There are many Windows features that were essentially developed a long time ago.
As much as Microsoft is constantly modernizing Windows, in some areas it is clear that even in 2024 the operating system will continue to rely on a decades-old basis: the NT kernel.
First-hand experiences: Who could know this better than a programmer who was there at the time of the release of the first Windows NT almost 30 years ago?
- We are talking about Dave Plummerwho, according to his own statements, was involved in the programming of Windows components such as the Task Manager and Pinball.
- Instead, this is about the history of the dialog window for the Formatting disksPlummer has at X (formerly Twitter).
Despite all the Windows updates, this window has remained unchanged since Plummer programmed it. But you should still install Windows updates cleanly, as our following little experiment in video form proves:
5:00
We ignore the Windows warning not to turn off the PC and strange things happen
When and how it happened
- The events described by Windows programmer Plummer have End of 1994 took place.
- The MS-DOS-based Windows 95 was about to be released and the first version of Windows NT for workstations and servers with the eponymous NT basis was about a year old.
- In some areas there were bigger differences between the two versions of Windows, which also included formatting disks. So a new window was needed for that.
To accomplish this task, Plummer said he proceeded as follows:
I took a piece of paper and wrote down all the options and decisions one could make when formatting a disk, such as file system, label, cluster size, compression, encryption, and so on.
Then I started VC++2.0 and used the resource editor to create a simple vertical stack with all the options you had to make in the approximate order. It wasn’t elegant, but it should do until the elegant UI came along.
But a more modern version of the user interface was never programmed. Probably because the window serves its purpose perfectly well even without any revision.
If you right-click on a disk in Explorer and select the entry Formatting…
it still looks like this under Windows 11:
Anyone who wants to format a data storage device quickly will have long seen this sight, which is familiar to many.
Interesting side note: The limitation of Windows tools to select a maximum partition size of 32 GB for FAT32 disks also goes back to Plummer:
I also had to decide how much cluster slack was too much, and that led me to limit the format size of a FAT volume to 32 GB. This limit was also an arbitrary decision that morning, and it has stayed with us as a permanent side effect.
In addition to the maximum file size of 4 GB, it is one of the reasons why Microsoft later replaced FAT32 with its improved successor exFAT.
When is it worth formatting a data storage device?
In our experience, there are two main scenarios for invoking the dialog box shown above today:
- The file system of a storage device needs to be changed, which is usually due to compatibility issues.
- You want to completely delete a data storage device without any complications, because removing all contents is an unavoidable part of the formatting process.
Also good to know: For large internal storage devices such as SSDs, the NTFS file system is recommended in Windows. Unlike FAT32 and exFAT, it allows you to compress and encrypt files, among other things.
FAT32 or exFAT, on the other hand, offer greater compatibility and are therefore particularly suitable for smaller, mobile data storage devices.
- The greater compatibility is sometimes helpful, for example, when it comes to using a USB stick not only under Windows, but also under Linux or MacOS.
- The so-called
UEFI
-Menu with the central (mainboard) settings of your PC or notebook, which can be called up when the computer starts, can also often only handle FAT file systems.
The latter is potentially relevant if you want to install a new BIOS version via USB stick or save screenshots from the UEFI on it.
Let us know in the comments when you last used the format menu yourself, how often you do it, and if you can think of any other elements of Windows that have changed little (or not at all) over the years.
