Microsoft English

This is a new version of English with the meanings of certain words altered. Especially used for marketing and PR purpose. Enjoy the page and don't have a cow, of course other companies, governments and even some individuals try to reinvent the language for their own euphemistic purposes. Even Microsoft enthusiasts can be bemused by some of the linguistic aberrations occasionally emerging from Redmond.

Add your own MS English (or should that be MS Language) definitions here...

legacy: The old junk that the previous incumbents left lying around here. (What other industry in the world, outside of software, would have industry-wide committees trying to "eliminate our legacy"?
innovate: "Let us do anything we want to kill our competition short of actually killing or injuring people.". It also has strong connotations of making random losing changes to software in a continuing effort to be incompatible.
ServicePack?: Update for a program with a lot of bugfixes.
Issue: Bug (itself a euphemism for defect).
Software: Microsoft program.
OperatingSystem: The only program you'll ever need, except for some other software (see above).

Discussion

Calling it a "patch" admits that something was wrong and needed patching. Calling it a "service pack" implies that nothing was wrong and only new functionality is contained. If it is a bug fix call it one, dude.

It seems like MS tries to make sure that Windows users are as ignorant of other OSes as possible. This is a logical extension of its known marketing strategy of acting as though other OSes do not exist. For example, MS has service packs instead of patches. The term 'service pack' is no more 'intuitive' than 'patch' and there is no substantive reason to deviate from established usage. The only intuitive thing in the world is the nipple, everything else is learned. The same applies to 'shortcuts' and 'folders'.

There is nothing intuitive about 'folders' or 'shortcuts' or anything of the kind. It's all idiomatic. The only question is whether or not you reuse already established idioms or create new ones. If one were concerned with programmers, one would be compelled to reuse Unix idioms (as loathsome as they are). If one were concerned with users, one might reuse computer game idioms (directory => room, link => door). MS cares for neither.

Just because there's no absolutely intuitive name doesn't mean that some names are not better than others. If we were to write a windowing system and call symbolic links "coffee cups", usability would dramatically fall. Sure, whatever names you choose, people will eventually get used to them, but speed of adaption to your environment is a very important factor.

Perhaps Microsoft decided that the concept of a "shortcut to a file" was more quickly grasped than that of a "link to a file"? A link merely implies a connection, whereas a shortcut implies a way to get from one place to another quickly. A directory implies a list of entries, a folder implies something you put other things into. Perhaps they did usability testing that justified their choices?

: And perhaps not. If a shortcut implied a way to get to some place then the destination would have to actually be a place. A folder is not a place. And if a folder were a physical container then it would not be possible to put a single object in multiple containers. Again the OS objects are even remotely related to the 'metaphor'. The best and most widespread user SystemMetaphor is the RPG RoomsAndDoors model.

There are extremely valid reasons never to use real-space idioms as metaphors on a computer. Directories aren't rooms. That makes no sense. See http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?VirtualReality.

While we're at it, I'd love to see an abolition of all space-based metaphors for computer networking. Clicking on a link does not "make me go to that page", it causes my browser to request the server to transfer the page to my computer. Harumph.

What really bugs me about MicroSoft's vocabulary is that they keep creating new words without a necessity for it.

This came up again with the maintenance of MicrosoftWindowsNt 4.0: In April 2001 Microsoft announced that they will not release another ServicePack? for NT 4.0. In July 2001 Microsoft announced that they will collect all the hotfixes regarding security and make a package out of it. How do they call it? "Security Rollup Package".

Note that there are differences between the SRP and the ServicePack?s: In the latter the latest one contained all the predecessors, the "Service Rollup Package" expects an installed ServicePack? 6a. But does this really require introducing a new term? Maybe there are marketing reasons behind it.

Just like coining their own terms, this is of course not unique to Microsoft. -- MarkoSchulz

Don't forget Option Pack 4. Was there an option pack 1, 2, or 3? No. And it wasn't any more of an option that SP3 or SP5 were.

Microsoft Counting

Let's not forget Microsoft's imaginative method of counting. Consider these lineages:

Windows: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, ME
Windows NT: 3.1?, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 2000, XP
Word: 1.0, 2.0, 6.0, 95, 98, 2000, XP

This omits all the ServicePack?s, OptionPack?s, SecurityRollupPackage?s, etc.

What's wrong with calling the Nth major release version N.0? It works for gcc and emacs...

Additional links:

The last one is now obsolete since DLLHell has been resolved in newer versions: MicrosoftDotNet never copies DLLs to the system directory, and has no registry manipulation. Win2K and Whistler automatically replace the original versions of system DLLs if these versions are overwritten.

Of course, Microsoft wasn't the first in this regard. APARs? Don't forget "DASD", "hardfile", etc. BigBlue had their own secret language long before MS.

The way I see it, Microsoft just has to keep inventing all these things so that they are putting something out and can hype it. "We've got a new version of windows, come check it out, see how much better it is, blah blah blah." All they're trying to do is be in the media because when they aren't on the front page of every newspaper in the country, their stock starts to drop, people aren't concerned with Microsoft, etc. and that's just not something they want to happen, thus all the new versions, service packs, service rollup packs, etc.

That's my take on it at least...

I think you guys are being pretty arrogant to presume that someone else's software must stick to your ideals about naming conventions and metaphors. It's Microsoft's software, they can name it and its metaphors as they please. Only a programmer would prefer "symbolic link" over "folder"; users just want it to be simple and use abstractions they are familiar with. Despite many people's wish for common standards, diversity is a good and necessary thing. Just look at Wiki. -- RamonLeon