Windows error messages and warnings vs usability

Did it ever happen to you that you badly needed to write down a code in an error message?

I won't believe you if you tell me that you've never ever had to manually copy the text of an error message thrown by Windows, in order show it to a friend or look up the error in a search engine.

The problem is that the text in these error messages cannot be highlighted, or selected in any way, so you can't use copy\paste. The solution is to either memorize the message or write it down. Or press Ctrl+C ;-)

It turns out that copying the text of a notification window is as easy as pressing Ctrl+C. Afterwards you can paste it in a text editor and see the result:

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Error
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errcode: -2146434967 The smart card has been removed, so that further communication is not possible.
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OK
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Note how you can see the title of the window, the text of the error as well as the label of the button on the form.

This works with other types of messages, not only errors, here is another example:

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Dekart Smartcard Logon 2.21 setup
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Abort installation process ?
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Yes No
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What does this have to do with usability?

The problem with usability in this case is caused by several elements:

• Discoverability - there is nothing on the screen that tells me I can highlight it and copy\paste as I usually do; nor there is anything hinting me I can press Ctrl+C. If I try to highlight the text - I realize it is not highlightable. The only buttons I see are an 'X', 'Yes' and 'No' - since this is all I see I have no reasons to believe there is something else.
• Feedback - Even if I try this hotkey because I've used it in other contexts, there is nothing on the screen to tell me that my action had an effect - a beep or a click, a status bar that says "text copied to the clipboard", etc. Of course, you can say that a typical copy operation has no feedback either, but the difference is that in a typical copy\paste operation I can highlight the text, and I've been educated about the absence of feedback.

You can argue that error messages are an exception and not the norm, therefore there is no need to make a big deal out of this. Well, there will always be error messages, even in an ideal world. Since you can't avoid showing them, why not try to make the experience more pleasant?

Finally, when it comes to covering the gaps left out by a poor or complex interface, documentation saves the day. The trouble is that if you look for "windows copy error message" in your favourite search engine, none of the results come from Microsoft.com, so we can guess that this trick is not documented.

Anything that requires more than an internet-search or looking in more than "one place at the surface" is not documented.

I wonder, how many megabytes we could have saved if everyone knew about this and sent the text instead of sending a screenshot? Or how many sheets of paper? How much ink? How many man-hours? ahh....

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