An Inconsistent UI

I've felt like ranting a bit about Windows inconsistent UI, which seems to me as if it wasn't designed but just happened, different teams working on different UI elements for different products without following a consistent model, unlike Mac OS X, for example.

Both Office 2007 and Windows Media Player 11 do away with traditional menu bars.

Interestingly Outlook 2007 keeps them around, but not in the compose dialog.

Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11, give you the option to enable the menu bar if you really want it, Office 2007 on the other hand doesn't, even though it needs it the most.



Another interesting aspect about menu bars in Windows is their alt behavior, some will only show you the underlined letters if you click and hold alt, others will show it to you by default.

So who is in charge?
It's not like GNU/Linux where thousands of people work on different portions of it, inconsistencies are bound to happen! All of programs here are from one provider, you'd think they'd have some standard UI guidelines!