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Ferenc,
Issue number 1 is definitely a problem with FAT and MS' implementation of
long file names under FAT. When Windows 95 was introduced, it brought in a
new file system, on the access side. A lot of the work had already been
done under Windows 3.11, with respect to the 32-bit access to the disc and
files, and Windows 95 bundled it in and added 32 bit support to all other
devices. However, Windows 95 could not properly implement a LFN strategy,
without forcing people to reload their systems (which virtually nobody
would want to do), or going through a transformation. Again virtually
nobody would want to do this transformation, as they would lose
compatibility with prior releases of Windows, and it would introduce all
sorts of problems with existing software. If you remember when Windows 95
was introduced, the naysayers were everywhere, all saying it was going to
be a disaster and that people would have insurmountable problems. A few of
them were on this very list. Windows 95 introduced a lot of new technology
which did have problems with some of the legacy hardware and software.
Imagine if people would have had to reload their systems, or transform
their file system. Remember, Windows 95 was introduced when the 486 was
still being sold, ISA-only and VL-bus were prevalent, PCI was just starting
to catch on, and the big disk drives were 1 GB. (PnP really does work much
better with PCI.)
So MS elected to implement the LFN in the directory, taking up multiple
directory entries to hide an LFN for a file. The problem on a floppy is
the file system is FAT12, 12 bits long, with the directory to match. So if
you have a lot of very small files and you want to give them very long
names, you burn up the directory entries very quickly. It is an arcane
problem but one which is very real. Blame MS for not forcing people to
reload their systems in order to have a proper file system such as NTFS.
That's what you get when you try to keep compatibility. The only way you
can have LFN on MPE is through the POSIX shell, and look how long it has
taken to get to the point where POSIX is really usable on MPE. We still
hear about and discuss The Wall between POSIX and MPE.
BTW, This problem also exists in the root directory on Windows 95, you can
only have 512 file entries in that directory. Never keep more than just a
few file in \ and eschew the long file names for those files. The other
directories are where you should keep your files anyways. Very similar to
root in UNIX or PUB.SYS on MPE.
Windows 95B AKA OSR2 introduced FAT32 as a file system, but it is really
just FAT16 with 32 bit pointers. It allows one to take advantage of large
disk drives, without losing tremendous amounts of storage to slack space.
Windows NT on the other hand, does not suffer from that problem on hard
drives. NTFS was designed with LFN in mind, including UNICODE file names,
of which you probably would make use. This is where a special character
such as an umlaut or a cedilla is a valid character in the file name, all 8
bits are usable in the character.
Windows NT however, still uses FAT12 when it comes to floppy disks, so the
problem you encountered is still real even on NT.
Now, point 2 is really getting picky. I find it hard to fault a software,
the English version of the software, for not recognizing a non-English
method of automatically labeling figures. On the other hand, a lot of
people and most of the industry press has been jumping on MS and other
software companies for producing bloatware, software with so many features
and options that it becomes unmanageable, huge and gobbles up incredible
amounts of system resources. It has also been found that most people, do
not make use of even a fraction of the features of such software. And yet
you want even more features.
On point 3, that is a valid point, however, I believe there is a remedy.
Word gets the date from the system's regional settings. Start->Control
Panel->Regional Settings->Date tab and look at the long date format. This
may solve your problem, but I can't tell as I do not have any version other
than English installed. I always thought MS did a creditable job with
localization. Then again, I have seen other language version, such as the
French one, and the messages can be quite comical. (I am an MSDN
subscriber, and it never ceases to amaze me to see the number of language
specific versions in which the MS products are available. Even Japanese
and Chinese with 16 bit characters.)
Finally, there is no address that I know of, where you can sell mail to MS
and be assured it is read. Who do you think you are dealing with, HP CSY,
Hicomp?
Kind regards,
Denys. . .
Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863 (281) 288-7438 Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com www.hicomp.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Ferenc Nagy [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, 21 May, 1998 4:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Off topic: Additions to Bill Gates's complaints book (Windows 95
and Word 6.0, 7.0)
Gentle list members,
I have met three unpleasant things recently:
1) Not informative error message under Windows'95:
We got some diskettes with many small Wind Word files on them. Each file
had a long name which did not match with their short 8.3 name. WE wanted
to rename each file in order to their 8.3 name match to their contents. We
began to edit the redirected directory made in the DOS window of the
Windows'95. When we wanted to save the RENAME.BAT file, the system refused
it. It gave an error number and an error message. There were plenty of
free space on the diskette. We found out that the file could not be
created because the area preserved for the long Windows'95 names on the
diskette was full. THIS FACT SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN CLEARLY IN THE
ERROR MESSAGE OF THE SYSTEM!
2) Sticking to English word order in WinWord 6.0.
I wanted to use the Capture feature of the English version of WinWord 6.0.
This feature adds labels to figures, pictures and other attachments. When
I wanted to edit the label, I could get only labels like "Figure 1", but 1
could not get labels like "1st figure", however, in Hungarian the word
order and the custom is 1. ordinal number 2. noun ["1. a'bra"].
3) How the computers force to change the Hungarian spelling:
The spelling checker of the Hungarian WinWord 7.0 (and lower) contains the
months with English-like capital letters "Szeptember", instead of the
currently valid "szeptember". Most people are lazy to correct the
automatically offered date, therefore I got regularly documents with
incorrect Hungarian spelling of dates.
If somebody knows a mailbox of the Microsoft where they
_do_read_the_letters, please help me forward my complaints.
Regards
Frank
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