The format window in Windows/Walla!
technology
You will be surprised, but the dubious warning box that pops up every time you try to format a device (disk) in the operating system, is actually a temporary solution created by accident 30 years ago - and survived.
Dave Plummer, a former programmer at Microsoft, recently revealed the surprising story.
"We had to transfer a huge amount of code from the Windows 95 user interface to Windows NT," said Plummer.
"The format window was just too different on NT, so I created a quick draft on paper with all the options for formatting a disk."
Plummer programmed a basic interface and copied it into the system as a temporary solution "until we design a beautiful new window".
But the new window never arrived, and almost 30 years later, the same temporary solution is still in use - even in Windows 11.
I wrote this Format dialog back on a rainy Thursday morning at Microsoft in late 1994, I think it was.
We were porting the bajillion lines of code from the Windows95 user interface over to NT, and Format was just one of those areas where WindowsNT was different enough from… pic.twitter.com/PbrhQe0n3K
— Dave W Plummer (@davepl1968) March 24, 2024
And if you were wondering why the format volume in FAT is limited to 32 gigabytes, Plummer has something to do with this as well.
"I had to determine how much 'waste' of disk space would be acceptable, and that's what limited the FAT volume to 32 gigabytes," he admitted.
"This was also a spontaneous decision that morning, which has stuck with us to this day."
(Actually, FAT supports disks up to 2 TB, you just need third-party software to create them in Windows).
So yes, despite many overhauls that have gone through the Windows user interface, the format window has remained the same since the days of Windows NT.
Apparently Microsoft follows the principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
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