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from the didn't-need-those-folders-anyway dept.
in with a story on Robert Elder Software blog entitled Silently Corrupting an Eclipse Workspace: The Ultimate Prank:
Next time your co-worker asks:
"What's the best way to back up my Eclipse workspace on Windows?"
you can tell them "Just right-click on it and select 'Send to Compressed (zipped) folder' and save the zip file". Unbeknownst to them, you just pulled the ultimate prank by telling them to make a corrupted backup!
What your friend probably doesn't realize is that the Windows 'Send to Compressed (zipped) folder' utility has a mandatory optional feature to automatically not include certain folders in the archive without telling you. This is a great feature because it demonstrates the excellent sense of humour that the authors of Microsoft Windows have. This feature was no doubt included to allow you to play a variety of hilarious pranks on others by causing them lose data, only to find out about it years later when they want to open the archive and recover it.
The blog post goes on to identify other idiosyncrasies with how Windows mishandles directories whose names start with a period and/or contain Unicode characters.
Reasons you haven't switched to Linux (cont.):
3. Windows has superior development tools.
What other issues have you found with how Windows handles filenames?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday March 24 2017, @07:41PM (3 children)
> What other issues have you found with how Windows handles filenames?
People coding FPGA tools which organize IP files for you in neat unnecessarily long directory names containing multiple times the name of the IP.
They test on Linux and see no issue.
You test the default project on Windows, and the long paths, now exceeding 260 chars, fail.
You tell them they are idiots for wasting characters by repeating unnecessary redundant unnecessary repetition.
They "solve" the problem by packing the whole tree in a zip, to be opened by the tools at runtime.
Of course, it turns out that you need to modify something, so you need to unzip that directory and get back to the old way, once again breaking all the paths...
2017, right?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Friday March 24 2017, @09:15PM (2 children)
Whatever stuck-on-stupid gone-full-retard stuff Windows does with filenames is annoying as hell. I once sftp'd a directory from a Linux server (full of porn) that had a file so fucked up, that the file once into a Windows workstation was dead on arrival. Absolutely no part of Windows had a program that could deal with it. It was very long, and also had some characters that Windows refused to deal with period. The entirety of the Windows API, at every level, could not do it. It became a piece of information stuck inside it that caused Windows to fail just trying to list the damn directory. It became a mission to delete that fucking file and directory and it simply could not be done. Not even in safe mode, or with special tools claiming to delete anything.
Only by using a Linux machine to read the hard drive was I able to finally remove that file and the directory I created.
Those days taught me that Windows can handle only very short file names, no spaces, no weird characters. When I finally started using Linux the big surprise for me initially was how flexible the file system was WRT file names, and how much Windows sucks at it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday March 24 2017, @09:33PM
(Yeah I've had to do this a few times.)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:59AM
It became a mission to delete that fucking file and directory and it simply could not be done. Not even in safe mode, or with special tools claiming to delete anything.
Deleting preteen_boys_sodomizing_hamster_gerbil_satanic_sex_orgy_lesbian_dildo_inferno.mpg before you boss sees it would be a priority, I can certainly see that.
Before you get too hung up about how bad Windows is, check what the Unix command dsw (delete from switches) does, and why it was written. That problem predates Windows by many years. It later turned into the -i command, present for the same reason, and also predating Windows by years.