Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote:
I don't envy what you're going through. Windows, in their ultimate
wisdom, continues to drastically alter their UI, only as the people used
to older versions and worse at adaptation continue to age. Windows and
Gaim suffer a similar problem: people altered UI that a nontechnical
audience was comfortable with, and I'm not sure if the need to do so was
there. I would love it if every piece of software had a simple "emulate
The need in the case of Windows is a marketing need. Younger users, who
also tend to have been brought up on older versions, are very fashion
driven, and by changing the user interface Microsoft hope to get them to
buy the next version, so that they are not seen dead with an out of
fashion user interface.
As the user interfaces get more and more complex as well as changing,
this makes it very difficult for an older person, who hasn't been
brought up with computers, to learn to use them.
Unfortunately, whilst most software suppliers only pay lip service to
accessibility, that tends to be interpreted as accessibility by the
blind, and things like user interface stability are seen as commercially
undesirable.
version" dropdown menu on their main screen, that just made it look like
the old stuff.
Windows95 to 2000 was not a large problem for my father. Going to
Vista, and trying to figure out Microsoft Office with its new "ribbon
bar" (which is a real pain when they're used to menus), took me several
I hate the ribbon bar.
On the general point about availability of the old version, the licence
requires the distributor to keep it available for several years.
Also, as pointed out, backward compatibility is not seen as a commercial
virtue in much of the computer industry. so an old client is likely not
to work with current services.
--
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.
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