Download Filenames

December 27, 2003 @ 10:59 am

Why is it that when you download software vendors insist on naming files Setup.exe or even sticking to some crazy 8 character convention that you won't be able to decipher 5 minutes after you've installed this software?

I'm in the process of building Data Access Components and so I ended up downloading about 30 installs over the last 2 days. I'd say out of those 30, 20 had names that you wouldn't recognize.

Geez, why not give a recognizable name like:

MySqlServer-412.zip

Ah, no too simple, eh?

Instead my Downloads directory is littered with file with names like:

befw11s4v1-fw-1427.zip

Clear as Lentil Soup ain't it? (That's a driver for my wireless card BTW). How about:

Here's another one:

psp704ep.exe

That's better, but still if you're looking for the Paint Shop Pro update file it's not obvious that you will start looking for psp anything. Hello, this is 2003 almost 2004... 8 character filenames have been done with for at least 10 years now. Even Win95 (which is the the minimum requirement for 'Psp') can recognize longer than 8 characters and - gasp - even spaces in the filename. Imagine that...

Why do I all of a sudden feel like Seinfeld with the 'Have you ever noticed how...' comments.

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re: Download Filenames
by doesn't matter February 15, 2004 @ 4:39 am

befw11s4v1-fw-1427.zip
Is the file for a befw11s4 Ver 1 (out of 4) Wireless router FirmWare update version 1427 in a zip compressed file.
Seems pretty clear to me (and what brought up your post when looking for other versions of the firmware update.
Guess Model numbers need to get simpler for you to understand what you are downloading so that the file names can be simpler too.

re: Download Filenames
by Rick Strahl February 15, 2004 @ 1:11 pm

I think you're missing the point here. Of course you know what you're downloading at the time. But how about after you've downloaded. Now a few months go by and for one reason or another you need those drivers again. Are you (maybe YOU are) going to remember to look for befw11s41? I can rename my files - fair enough, but as a vendor I'd try to a) eliminate people coming back to download files they already have (bandwidth) and b) make people mad because they known they grabbed it before and like me can't remember what the file name was or where it was parked...