They forgot Poland!
- Transfer
In the first release of Windows 95, you could select the time zone by clicking on a point on the world map; The selected time zone was highlighted in a brighter color.
Similarly, in the beta versions of Windows 95, you could select the locale ("Language and Standards").
Both cards survived only a few months: the locale map did not even live up to the release; time zone map - until the first service pack. Although the borders were displayed in accordance with the officially recognized UN, dissatisfied with their location were not long in coming.
In February 1995, the Alto Senep war broke out over the border between Peru and Ecuador. The Peruvian government filed a formal complaint with Microsoft about the “incorrectly defined” border in Windows 95. Naturally, if Microsoft had obeyed the requirement to repaint a few pixels on the map, then exactly the same protest would come from Ecuador. They had no choice but to remove from the release a map of the regions. Fortunately for the second map, Peru and Ecuador were in the same time zone, so there were no “controversial pixels” on it.
The Indians were dissatisfied with the time zone map: its disputed territories were assigned to the GMT + 5 time zone along with Pakistan, while GMT + 5:30 operates in all of India. (The "hostile" Pakistani belt is the same one that is highlighted in the top screenshot.) The Indian government was seriously alarmed, and threatened to completely ban the import of "anti-state" Microsoft products. Since this time "controversial pixels" were discovered after the international release of Windows 95, the map was fixed only in the localized Indian version. However, Microsoft did not intend to maintain a separate world map for each country; and at the first opportunity, the coloring of time zones was removed, from harm's way, from all the localizations of Windows.
As you know, Microsoft rarely modifies debugged and tested code. So this time, the coloring of the map didn’t really go away: just the selected time zone was drawn in the same shade of green as the rest of the land. At first, the entire background was flooded with a blue “ocean”, then green time zones were drawn one after another, forming continents and islands. Only now, in Windows 98, not all of the land suddenly began to be drawn: Poland was "flooded by the ocean" for no reason.
Peaceful and calm Poles did not start an international scandal due to missing pixels. The map with "flooded" Poland has survived right up to the beta versions of Longhorn.
In the Vista release, the card was completely removed, saving Windows from geopolitical troubles once and for all. But what's the matter? Where did the flood come from?
Time zone settings are stored in the registry and updated by localizers as necessary; but in the code that draws time zones, their total number was set tightly. Programmers did not foresee that the number of time zones on the planet could change. However, Poland only during the release of various editions of Windows 95/98 managed to “visit” in four different zones:
In hindsight, they say, the card was fixed in one of the hotfixes for Windows XP / Windows Server 2003; but at least in SP2 Poland is still flooded. And the Polish time zone is still called "(GMT + 01: 00) Sarajevo, Skopje, Warsaw, Zagreb."
K.O. remarks that the title is an allusion to George W. Bush’s remark “ You forgot Poland ”
Similarly, in the beta versions of Windows 95, you could select the locale ("Language and Standards").
Both cards survived only a few months: the locale map did not even live up to the release; time zone map - until the first service pack. Although the borders were displayed in accordance with the officially recognized UN, dissatisfied with their location were not long in coming.
In February 1995, the Alto Senep war broke out over the border between Peru and Ecuador. The Peruvian government filed a formal complaint with Microsoft about the “incorrectly defined” border in Windows 95. Naturally, if Microsoft had obeyed the requirement to repaint a few pixels on the map, then exactly the same protest would come from Ecuador. They had no choice but to remove from the release a map of the regions. Fortunately for the second map, Peru and Ecuador were in the same time zone, so there were no “controversial pixels” on it.
The Indians were dissatisfied with the time zone map: its disputed territories were assigned to the GMT + 5 time zone along with Pakistan, while GMT + 5:30 operates in all of India. (The "hostile" Pakistani belt is the same one that is highlighted in the top screenshot.) The Indian government was seriously alarmed, and threatened to completely ban the import of "anti-state" Microsoft products. Since this time "controversial pixels" were discovered after the international release of Windows 95, the map was fixed only in the localized Indian version. However, Microsoft did not intend to maintain a separate world map for each country; and at the first opportunity, the coloring of time zones was removed, from harm's way, from all the localizations of Windows.
As you know, Microsoft rarely modifies debugged and tested code. So this time, the coloring of the map didn’t really go away: just the selected time zone was drawn in the same shade of green as the rest of the land. At first, the entire background was flooded with a blue “ocean”, then green time zones were drawn one after another, forming continents and islands. Only now, in Windows 98, not all of the land suddenly began to be drawn: Poland was "flooded by the ocean" for no reason.
Peaceful and calm Poles did not start an international scandal due to missing pixels. The map with "flooded" Poland has survived right up to the beta versions of Longhorn.
In the Vista release, the card was completely removed, saving Windows from geopolitical troubles once and for all. But what's the matter? Where did the flood come from?
Time zone settings are stored in the registry and updated by localizers as necessary; but in the code that draws time zones, their total number was set tightly. Programmers did not foresee that the number of time zones on the planet could change. However, Poland only during the release of various editions of Windows 95/98 managed to “visit” in four different zones:
- Windows 95: (GMT + 01: 00) Warsaw
- Windows 95: (GMT + 01: 00) Lisbon, Warsaw
- Windows 98: (GMT + 01: 00) Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague, Warsaw
- Windows 98: (GMT + 01: 00) Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Warsaw, Zagreb
In hindsight, they say, the card was fixed in one of the hotfixes for Windows XP / Windows Server 2003; but at least in SP2 Poland is still flooded. And the Polish time zone is still called "(GMT + 01: 00) Sarajevo, Skopje, Warsaw, Zagreb."
K.O. remarks that the title is an allusion to George W. Bush’s remark “ You forgot Poland ”
