claiming "AHHHH!!! DIS IS IT!!! AHHHHHH!!! WEESA ALL DEAD!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!"
The problem with Slashdot memes is that YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
I'll return to Windows( NOT) when they have the following uninstall features present. IE Office Outlook Express Windows Registry Update Explorer That's a good start
Windows 95 introduced the My Documents folder.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Windows 95 had no such thing. This came when you installed MS Office. For what version of Office (97 or 2000) or what version it became part of the OS, I'm not entirely sure of, but I'm pretty darn sure Windows 95 had no such thing.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
... isn't it? Sure, programs can call SHGetFolderPath() to find out the path to the user's document folder, but batch files will typically have hard coded paths, no? I know a lot of ours do, so they'll all need updating. Even if they use environment variables, they'll probably have things like:
/S /Y /C "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\*.*" z:\backupfolder
xcopy
yes, with Longhorn, Windows will at least be suitable for my the desktop!
To all you out there who constantly accuse Microsoft of not being innovators, can I say a big "Hah!".
So there!
Will they now simply be known as Crosoft now, by the way?
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
Microsoft announces a new, brilliant advance in its next operating system, Blackcomb.
"Computer" will now be renamed to "Bill's Computer".
I dont think Mr.Balmer is going to be too happy about that...
My last sig was ridiculed
Will I be navigating away from "Control Panel" every time I need to save a file where I want it to go?
"Consider the lillies of the goddamn field."
There is no way I am going to be able to handle this. I will not be able to find stuff anymore. Seriously, Microsoft thinks there users are total idiots...
Because Linux is the OS that communists use, right?
Between DRM and third party admin access it's not your system. Yeah, you bought the hardware and exhibit some level of control over the documents, but yours is not the last word on anything that happens on that machine while it's running MS-Windows.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Sure, we all know that time advances one year every time we fly around the sun.
That's probably a marketing decision, since Longhorn will probably be used more by generation X and Y, and not the "Me" generation "Baby Boomers".
That should have been expected. It won't BE "Your" computer when Longhorn is finally released. You'll be leasing it, and everything on it, from Microsoft. At least, that's the plan. :)
They're taking out "my" because Trusted Computing makes the computer into Microsoft's beeotch, instead of the user's. But their marketing department thought that naming everything "Microsoft's Computer", etc, would be too blatant. So just dropping the "my" is a compromise.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
it now is not THEIR (Microsoft's) computer? How fucking noble.
What modern Obelix would say today? Of course, "Those crazy Americans!".
Not that Apple invented the use of "Computer" at the root of the file system browser or home directories (and the naming schemes of the home's subfolders), but it's nice to see Microsoft catching up to OS X.
It only took 5 years.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Or just change the default. XP lets you place the My Documents Folder anywhere on the computer you want.
Free MacMini
Finally! I really hated those "my " names.
I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home
It can't be. It says right here, "0wned by D00mHax0r Billy." Makes sense, since he's holding all my files hostage.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
The "My" stuff that has pervaded all of computing is absolutely the most idiotic, imbecilic, moronic, dippy meme ever to have been conceived by humanity, and the sludge-brained cretin who started its unholy propagation ought to be shot, crushed, boiled in his own fat, and rendered down for soap.
Grrrr!
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
FWIW -
Windows NT's User Documents are in
c:\winnt\profiles\username\personal
not "My Documents", but of course any knowlegeable admin redirects this folder anyway (preferably to a unix/linux home directory running samba).
So MySQL is becomming SQL... oh wait.
The "my" prefix gives the user the impression that hardware, software and data belong to him. Considering the DRM-TCPA/Palladium fest Longhorn seems to be, this move will save MS a lot of money in lawsuits.
This article should read "Microsoft copies OS X yet again."
;)
Oh how is Microsoft stale and unoriginal, let me count the ways. or not, I'm sure we all know them
- Alex
If bill gates announced that he took a piss after waking up in the morning, it would be all over the web (the story, I mean). There would be all sorts of lengthy discussions about it.
Msft just wants to keep longhorn in the news. I wouldn't be surprised if msft decided to change back the "My" thing.
Other *huge* news stories from msft, might include:
- we thought about changing the modem icon, then we said naw.
- maybe we'll re-arrange some of the desktop stuff, or maybe not.
- we added something or other to the control panel; but we do away with it.
HEADLINE: Microsoft Declares that Your Computer is No Longer Yours
Does M$ mean to say that the computer now belongs to it or to the friendly neighborhood zombie master? I don't suppose it matters. Either way, your box is owned.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
We'll still have My BSOD.
BLEH!
So that would be "tends to infinity" if you are counting....
Please tell me you really didn't just go all feng shui on the various home directory pathnames.
Well then I guess you wouldn't care to hear about how using Raid 0 for your home directory helps to reflect the energy from corners.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Windows 9x series and NT series are different OSes. The kernel, filesystem, security and multi-user concepts, administration, drivers have nothing in common.
The changed to OS X have been more continuous and less apprent to the user, true.
But think about where OS X has come over time. Are the changes to the OS X filesystem for example any less impressive just because you could upgrade drives in place? I'm talking about journaling, metadata support, ACL's, and RAID abilities.
In the realm of administration there actually have been large changes, though it's true these are mostly in Server.
Lastly the Kernel has also undergone large changes inside and even the API has undergone some substantial revisions.
The changes are hidden but it does not mean they are not about the equal of Microsofts move from 95 to NT over time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
hawk
from the but-how-will-i-know-who-owns-it dept.
:)
Chances are, somebody else will 0wn it.
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
For those enterprise customers this 'little' change will cause a huge headache at migration time. This is just a taste of why the upgrade from a 2003/XP network to Longhorn will be as difficult as NT/NT to 2000/2000. I really hope they take the GO button too.
I always create another disk/partition where I create a directory "documents" where I force all documents to end up in.
Advantages:
1. You can reinstall OS without losing documents.
- Since W2k they have mandatory formatting of OS-drive.
2. You have only 8 letters in the name.
- Dos/scripts are easier to handle.
The Desktop should be a part of that directory OR you shouldn't have write access to the desktop!
I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home
I went through this exact thing with a co-worker.
We were back in the machine room, he was looking over my shoulder (there it is again!) as I was trying to tame this machine.
He said "Why don't you use My Computer?" while heard "Why don't you use my computer?"
I asked him why I would use his computer when the one in the machine room is the one that needed our T.L.C. I was serious as a heart attack.
This went on for a few more rounds until he explained that he meant the My Computer single-pane file browser, as opposed to going through the Start menu.
I feel like MicroSoft expects me to wear one of those sticky badges like you find at fundraisers that says
"HELLO!
My Name Is:
(^)(&*@#!)*^&"
Good riddance!
slashdot: A failed experiment.
yes i am aware of group policy settings. in Active Directory, it is remarkably useful to give everyone the same set of folders regardless of what machine they've logged in with. notably, you can also pre-mount network drives in explorer so that everyone automatically logs in with the same links to shared folders.
what i meant, and i apologise for not being more explicit, is that i'd like the capability to change the base location of system variable folders such as "my pictures" and "my music" so that when i start up a videogame that will play the mp3's from "my music" it will just go to the right folder, even though my mp3's aren't in a subfolder of "my documents" and aren't even on the same hard drive as "my documents"
In that case, you can use a reparse point (aka junction or directory symlink) to make the My Music folder point to some other directory, even one on a different volume.
Junction from Sysinternals can do this. For example,
rd "c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\my music" (the link destination directory must not exist)
junction "c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\My Music" f:\music
Now, My Music will be a link to f:\music.
Note that you should copy the desktop.ini file over first if you want the special My Music folder icon. The desktop.ini file gives special meaning to various shell folders.
okay, you are officially my hero of the day. thx
Let's look at this from another angle. Voice commands will be practicable in the years to come, and as any Star Trek fan knows, a call to the first computer function is made by saying "computer".
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.