August 22nd, 2011

You don't make something easier to find by hiding it even more deeply

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Commenter rolfhub suggested that, to help people recover from accidentally going into Tiny Footprint Mode, the Task Manager could display a right-click context menu with an entry to return to normal mode. My initial reaction to this was Huh? Who right-clicks on nothing? Tiny Footprint Mode is itself already a bad secret hidden setting. Having the exit from the mode be a right-click menu on a blank space is a double-secret hidden setting.

If I had dictatorial control over all aspects of the shell, I would put a Restore button  in the upper right corner to let people return to normal mode.

Category
Old New Thing
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Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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