Examples of brain dead software design

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Kookoo

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#3517922 7-Aug-2026 14:49

Behodar:

OK, how's this for brain dead design?

"Allow only specified files" is turned off, so you'd expect that all file types are allowed. Now, let's turn it on:

Yep, that's totally brain dead alright, and it's a pet peeve of mine. The convention is that the description of the "on/off" button shouldn't change when you interact with the button. The only thing that changes should be the ON/OFF state.

If you want different descriptions - use radio buttons so the user is clear which option is being selected.

Hello, Ground!

Behodar

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#3518346 10-Aug-2026 08:15

Windows 11, extracting a password-protected Zip file. It prompts for the password, putting input focus in the password field. Then after about two seconds it pops up a progress window (which is stuck on zero because you haven't entered the password yet), and diverts input focus to there instead.

So by this point, assuming your hands weren't already on the keyboard, you've got the first one or two characters of the password in, then it's gone and stolen focus.

roobarb

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#3519221 12-Aug-2026 00:32

Of course it is well known that 640kb should be enough for anyone

Microsoft vows to make Windows 11 fly on 8GB RAM amid memory shortage — optimizations to reduce OS memory footprint have begun

You could of course start by stripping out all the Copilot nonsense that should never have been part of the base operating system and should have been an optional extra for those with the "Windows 365 with Copilot".

Tell me why there is a RAM shortage? Oh, because of adding AI to everything without any actually coherent thought other than a marketing-led "must have AI" push.

Behodar

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#3522925 26-Aug-2026 18:15

How far VMware has fallen...

I had a need to set up a Windows 7 VM to run some legacy software. It installed OK, but it's not much use by itself without VMware Tools (which provide functionality like being able to drag and drop files into the VM).

In the good old days, you'd go to the Virtual Machine menu and choose "Install VMware Tools" and it would mount a CD image with the Tools on it. Now it pops up a message saying that the guest OS is too old and that you'll need to download and install manually. The download link 404s. I managed to find it manually and download it, but it's an .exe file. How do you get this into the VM when you don't have Tools installed?

It turns out that the easiest way is to plug in a physical flash drive, answer "Mac" when VMware pops up and asks which system to mount it in, copy the .exe file onto it, eject the drive, physically unplug and replug the drive, this time answer "Windows", and finally run the installer. Then go through the whole process again when it fails to install because it has two dependencies that you need to also get onto the system and install. Of course it doesn't check for these dependencies before installing, it just charges forward and then crashes.