August 2nd, 2016

Why don’t I get a file deletion confirmation warning from Explorer when I undo a copy?

If you use Explorer to copy a file, and then press Ctrl+Z to undo the copy, and you had file deletion confirmation enabled, then Windows 7 would display a confirmation dialog to verify that you really want to delete the file. But Windows 8 no longer shows that confirmation dialog. A customer wanted to know why.

Overwhelming customer feedback indicated that even though it technically meant deleting a file, the confirmation dialog when undoing a copy was unnecessary. Undo operations in most programs do not prompt in general, not even if the Undo is potentially destructive (such as undoing a Paste operation). All you’re doing in this case is deleting a copy of a file; the original is still there, so there’s no data loss. And if you forgot where the original was, you can get the copy back by Redoing the operation.

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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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