Windows has seen ample user interface changes and improvements over its extensive lifespan. Thousands of visual elements are tucked within Windows, making it an arduous task for programmers to keep them updated and looking like the rest of the operating system.
One such UI element slipped through the cracks: the disk formatting interface from 1994 is still hanging around in Windows 11 all these years later.
Former Microsoft programmer Dave Plummer took to social media platform X to discuss some fascinating Windows history. He talked about writing the dialog box currently used to format a disk all the way back in 1994. “I wrote this Format dialog back on a rainy Thursday morning at Microsoft in late 1994, I think it was,” he said.
Plummer sat down and planned out what would need to be on a disk format interface element on a piece of paper. He then jumped into VC++2.0 and a simple vertical stack of all the choices you had to make, which we still use today. “It wasn’t elegant, but it would do until the elegant UI arrived,” explained Plummer.
Just over three decades later, that UI element never actually arrived. Instead, the basic one he created is still kicking around in Windows 11, doing the job as well as it ever has. He expounded on seeing his creation still in Windows: “That was some 30 years ago, and the dialog is still my temporary one from that Thursday morning, so be careful about checking in ‘temporary’ solutions!”
I wrote this Format dialog back on a rainy Thursday morning at Microsoft in late 1994, I think it was.We were porting the bajillion lines of code from the Windows95 user interface over to NT, and Format was just one of those areas where WindowsNT was different enough from… pic.twitter.com/PbrhQe0n3KMarch 24, 2024
Perhaps just as surprising is that Plummer randomly chose the 32GB limit for FAT volumes, and we’re still living with that decision today. “So remember… there are no ‘temporary’ check-ins,” he said. That advice doesn’t just apply to programmers, as anything you create now could come back to you in 30 years, so keep that in mind as you put things out there on the Internet.
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Wanda Parisien is a computing expert who navigates the vast landscape of hardware and software. With a focus on computer technology, software development, and industry trends, Wanda delivers informative content, tutorials, and analyses to keep readers updated on the latest in the world of computing.
