Thin Ice : Random Windows Issues

English = English(US)?

Mike — Sun, 01 May 2005 05:50:00 GMT

All over the microsoft.com site I see confused, misrepresented directives for English language versions of Microsoft products : "must be running English(US)".

For example, Windows XP Powertoys: "PowerToys will only work with US-English regional settings." Which regional settings? All of them, one of them? What would happen if one or more were set to English(UK) or some other English locale? Nothing I suspect, but there is a terrible confusion over locale vs location vs language.

The Windowsmedia Player v10 readme says: If you reside in another country or region [to English(US)], we recommend that you wait for the version of Windows Media Player 10 for your country or region to be released before installing. Here's news: there are no versions of Windowsmedia Player localized for English locales outside of the United States.

Even Microsoft Office is not exempt from this foolishness; many downloads are said to be for English(US) only. Here's one pulled up at random for a Word 2000 French Speller update, which is titled French Proofing Tools Update for English (US, Canada) Office 2000 even though the update applies to all English language Office installs.

OCA recommends Microsoft Anti-Spyware

Mike — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 04:53:00 GMT

I had to crash out of MSN Messenger as it had hung on a dialog while selecting a new display picture. I sent an error report, and in response I got redirected to the Windows Online Crash Analysis site, which included the following paragraph:

* This problem might also be resolved by installing and running an anti-spyware program. We recommend Microsoft® Windows® AntiSpyware, which is currently available as a beta release. You can find out more information here: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Somehow I don't think this is an appropriate place to advertise another Microsoft product.

Virtual(ly numberless) printers

Mike — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 03:23:00 GMT

I noticed in Chris Pratley's Weblog a post about a new virtual printer for OneNote. I haven't had a chance to evaluate the item yet (my Add Printer wizard is choking on it), but I do have some reservations about this new powertoy. Rewind...

In a galaxy far far away, I designed the virtual printer for Windows Journal for the Tablet PC, known as Journal NoteWriter. A closely linked group were also creating the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer, which is installed with Office XP and Office 2003. Similar imaging/printing/compression technology, incompatible output.

Virtual printers are not new. A full copy of Adobe Acrobat will give you the PDFwriter and Distiller. There are various free and paid-for TIFF/JPEG/younameit printers on the market that can be found littered across the information superhighway.

So now a fully equipped business user with a Tablet PC, Office and Acrobat may find their Print dialog has the following vitual printers and outputs:

Journal NoteWriter -> JNT

Microsoft Office Document Image Writer -> .MOD, .TIFF

Adobe PDFwriter -> PDF

Adobe Distiller -> PDF

and we have a new kid on the block with the OneNote driver. Oh, and I can ink on the output of three of these drivers but there is no clipboard or file-level compatibility for this stuff, even with the Microsoft-owned part of the corral.

I've seen generic attempts for Windows Longhorn, but no attempt to clean up this mess. Print automation is still a bitch as directing print output to a non-default printer in Windows is kind of tricky. Legacy issues with Office printing, handling of Outlook attachments etc adds to the pain.

I hope this problem has an owner at Microsoft. Every new virtual printer adds legacy problems.