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Microsoft Knows Best

A client asked me to send all of their web site files to them in a zip file this morning for their files. They use Windows, I use a Mac. So I right-clicked on the file and chose to zip and compress it as a Windows-compatible archive. They should have been able to double click the .exe file and uncompress the archive, even if they didn’t have any compression software like Winzip installed and were using an older version of Windows. And I created this on my Mac and sent it to their Windows machine.

But of course in the Windows world it just can’t be that easy.

No, instead of just double clicking the file and getting back to work, Microsoft Outlook decided that because the file ended in .exe it must be some sort of evil virus, so it helpfully deleted it and wouldn’t let the client open my attachment. I had to rezip everything as a plain zip file and send it to him so that his email program would give him permission to open the file that I sent him.

Come on people… Why still use Windows? It’s crazy! Not only is it crazy that the computer tells you what you can and can’t open or do, it’s crazy that the security is so bad on the system that you need a feature like that in the first place. Macs really do Just Work. And they really do let you just work too, rather than messing about with the innards of the computer and always second-guess installing anything for fear of filling your computer with viruses, trojans, and spyware/adware.

Before some smart ass Windows geek points it out, I’m aware that it was probably a virus scanner that deleted the file from Outlook, or a setting in Outlook that could have been disabled, but that isn’t my point. The point is that I was sending the guy a legitimate file, and the computer wouldn’t open it without a manual override of some kind. Therefore wasting more of his time, and my time, in order to send a file that wouldn’t send off all kinds of alarms. Plus I don’t like Windows and this is my blog. :)