Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Korby Parnell — Fri, 25 Jul 2003 20:16:00 GMT

Thanks Raymond. This is a great read. Can you next explain why "Delete" doesn't actually delete my files and why "Delete" is not a valid option in the Recycle Bin (ahem, Trash Can)?

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Raymond Chen — Fri, 25 Jul 2003 20:52:00 GMT

<body xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> In the Before Time, "Delete" meant "Throw away irretrievably".  About three milliseconds after the "delete" command was written, somebody wrote an "undelete" program.  These "undelete" programs were necessarily kind of dodgy -- it's the computer version of picking the eclair out of the garbage can and eating it. When multitasking came onto the scene, these "undelete" programs became even more useless.  So we made the two-stage delete part of the shell.  If you don't like it you can always turn off two-stage delete (Recycle Bin Properties). And maybe my eyes deceive me, but when I right-click an item in the Recycle Bin, I see a Delete option which, if selected, pitches the item out of the Recycle Bin, redering it lost to the mists of time. (Those who pay close attention will notice that the confirmation UI for two-stage delete is different from the confirmation UI for one-stage delete.)   </body>

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Byron — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 04:46:00 GMT

Makes sense, ever try to Stop a Shutdown before you Start it :), what doesn't make senes is while the world installs windows in their offices, one company wants us to install office in our windows.

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

DD — Sun, 03 Aug 2003 03:09:00 GMT

Most everything makes sense. Except for that first analogy. If you use this one - shutting off the car by turning the ignition - then somehow you have to prove that you actually started up Windows by pressing the Start button. Right?

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Omer — Sun, 03 Aug 2003 08:11:00 GMT

Not only did you make a big Start button for people to click and told them to start working, you also, as far as I remember from my Windows 95 expeirences, put a big "Click here to start!" logo on the taskbar. You left nothing to chance, eh? ;)

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Mark Hurd — Tue, 05 Aug 2003 05:26:00 GMT

Omer: That's still there (as of Win2000), but you don't see it if any programs show task buttons on start up.

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

ucblockhead — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:18:00 GMT

It's just one more instance of the idea that "usability" in software is really "easy to use for someone who has never used it before". This is ok as far as it goes, but often it conflicts with what I think is a more robust concept of "usability", that is, "easy to use to use for someone who knows how to use the software".

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Sr — Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:08:00 GMT

I suppose that makes sense as far as going in as far as going as far as you can go goes.. makes you wonder just what the average person does all day eh?

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Jason H — Sat, 23 Aug 2003 04:55:00 GMT

In response to Byron... With NT4 you used to be able to stop a shutdown after you started it. By hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del it would change into a logoff action if it hadn't progressed too far. With Win2K this feature seems to have gone however :-(

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Craig Box — Sun, 24 Aug 2003 06:35:00 GMT

Use "shutdown -a" from a command prompt.

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Mike W — Wed, 19 Nov 2003 02:10:00 GMT

I actually think that Recycle Bin is a better analogy than the Trash can. When you think about it, files you delete are "recycled" into empty disk space. Of course, that may not have been what MS had in mind, but it makes sense to me. :)

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Mike W — Wed, 19 Nov 2003 02:11:00 GMT

RE: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Fabuloso — Wed, 19 Nov 2003 04:44:00 GMT

Thank's Raymond Chen for your blog! If it's ok for you I'm gonna translate it to Norwegian, put it on my website and having a link pointing to this page. Ok?

re: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

matthew — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 02:18:00 GMT

thanks. i'm going to translate into pig latin and put a URL to the norweigan version. A lot of my pig friends love to learn new languages.

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re: Why do you have to click the Start button to shut down?

Raymond Chen — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 00:08:00 GMT

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