Stupid Computer Features

[Dullstar]

What stupid features does your computer have?
I especially want to hear about those that get in the way more often than they do what they are intended to do.

My CPU doesn't shut down through any way except the operating system, so if the computer freezes, or if you run an "It is now safe to shut down your computer" OS, you have to cut the power to the CPU as opposed to press the power button.  Very annoying.

[ccexplore]

Sounds like you have a seriously broken computer if something as basic as the power button doesn't work!   And I don't think that's a "feature".

Perhaps it's a mechnical failure in the button after repeated use.  You know, maybe the spring in the button no longer works or something, so that it's unable to register button presses.  I don't know how old your computer is, but maybe that's a sign you should get a new one?

[edit: never mind, as I've learned in a later post, Dullstar's power button isn't actually broken, it's working exactly the way it's designed to...]

[Dullstar]

Then why does it start up by the press of the button?

[Mr. K]

Try holding down the power button for a few seconds.  That should force it to shut off without cutting power (which is probably bad for the components)

My stupid "feature": Lovely geniuses at HP gave me an extra 1 IDE hard drive plug and 3 SATA hard drive plugs.  The problem?  There are no places in the case to hold these potential extra drives.  Right now my second hard drive is cunningly slid in to the only empty slot (not built for hard drives at all-- intended for a floppy drive or card reader), and is not held down in any way because the mounting screws don't line up.  If I tilted this thing it would probably fall out.

[Dullstar]

I believe my computer has those dumb features too.  Or at least some of them...

[ccexplore]

Then why does it start up by the press of the button?

Ah I see.

Mr. K is right of course.  I forgot I need to think like an average computer user not an expert.

Many computer nowadays have a "programmable" power button that doesn't directly cut power mechanically like old switches/buttons do.  Instead they just signal the OS (eg. Windows) that the button has been pressed and allow the software to decide how to response.  So for example, Windows could begin its shutdown sequence before actually cutting off power, allowing a clean shutdown (if you abruptly cut power while Windows is running, it may corrupt files on your disk).  Or on a laptop, the default behavior for the power button might be to put the machine to sleep instead of actually shutting it down.  So as you see, it's not as stupid as you think.

Of course, because it relies on the software to respond, you get the symptom that if the software has freezed, merely pressing the button will do nothing.  To force a shutdown in these modern power buttons, you need to actually press and hold it down for a few seconds, which will trigger the button's "hardware shutdown" bypassing the software.  This is a well-known feature of these modern power buttons, but I guess it's not the most obvious thing to do for the average user.

[Dullstar]

I tried Mr. K's idea, and it works, though I need to wait for it to freeze again to test it for shutting down when it can't.  However, it does allow to do the "dangerous" shut down!

[The Doctor]

Note: that the CPU continues to operate even when a computer freezes is a part of the design of the computer. As far as the processor is concerned, it's waiting for another instruction but for whatever reason it is unable to receive one: it will simply continue waiting.

An unresponsive computer does not necessarily mean that a system is completely frozen. It could be that a programme is not time sharing properly, has hung, or that there are diagnostic services running to find out what the problem is. The system may also need some time to sort out what problem it is having, and so obviously having the computer say to itself "While I try to figure out what's wrong, I think I'll cut off power to all my components" is less than ideal.

When a modern Microsoft Windows system shows the blue screen of death, it may be set to reboot the computer or power down the moment that it has finished dumping the memory (or it can be set to not dump at all). Normally, it is set to wait.

While we're talking about stupid OS features, however, I must remark on my dislike for the feature in Windows Vista and onwards called Clipping Tool. The features in that could be well integrated into the system's Print Screen keyboard function. Mac OS X does something similar to this. Clipping Tool is great, don't get me wrong: making clean screenshots of entire windows without their surrounding elements is something I use regularly. However, it shouldn't take an application to do this when Mac OS Classic could do it with a keyboard shortcut. This is also one gripe I have about modern Linux distributions, which quite often lack the feature.

[Dullstar]

I don't know if this is anything later than XP, but if you mean just getting a screenshot of one window, try ALT+Print Scr.

On the subject of stupid computer features, here are a few security annoyances.

Don't you hate it when every time you try to open a program, it pops up a security warning with no obvious way to tell it that you can trust the program and it does not need to warn you every time you try and open it?  What about firewalls that have exception lists from which you can remove things from but not add them to it?  Or an Adblock program that acts more annoying than an ad by making it hard for me to run a game?  At least I didn't have to put up with it for long (my dad let me play RCT2 on his laptop in the car on the way home from vacation, and it was his computer that was acting up).  Mr. K's theory?  Because the game is old.

[The Doctor]

Mr K may be on to something, legacy applications do often pop up such notices because they expect to be able to have free access to the entire computer.

As for alt-prscr, that works nicely but has weird results on Vista/7 (chops off the window shadow and frame).

[Dullstar]

As for alt-prscr, that works nicely but has weird results on Vista/7 (chops off the window shadow and frame).

You'll have to show me that.

[The Doctor]

If I had Vista/7, I would.

[Dullstar]

Then, um...  how did you know that?

I think right now my complain about Macs is that I don't have one other than the really old ones (Mac OS Classic) in the basement.  It really stinks, because Mac OS X is really a lot better than any version of Windows I've ever used, and I do like it better than Ubuntu.

[The Doctor]

Well, logic would dictate that I've used Vista/7 in the past?

[Dullstar]

I found that Ubuntu at least has part of the features, not sure how much of them yet, though.

Now here's one I can't figure out.  I have a program that works better on WINE than on Windows.  RCT 2.  What's up with that?  I mean, it's great since I like Ubuntu better, but that strikes me as weird.