"You can't just try to figure out what type of drive the user has by comparing the clever technique against the boring "turn on the floppy drive light and make grinding noises" technique, at least not without displaying a warning to the user that you're about to do this—users tend to freak out when the floppy drive light turns on for no apparent reason."
What they should have done is wait for the disk to be used for some other reason, and then test it, and record the results. Just in case the drive changed, then after every reboot verify that it still makes sense.
I saw that, and it was a cop-out excuse in my opinion. During installation, usually unattended too, your computer does all sorts of unexpected things. It reboots, the screen switches off and on, it freezes up for a while. Most old systems had the floppy grind away on boot as well. I fail to see the issue (and it doesn't sound like they even tested it with any users).
"You can't just [use the] "turn on the floppy drive light and make grinding noises" technique, at least not without displaying a warning to the user that you're about to do this—users tend to freak out when the floppy drive light turns on for no apparent reason." (emphasis added)
"You can't just try to figure out what type of drive the user has by comparing the clever technique against the boring "turn on the floppy drive light and make grinding noises" technique, at least not without displaying a warning to the user that you're about to do this—users tend to freak out when the floppy drive light turns on for no apparent reason."
What they should have done is wait for the disk to be used for some other reason, and then test it, and record the results. Just in case the drive changed, then after every reboot verify that it still makes sense.