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User friendly file name

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There was an interesting discussion not long ago. People complain file names are just too user un-unfriendly. What is WISPTIS.exe? It is “Microsoft Tablet PC Platform Component”.  How could you tell from its name?

Valid complain.

Other people have rebuttal. File name is never meant to user friendly. If it is, what does it mean to international users? Do you want to localize the file name?

Other people have suggestion. You can store version information on binaries today. We should take advantage of that.

This is what I see on my machine. You will have WISPTIS.exe if you installed Microsoft Journal Viewer.
C:\>filever -v C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\wisptis.exe
--a-- W32i   APP ENU      1.0.2201.0 shp    194,560 08-29-2002 wisptis.exe
        Language        0x0409 (English (United States))
        CharSet         0x04b0 Unicode
        OleSelfRegister Enabled
        CompanyName     Microsoft Corporation
        FileDescription Microsoft Tablet PC Platform Component
        InternalName    WISPTIS.EXE
        OriginalFilenam WISPTIS.EXE
        ProductName     Microsoft? Windows? Operating System
        ProductVersion  1.0.2201.0
        FileVersion     1.0.2201.0 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
        LegalCopyright  Copyright ? 1998-2002 Microsoft Corporation.

        VS_FIXEDFILEINFO:
        Signature:      feef04bd
        Struc Ver:      00010000
        FileVer:        00010000:08990000 (1.0:2201.0)
        ProdVer:        00010000:08990000 (1.0:2201.0)
        FlagMask:       0000003f
        Flags:          00000000
        OS:             00040004 NT Win32
        FileType:       00000001 App
        SubType:        00000000
        FileDate:       00000000:00000000

Anyway, just for fun.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2004
    Explorer displays the Description and Version information in a ToolTip.

    Also, ProcessExplorer from www.sysinternals.com displays the File Description in the running process list.
  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2004
    Why have the concept of extensions anyway. Why not use the meta data to indicate what kind of file it is and scrap the extensions.

    The metadata can be localised and doesnt matter what you call the file.
  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2004
    Kiliman, people are lazy. They don't want to have another tool to do the job, nor they want to open the explorer and find the file. They want to see it directly from ... TaskManager!

    Moo, for backward compatability reason extension has to be kept. Also not all file system supports metadata. Alternatively You could burn the metadata into the binary but that means change of format. There is no way this could happen.
  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2004
    The comment has been removed