I have just experienced what I believe to be one of the most user-hostile pieces of software I have ever seen: Memorex CD Labelmaker v5.0.

The downloaded “Setup” program is actually just a stupid self-extracting archive file which decompresses itself into the root of C:, creating a directory structure. It dumps files into C:\Program Files\Memorex\CDLabelmaker, as well as C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\CD Labelmaker. This is crappy for two reasons:

1. Not everybody installs software to C:\Program Files, and
2. The Start menu does not exist in C:\Windows\Start Menu under Windows NT, 2000, XP, or Server 2003.

As if the brain-dead “install” procedure were not bad enough, the software itself has a horrible, horrible interface. When I zoomed in, the zoom percentage on the menu changed from 100% to 500%, but the label image in the window didn’t change a bit. The dialog boxes look like software from the Windows 3.1 days, toolbars can’t be modified, and every “tool” for adding an element to a label design does not work the way you’d expect it to.

Adding a text box is an exercise in frustration because you have virtually no control over the text. It scales to fit the dimensions of the box. If you draw a long rectangle, you get squished text that’s nearly unreadable. If you can figure out how to change the font — which even for me took about four attempts — you’ll end up with distorted characters.

And printing… you know, that thing you bought the label kit to do? Apparently the text is rendered as an image prior to printing, so when your out-of-proportion, squished text is output onto a label, it ends up grainy, distorted, and nearly unreadable.

At least the software was easy to remove. So what’s the worst software you’ve ever used?