Fooling Around

Can there be any justification for a completely custom GUI replacing standard caption, buttons etc. and imitating Vista look on Windows XP? Vista look, but with unusual custom controls and still with a jerky Windows 3.11 style font (see prompt for installation path below).

I was about to write that unlike previous versions of Nokia PC Suite, this one at least does the very first thing it is expected to do… but nope, it crashed on… viewing contacts! And it crashes every time soon after contacts browsing is opened!

OK, this might be a “little glitch”, but the Suite is still losing USB cable connections just like it has been doing for a long long time, even when it did not yet have Vista look…

How many Windows processes is necessary for this type of application? I left Bluetooth and Infrared disabled as unneeded. Service context: ServiceLayer.exe which started NclMSBTSrv.exe, NclUSBSrv.exe, NclRSSrv.exe (thanks, because there is 4 more .exes in this Transports subdirectory); Desktop: PCSuite.exe and an application for any major task: ContentCopier.exe, ConnectionManager.exe, CommunicationCentre.exe. It makes an impression I have installed another operating system on top of Windows. I never thought that communication with a cellular phone might be such complex task, which requires so many applications started.

Nokia’s service is “ServiceLayer”, display name “ServiceLayer”, service description is missing…

How did they come to this software design? To implement custom look and feel, fully customized GUI and just not provide any descriptive name for the service, which is by the way starting automatically (well, service startup is Manual, but user applications auto-start by default and would start the service) and keeps bloating system even when the Suite is not being used.

(software screenshot copied from ixbt.com)

What is this, a picture of a box or a piece of user interface? It keeps surprising that software vendors keep investing in creating custom user interfaces (GUI) for the sake of… just nice visual appearance?

Yes, it is visually attractive, but in a daily usage this is only important factor from the very start. Would later user appreciate usability and uniform GUI look? What if one has several packages installed and each of them has a shiny custom look? Most often this significantly adds binary/download size, will require more memory and will run slower because of both heavy graphics and custom controls, often designed in a haste or insufficiently accurate.

I would personally appreciate software developers investing into quality/performance of the code instead, is this an unrealizable dream?