Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 is stuck in a familiar orbit

    July 30, 2025

    EPA Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office

    July 30, 2025

    The Nvidia RTX 5060 Can’t Quite Beat AMD

    July 30, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » Microsoft forgot to update this Windows feature for 30 years
    News

    Microsoft forgot to update this Windows feature for 30 years

    News RoomBy News RoomMarch 25, 20242 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    On a Thursday morning nearly 30 years ago at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, a software developer checked-in some code for a dialog box he was working on. The box was only supposed to be temporary, so he didn’t worry that it was very basic. Except, nobody ever got around to changing it — and it’s still the same to this day in Windows 11.

    Dave Plummer, a former developer at Microsoft, recounted the interesting tale of how the Format drive dialog box was created all those years ago in a post on X over the weekend.

    “We were porting the bajillion lines of code from the Windows 95 user interface over to NT, and Format was just one of those areas where Windows NT was different enough from Windows 95 that we had to come up with some custom UI,” says Plummer. “I got out a piece of paper and wrote down all the options and choices you could make with respect to formatting a disk, like filesystem, label, cluster size, compression, encryption, and so on.”

    Plummer then created a basic UI that he added to the Windows NT codebase as a temporary solution “until the elegant UI arrived.” That UI improvement never came, and nearly 30 years later, Plummer’s temporary solution is still in use in Windows 11 today.

    If you’re wondering why the format size of a FAT volume in Windows is limited to just 32GB, this might have been partly down to Plummer, too. “I also had to decide how much ‘cluster slack’ would be too much, and that wound up constraining the format size of a FAT volume to 32GB,” admits Plummer. “That limit was also an arbitrary choice that morning, and one that has stuck with us as a permanent side effect.” FAT actually supports volumes of up to 2TB, but you’ll need to use a third-party tool in Windows to create this volume, even if Microsoft’s OS does correctly read these larger FAT drives.

    Despite several overhauls to the Windows UI, Microsoft hasn’t touched the Format dialog box since its introduction in Windows NT all those years ago. There’s still a fair amount of other old Windows UI that you can surface in the latest versions of Windows, but I’m guessing that this particular Format one is a simple case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleThe Apple Antitrust Case and the ‘Stigma’ of the Green Bubble
    Next Article DJI’s Latest Air 3 Drone Does It All Brilliantly, Without Busting the Bank

    Related Posts

    The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 is stuck in a familiar orbit

    July 30, 2025

    Opera is filing a complaint over Microsoft’s tricks that push you to use Edge

    July 29, 2025

    YouTube tells creators they can drop more F-bombs

    July 29, 2025

    Lovense was told its sex toy app leaked users’ emails and didn’t fix it

    July 29, 2025

    LG’s StanbyMe 2 is an unquestionably cool TV at a questionably high price

    July 29, 2025

    The chaos and confusion of Itch and Steam’s abrupt adult game ban

    July 29, 2025
    Our Picks

    EPA Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office

    July 30, 2025

    The Nvidia RTX 5060 Can’t Quite Beat AMD

    July 30, 2025

    This Star System Contains 5 Potentially Habitable Planets

    July 30, 2025

    Top Verizon Promo Codes and Deals for August 2025

    July 30, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    News

    Opera is filing a complaint over Microsoft’s tricks that push you to use Edge

    By News RoomJuly 29, 2025

    Microsoft has used a variety of tricks to convince people to keep using the defaults…

    YouTube tells creators they can drop more F-bombs

    July 29, 2025

    Lovense was told its sex toy app leaked users’ emails and didn’t fix it

    July 29, 2025

    LG’s StanbyMe 2 is an unquestionably cool TV at a questionably high price

    July 29, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.