this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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This reminds me of when I sent someone a program in a zip folder. Windows now opens zip folders by default, and it looks just like any other folder.
So of course they opened the zip and double clicked the exe, but everyone knows you can't open an exe inside a zip folder (at least, if the exe depends on the folders and files around it). If you try to, windows will extract the exe into a temp space, but leave all the dependencies behind. So the exe promptly crashes.
I didn't think I needed to specify "you need to extract the contents of the zip folder first, then run the exe." It feels like saying "you need to take the blender out of the box before you can use it. And not just the _base _ of the blender, you have to take out all the parts."
Some things just feel so much like second nature that we forget.
In many ways, the silky-smooth convenience offered by modern computer software makes everything much harder to learn about and understand. For anyone that used zip files before this Windows feature, the problem is obvious - but for younger people it's not obvious at all. Heck, a lot of people can't even tell whether or not a file is locally on their computer - let alone whether it is compressed in some other file.
Doesn't Windows give a popup saying "Do you want to extract the folder before running the executable" anymore?
Edit: typo (funning to running)
No, it does.
Perhaps this occurred in the small window of time when it had been implemented and it didn't ask, or perhaps they just said no.
Regardless, I had to troubleshoot
Not that I know of. If I know it correctly (not doing it very often as I usually extract the whole content anyway) it just asks if I want to run the file.
But I could be very wrong.
I totally and completely blame Microsoft for this. They do so many other ridiculous things in the name of not confusing the average tech illiterate user.
Clicking a Zip file and having it transparently open and treating it like a regular folder when it is not. This. THIS is borderline criminal.
Propose a better way to browse the contents of a zip folder in a native 1st party way
Have a popup text line in explorer that says "you are browsing inside of a compressed file, you must extract the contents to use them" or something. The functionality is already there, when you go to "network" it says "network sharing and discovery is turned off, click here to turn it on"
The operating system could mount it as a virtual drive, then all its contents could be used directly just like any regular folder.
Imo not really noob-user friendly.
My proposal: Keep current behaviour and make a prompt if the user tries to run an executable. Prompt should be something like "You are trying to open an executable, would you like to extract the whole folder in the current directory?". This way the user can still browse the zip with relative ease.
Upside from Windows: We have only a handful of extensions unlike (afaik) Linux where everything can be made executable and be run.
In what way? It would make it entirely invisible that the archive file isn't just a normal folder, it would be possible to use it just as if it were. What would be unfriendly about that?
Something like this would be helpful:
https://files.catbox.moe/ypayke.mp4
Perfect.
There should be instructions that range from beginner, where every little step is included as well as major details as to why - all the way up to expert, which are just a few sentences.
Unless it's a company, good luc...
Hay, how would you like writing documentation for all these open source projects? We would be ever greatful, you could even put your name in the credits!
One of the few things that Mac kind of got right. Every application is actually a deep tree with all kinds of crap all over the place but they never let the user see that.