Windows STOP Button

A persistent feature of Windows since Windows95 has been the START Button. For equally as long, Windows has been in dire need of a STOP Button, but they never have gotten around to devising such a thing. It would prove most useful, and it would boost Windows’ popularity among a growingly cynical public. But, for some reason Microsoft has not seen the wisdom of adding it.

For some examples: A print job is not printing. Windows already told you that the job failed to print, and you dutifully have canceled the failed job. The status of the job in the queue has changed to “Deleting…” And then you could sit and watch it for hours as it seems to be working real hard trying to delete that job. Wouldn’t it be great to have a STOP Button you can click? Clicking it would tell Windows, “Whatever it is you are doing, just STOP!” Or, how about the time when you double-click a folder, and an outline of a window paints on the screen, and then you sit and wait….and wait….and wait some more for Windows to fill in the list of folder contents. There is no HDD activity. You check the Task Manager, and the CPU is 99% Idle. What on earth is Windows doing? It is times like these when that STOP Button would come in handy. “Whatever it is you are doing, just STOP!”

Maybe Microsoft felt that they really didn’t need to include a STOP Button in Windows because all PCs already have a STOP Button on the case. It’s that little Button with the figure of a partially open circle and a vertical line through the gap in the circle. Whenever Windows seems lost in thought and won’t stop, just push in on that little Button and hold it in for about 5 seconds. (I still think it would be cooler if Microsoft put a STOP Button in Windows!)