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Answering a comment from an earlier entry.

Because the alternative is even worse. If the taskbar is not wide enough to display the entire word "Start", then the word "Start" is hidden. To get it back, resize the taskbar wider until the word "Start" reappears. This behavior is by design. From a design point of view, a partia...

Because we tried it the other way and it was much worse. In 16-bit Windows, a module that didn't satisfy all its imports would still load. As long as you didn't call a missing import, you were fine. If you did try to call a missing import, you crashed pretty spectacularly with the dreaded U...

The original taskbar didn't look at all like what you see today. It defaulted to the top of the screen.

Short answer: Because they're wrong. Long answer: The official name for the thingie at the bottom of the screen is the "taskbar". The taskbar contains a variety of elements, such as the "Start Button", a collection of "taskbar buttons", the clock, and the "Taskbar Notification Area". One of the most common errors is to refer to the Taskbar Notif...

Now that Longhorn Rumor Season seems to have kicked up, I'm reminded of Windows 95 Rumor Season. The great thing about writing a rumors column is that you don't have to be right! Even if you're wrong, you can just say, "Well, Microsoft changed it before they shipped," and nobody can say you were wrong. It's a v...

Doo, dudududingggggg.... ding.... ding... ding... In an interview with Joel Selvin at the San Francisco Chronicle, Brian Eno explains. Q: How did you come to compose "The Microsoft Sound"? A: The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd b...

Set the wayback machine to 1983.

We learned our lesson the hard way. In Windows 95, we gave programmatic access to the Start menu "Fast items" list - the items that appear at the top of the Start menu above the Programs list. This area was meant for the user to customize with their favorite links, but programs quickly saw th...

Backwards compatibility applies not only to software. It also applies to hardware. And when hardware goes bad, the software usually takes the blame. The HLT instruction tells the CPU to shut itself down until the next hardware interrupt. This is a big win on laptops since it reduces power consumption...