New York Times technology columnist David Pogue precipitated a hacker tsunami by speaking — aloud — certain truths about the Evil Empire's flagship product:

As you know, I review new products all the time. Then later, after I return the hardware products to the manufacturers, I have to clean out the detritus their installations leave behind on my Windows PC. And today was housekeeping day.

The first program I spotted was Adobe Acrobat 5, which I don't need any more because I now have Acrobat 6. But when I tried to remove Acrobat 5 (using Windows's Add/Remove Programs program), a message said, "The system indicates that the following shared file is no longer used by any programs and may be deleted: C:/program Files/Dell/ShareDLL/djbsdk.dll. If any programs are still using this file and it is removed those programs may not function. Do you want to remove the shared file? Yes/No." WHAT THE...!?!? Like I'm supposed to know if some other program is going to need C:/program Files/Dell/ShareDLL/djbsdk.dll?

No normal person could possibly know that--heck, no technology columnist could possibly know that--which can mean only one thing: That whoever writes that kind of error message is lazy and mean-spirited. Let's move on to program #2, from Creative Labs. This time, when I clicked REMOVE, it whirred for a moment and then said: "Do you want to completely remove the selected application?"

Ummm, no. I actually clicked REMOVE because my index finger had an itch. DUH!

The third program, Firefox .08, I didn't need anymore because I have Firefox 1.0 now. But I can't uninstall version .08, because a message says: "Uninstall log folder not found: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Mozilla/Mozilla Firefox/0.8. (en)/Uninstall/Uninstall Log Folder."

The next removal, of the Virgin Player software, required THREE confirmations that yes, I really, truly, cross my heart and hope to die, DO want to remove this darned software, hard though Richard Branson may find it to believe.

And let's not even talk about all the crud in my "Currently installed programs" list that I didn't put there, that I have no idea whether it's doing me any good or not. ("ADP Sample Data?" "Dolet Light?" "Digital Line Detect?" "Windows Media 8 Encoding Utility?")

If all the best and the brightest programmers work at Microsoft, you'd think they could answer questions like these: If I click Remove, why must I be asked twice more if I want to remove something? Why can't Windows keep track of which programs need which pieces, so Microsoft's long-suffering customers don't have to judge whether some shared DLL file is still necessary? When we install a new program, why aren't we asked if we'd like it to replace the older version, rather than making us mop up afterward?

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