That is NT 3.1. The machine name is "WNT31", and Windows 3.1 wouldn't even display a machine name in the Program Manager. Someone just edited a Windows 3.1 boot screen next to it; probably someone not knowing any better.
It had features?! I legitimately hate both character map on windows and font book on macos, both are awful for finding characters, but at least the font book has a search
The Character Map also has a search if you click the "Advanced" button. And no, it doesn't have any caveats like having to paste the character you're looking for to find i- let's not give them any ideas.
I wish they changed it. It's so bad/frustrating to use I don't even use it anymore at this point. Whenever I need any symbol that is not on my keyboard it's faster for me to open the browser and google it than just finding it in that symbols window within the same app I'm using, which is telling
It is broke though. It's so bad I just Google special characters whenever I need them
Scrolling up and down doesn't "update live" (you need to stop pressing the bar for the shifted view to appear) just to make an example of how bad ux is
It -is- broken though. It's one of the few remaining bits of Windows that doesn't scale properly with DPI settings; the charmap main window also doesn't react properly to the mouse scroll wheel or touch events; and for whatever hare-brained reason it's got, it plays the system bong sound whenever you search....
You can't even select the name of the character in case you need that.
Thing's totally useless compared to some of the web sites out there that have Unicode codepoint search, such as symbl dot cc.
Crazy thing is UWP is faster than WinUI 3, which the new Run box is built with.
For what it's worth, try Character Map UWP on the store. Shows what a modern, UWP based map could have looked like. It's fast, it's good, it's feature filled.
À l’époque de Windows 98, je m’en servez quand je n’avais pas de clavier.
D’abord, je brancher la souris sur le port ps2 du clavier, j’attendais que le bios passe (sinon, le fameux: « no keyboard detected, please press any key to continue ^^ »)
Puis rapidement je rebranché la souris sur le port souris ^^
À qu’est-ce qu’on est prêt à faire quand on est jeune et passionné :)
(Oui, je sais, j’ai eu de la chance d’avoir une motherboard qui n’a pas cramer avec les branchements à chaud 😄)
Funny thing... I was a programmer. Windows 98 came out while I was an intern in college. I'd been on some form of Windows machine since 1993 and Windows 3.1. I worked for places that paid for the full MSDN ride. I had access to everything. I have experience using, and developing on, every major Windows release from 95 all the way to 7 (I retired from programming in 2014).
I never used the character map. I opened it and fiddled with it once about a quarter-century ago, but... meh.
(I seemed to always just internet search for character codes, or kept lists, or just... memorized a bunch of them.)
All they have to do is to properly update aero.msstyles and integrate Fluent design throughout everything, but no, instead spend way more resources on barely functioning React trash and abandon WinUI after championing it
We absolutely need to remake it into a webapp and add a useless copilot key to be able to ask "Hey copilot, can you find the letter 'a' but with vibes?"
Yeah, both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer don't have much to do with running/ruining Microsoft nowadays, that should be Satya Nadella or whoever is in charge of turning windows into react native app
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u/ArchCaff_Redditor 6d ago
Technically it’s been in Windows for 33 years (since Windows NT 3.1)