Innovating Norton Desktop

Date:

Snippet
From: Brad Silverberg To: David Cole, John Ludwig, Eric Rudder, Mack Mccauley Subject: Norton Desktop for Windows Date: Friday, May 15, 1992 5:24 PM

From: Aaron Getz To: Brad Silverberg Subject: Norton Desktop for Windows Date: Friday, May 15, 1992 5:24 PM

I've been using Norton Desktop as my shell for a couple of weeks now. My overall reaction is mixed.

I hated the last version of Norton Desktop. It was excruciatingly slow, it's interrace was inelegant, and the directory tree structure was already expanded. Of course, I was comparing this to Win 3.1's file manager and program manager.

I generally like this version of Norton Desktop. The only reason I'm tempted to stop using it is because applications are running annoyingly slow on my machine. I've got an fast 386sx/20 with 6meg of memory. I'm not really sure if this is a result of 'Stacker', an old version of 'Bullet' or 'Norton Desktop'. The new version of Desktop seems much speedier than the old when you are actually using the shell.

The main functionality that I use is the ability to mix program items and groups in the top level of the program manager. This has basically saved me all my juggling with the present day program manager. Part of what makes this nice is the very well integrated and fairly large icon library.

Having the file manager windows be SMI is also an improvement,. Because of the fact that they are not clipped by an upper level window and the default size and positioning of windows, it is very easy to open two file manager windows on the screen. This is critical for easy of move/copy operations. The fact that the drive icons do not have friendly names is a big minus.

I used SmartErase for awhile, but it caused some problems so I turned it off. The whole process was a pain i n the rear.

Viewers are cool in concept, but they are two slow, and seemingly non-interruptible. It is almost always easier to just open the file. I love the view functionality which exists in Word 2.0

I don't drag items to the desktop to create push buttons. This just clutters up my screen. The ability to put the items directly into the main group of the program manager makes this unnecessary. I just use this window when I want to launch things. At the beginning ..

Full Exhibit
http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/px04253_a.pdf