zhuo wrote:



Rebuilding might sounds like a good idea, but it is not.

The first reason is that even if you rebuild windows you are still going to run into the same problems that needs to be solved, sometimes problems are conflicting and you just have to choose one or the other. The myriad of problems in windows is not because it's badly built but rather that it is big and has to satisfy such a diverse customer base (pc users, hardware manufacturers, partners ....) not to mention backward compatibility. without this microsoft will lose customers.

Another reason why rebuilding windows or any software of such scale is not a good idea is because no single person/architect is capable of comprehending every single aspect of the system. Thus rebuilding windows is not neccessarily going to result in a superior system.

Thus rebuilding windows from scratch will never happen. Unless if microsoft create a R&D team that is specifically brought together to look at how to create windows from scratch and market it as a different operating system all together. No why would they do that?

It’s far superior to have each app store its variable data in their own data stores like they do on Linux for example. This way programs can’t interfere with other programs settings. And if a program gets all muddled up, you don’t have to search through the registry to remove its keys. All you have to do is delete the programs directory and recopy it over.

These are the things that Microsoft would love to redesign. Now that they have had a good decade to realize there mistakes.

But use will say, “OHHH Compatibility”.
Really that’s not an issue at all. They could make an entirely new OS and simply embed a windows virtual machine into it. And place this VM in a sort of sandbox so that it can never affect the host OS.

With the latest Processor advancements in Multi Core and hardware accelerated Virtualization. You would hardly notice that stuffs running in a VM. And over time they could then remove the VM since everything would be rewritten for the new OS and there wouldn’t be a need for backwards compatibility.

brian.shapiro wrote:



Except--

as i've commented in my long lost (which i doubt people read because of its verbosity )--

you should be able to drag files from your folder to one of the folder names on the breadcrub bar (or on the breadcrumb bar's dropdown lists). it doesn't make sense that you aren't able to.

footballism wrote:

    I think the new address text box is pretty cool indeed, you know, when you navigate to D:\Program Files\, the text box will style this path in D:\-> Program Files-> pattern, and each entity in this pattern are actually a button which you can click on to navigate to the targeting directory, quite amazing feature indeed, I'll try to implement its equivalent using WPF styling capability.

Sheva

And anywayz Jamie. Don’t forget theres Vista R2.
It’s believed that this "Vista R2" Will be the reincarnation of Longhorn.

Then the Vienna crew will come along and blow us away
Haha well im hoping anyway.

P.S. I'm still pissed about the removal of PC to PC sync

But on the other hand, sooooo many features have been cut that it makes me laugh seeing a thread like this. Coz there’s really not much to pick from anymore.

Cutting the PC to PC Sync was a real bad idea.
I, along with many others EXPECT an OS after 5 years from XP’s release to have great PC Sync technologies. And what do you know? It still doesn’t.

I hope that Vista R2 will include pretty much all the features that Longhorn had prepared that were dropped from Vista.
Since Vista has almost set all of the primary Pillars down. The only pillar that’s missing is WinFS. Now I know we have been told that it’s going to come in a service pack.
But I personally can’t see it being really used till Vista R2. Why? Well since WinFS will use Virtual Folders to pretty much do all navigation and Information Sorting/Data Gathering. They will need to alter certain aspects of the SHELL layout (explorer) to take advantage of it. And I just can’t see them doing something this radical via a service pack release.
     Anyway back to Vista R2. Microsoft should be able to include many if not all of the features that were cut from Vista that where in Longhorn. I mean since all the hard complex work will be finished in Vista, it gives them 18-24 months to included the more minor things that we all feel in love with.

And I hope Vienna then comes out at about what? 2011? and revolutionizes the way we use computers. Now some of you guys might be thinking, “Err what could be revolutionary that we don’t already have in Vista R2?” Well, most of us will be using Multi Core PC’s by 2011ish yeah? I mean heck I’m using an X2 now. Well to take advantage of those extra cores, why not have a Data analysis system that’s able to label and sort through data based on not merely Meta data. But actual file contented. That can say do things such as analyze music and sort them into genre or be able to tell if a picture was as night shot or a day shot. Or even to be able to tell what photos you’re in via facial recognition.
Of course there would need to be improvements in not only CPU technology but in storage as well to cater for such an advanced engine.

Anyways sorry about that little rant. Finally to your question
My favorite things that are still in Vista would have to be the new Audio Stack, new Network Stack, the stack views in explorer and the Eye Candy.
Shame that’s about all that’s left in Vista.

ACT10Npack wrote:

If Microsoft wants to get this new image format anyway then they will have to drop Windows from the tag.

dahat wrote:

Call me crazy... but why does anyone expect Sony’s PS3 Linux attempt to be any better than their PS2 Linux attempt?

Yggdrasil wrote:

I still feel that other than Offline messages, I haven't seen any compelling reason to upgrade.

Here are some reasons why I like msn 8. And why I think its worth using.

Its contacts details are a major improvement over msn 7.5 coz now you can add lots of details to your contacts including notes.

You can give them customs names that overwrite there nicknames.

It now neatly displays there nick name, tagline and EMAIL!!! on the contacts main window/msns main window all at once.

I like the new feature on how it removes the “contacts says:”. And if you don’t like it, you can turn it off. So it’s NOT a problem.

For people like me that have about 200 contacts the Search Filter is GOD sent. Also you can add keywords to the contacts, which then the search filter will look through as well.

Offline Messages are handy.

It of course links to the new live services such as the new contact cards and friends lists.

And the shared folders are pretty handy as well.

Umm and some little things that you might have overlooked are....

When you have a contact window open, you can now click into there email displayed under there nickname and copy and paste it.

When there are multiple contacts in a convo and some aren’t on your msn list, you can now right click on them and add them.

It can now display contacts from your hotmail/live address books in the main window. So that you can simply double click them and start up a blank email addressed to them.

So there’s my list of reasons to upgrade.

Acrylic Express
By “Acrylic Express” it meant a LIGHT version of Acrylic. Hence have the Express in its name. Basically what I would like to see is. Paint with Layer support. So I guess I went a bit far fetched in saying I want light version of Acrylic. And there are some other things that paint could do with that it currently doesn’t have.
Layering wouldn’t be a problem, because just like Photoshop it would create only one surface until you further create more. Hence a user wouldn’t get confused since there’s only ONE to play with by default.

“If anything MS Paint could do with being made even simpler, which would open doors to a lot of users.”
LMAO! Are you for REAL? SIMPLER?
My god boy, Let me personally go around to those people who have a hard time understanding paint and deliver them a nice black board and box of chalk! I would of supplied coloured chalk but that would make things more confusing for them so I’ll just offer them white!

Word Express
Wordpad wouldn’t be removed since it would be replaced with an app that offers more. As you mentioned Drag + Drop behaviour would be much appreciated and a Spell Checker. As you said a lot of us simply use Word for the Spell Checker. I don’t think we need to go and spend all that money just to get an application with a spell checker. So hence why Word Express or an updated version of Wordpad should included a spell checker. I guess this would fall under the System Wide spell Checker anyway. OH and MAC OS X has it and they don’t seem to have any problems selling Office.

And by the term “Express “I mean a light version of there more powerful sister apps. So you wouldn’t stop buy Office just because Wordpad has a slightly more user friendly features or not buy Photoshop just because Paint can support Layers!

Mousegestures
I agree that most implementations of Gestures are stupid. Though I was merely thinking as offering them as an Accessibility feature. One of my mates has one arms and he uses mouse-gestures to stop him from having to take his hand off the mouse as often as he did before.
On another note, one gesture that I liked was from a browser plug in. It allowed me to simply shake the mouse very quickly left and right to stop a page from loading. Or up and down to refresh. This actually was quicker than moving the mouse all the way to the top to press the Action button. Since you would only have to move the mouse up/down, left/right over about 2cms of screen space. Anyway I do agree that there most often a gimmick than a tool.

Passwording
No, windows DOES NOT support this!
Theres NO way in which you can make windows ask for a password when you go to enter a folder.

And I think you have totally lost the plot with that comment. Since a user can do more damage with playing around with NTFS encryption which is easy to turn on or toying around with security permissions.
Being able to password a folder is a pretty basic feature that’s missing if you ask me. I have great ideas in how you could implement such a feature and how it could have a fail safe system as well. But I won’t bother in explaining that all here.

Glass Toasts notifications
"I actually want to SEE notifications when they appear."
Again you are kidding right? I’m guessing you actually looked at the picture.
If case you didn’t notice. There is a solid colour fill behind the actual text. Therefore you can CLEARLY read it.
Glass doesn’t mean that it actually turns invisible! Oh and in case you haven’t noticed Glass is all over the place in Vista. The entire Gadget window is made of Glass. So I guess you won’t be able to see any of that at all! Poor guy…
I was simply saying that the Glass Notifications should be brought back since it would fit in with the ALREADY EXISTING GLASS theme!

3D animated icons
*Big gulp of Air… ahhhh. Ok…
“Vista is already laggy enough and I can't afford a super-computer to generate the 3D icons while I'm trying to write an e-mail.”

OK you can’t afford a super computer. That’s fair enough. But here’s the thing mate. Vista will detect that you have a crap system and firstly turn off Glass so that your computer will decloak so that you can see it again and it will also turn off all those animations so you can write your email!

OK, so for people like me that won’t get a system slow down by having animations going, 3D animations would be a nice extra. Why do people love Macs UI so much? Because it has far more feedback in the eye candy side of things it create the impression that your systems more alive and responsive. Why do people like the look of that super hot red Ferrari? Why do in movies all the UIs for there computers systems look dam right stunning?
If I’ve got two Geforce 8 Direct X 10 cards in SLI. Why can’t I at least use some of there idling power to make windows look more attractive?

Also did you ever run the 4xxx builds with these effects? They never lagged my system up at all and back then I was using a Geforce 2 GTS.

Phodeo & Carousel views
OK first off. You obviously haven’t seen Phodeo in action. It’s extremely useful and very easy to use!
It allows you to skim through and sort gigs of images with ease. I’m going by an actual video which showed off Phodeo in action.

The link I gave to the Carousel View wasn’t a very good example of how I would like to see it.
This perhaps is a better illustration of how i would like to see it.

Glass
“See my 'rant' about the notification box. What is the point of a transparent desktop?

You can't click or use the items behind the "in focus" one; thus it could only lead to confusion.

If you are THAT desperate not to see things then I suggest you turn your monitor off.”

OH god here’s a big one for ya! Those same issues that you brought up apply to Vista today!!! Since stuff is still Transparent!!! OHH NO! Oh that’s right Vista will turn it off on your system.

Old theme styles
I totally agree that Plex was Hideous!
But have you seen what some of the themes looked liked when you unlocked some of there features?
Remember these where also unfinished and could have had lots of final polish added to them.
I have some far more interesting screenshots but I’m not allowed to post them.

Microsoft Max & Windows Photo Gallery
“Because Microsoft MAX is about *SHARING* photos, The Photo Gallery is about *VIEWING* photos. They each have their own purpose.”

Umm yes…?? And when the other person receives these *SHARED* photos, what do they do with them? THEY VIEW THEM!!!! That’s right!!!!! And guess what! They view them in get ready 1 2 3!!, MICROSOFT MAX!!!!!
Hence why these two programs should be merged. Why should I have to have 2 programs installed to simply view and share photos? These two functions go hand in had which is why it’s vital that they are intergraded as one program.

My god

OS mode selector
“The Operating System already does this... It also has process prioritising build in, such that any game developer (or other application developer) could completely monopolise the computer system.”

Yes you are correct. I forgot about this. And really gamers are the only ones that would need a special mode for gaming. And since now Vista has prioritising build in we wouldn’t really need a MODE Selector.
And the Power Management feature has the option to do things like turn Glass Off to save power. So this aspect is already merging in.

Surround Sound support in Windows sound themes
“You can already. Install the Dolby Digital (AC3) codec; change the audio panel to point at your AC3 sound of choice and your off.”

Ahh so you are saying I can tell it to point to a AC3 file even though it only allows me to pick files with a wave extension?
And anyway I would like WMA support. After all its Microsoft’s own format!

Explorer to Auto Refresh itself
“Well sorry but that would be far too laggy... Browsing though and sorting an entire directory of perhaps hundreds of files takes time and CPU power, if you do it all the time the users will start to feel the effect and they won't like it.”

Here we go with your lag again. Really what are you running, a 486 or something?

I don’t know if you have tried it but it doesn’t lag when you press the refresh button. It updates in a flash.
Also it would only Auto Rearrange itself if a file was either modified by file name or meta data or if another file was added or removed. So it wouldn’t be refreshing all the time.

Also if you where smart you would make it so that when it re-arranges/refreshes itself, it would take you straight back to the current position in which you where viewing, so that you wouldn’t have to re-scroll down.

Much CPU power to refresh a file list?? Again upgrade your computer mate.

“However, I would like to see Paste auto-re-sort the folder on use.”
GOD this is actually what I was trying to say in the first place. LOL

The End
I see you’re a programmer. I think this is why you just don’t understand these things. I bet you’re very happy with your windows Classic theme.

Also can people stop complaining about Vista being a resource hog!
If your system cant run it then bloody well stay with windows XP!
If you want the new features that Vista will carry then upgrade your system.

You guys make it seem like you would expect Star Treks Holodeck to run on your commodore 64!
I hope one day (though probably not in my life time) that we will have technology like that of what we see in Sci Fi movies. So expect to keep having to for ever upgrade your systems until we get that Advanced ok!

EDIT:
"UlsterFry" NO! LOL.

And I guess it’s clear that MS wouldn’t be allowed to bundle more advanced apps.

Why doesn’t MAC get picked on?

The point simply is that as I said, I have a very nice set of speakers and surround sound is only ever being used in games or movies.
Its going to be 2007 by the time Vista is out. And I would expect an OS of this day and age to support multi media in a richer, deeper way.

delta4s wrote:

I like your list, I'd like them all.

Andokai, in regards to the Passwording of Folders, you cannot achieve this with NTFS permissions.

I want the ability to "Password Protect" a folder. Which means that when a ANY user goes to enter a folder it asks for a password. And I want it to ask me EVERY single time I want to access its contents. That means I double click a folder and it brings up a Dialog box asking me for nothing more or nothing less than a password. That means no bloody user name or crap. Just a password. There aren’t even any 3rd party apps that do it this simple.

I know a lot of people that want to be able to just do this. "Joe" doesn’t know how to tinker with NTFS permissions. So there should be a simpler option in which the average home user just has to Right click on a folder and go “Password Protect”.

And about the surround sound thing. I simply meant that it would be nice if I could assign multi channel sound files to the windows sound themes. This CANT currently be done. You can only assign Stereo or Mono sound files to themes in Windows XP.

Oh and also,
Manip you put this under BAD.

• The features and high quality look of Microsoft Max merged in with windows Photo Gallery. I DON’T see a point in making two Image Gallery type of apps.

So its good that there wasting there time in making 2 applications that pretty much do the same thing is it? Max is far more polished and has great sharing abilities. So they SHOULD merge the features of MAX into WPG. And just work on one great app instead of wasting there time.

Heywood_J wrote:

An operating system shouldn't really have "features".  Those belong in the applications I use.

I want an OS - any OS - to be solid and not full of security holes that can be 0wned by script kiddies 5 seconds after plugging into a cable modem.

Don't waste my time (and my hard drive space) by including a bunch of crappy programs (paint, cd burning, etc)  that are several orders of magnitude worse than most shareware programs.

I want an OS to be transparent - let me run my applications, get work done and not be bothered by stupid animated dogs and paperclips.

Though I do agree that you get a lot of crap installed that you probably either; won’t use/don’t need or have a more powerful 3rd party app that carries out a better job at task.
So to solve that there should simply be the option during the windows installation environment to choose exactly what services and applications that you would like to be installed. And on the other side and express install that just allows you to intall Vista with hardly any further input.

Vista is missing heaps of GREAT features that longhorn had planned as we all know. So saying that OS’s shouldn’t have features as such is total BS.

All I can say to you Heywood_J is if you want a very light OS that has hardly any bundled crap and which is transparent and allows you to get work done then go and try out one of the many great Linux Distores out there.

SlackmasterK wrote:

(The correct and easier-to-read method of quoting, BTW)
What kind of PSU(s) do you run on that rig?  I had to add two secondaries just to power all mine (I'm up to 12 now, BTW). What's the size total?

To “zzzzz”
I find that fact that you drive Vertically pretty strange

“SlackmasterK
Very nice. About time someone topped me. Is this on your home rig as well? But, I still win in the quantity of 120's
What method and quality settings do you use to rip VHS?  I have a VCR but no tapes. I use it exclusively to connect the TV to my computer's RCA output.”

I’ve got 14 Drives plugged into my main system.
4 on an onboard  Sil SATA1 controller 4 on the onboard NVIDIA SATA2 controller.
And 3 on IDE. And 1 dvd drive hehe.
The other drive is in an external USB2 cradle.

Then on my other computer I have 2x 250 gig drives. There kind of used for backup. But only my most Die Hard stuff is backed up on them. Then i burn my TV eps onto DVD for backup.

In regards to the VHS, I got a friend to actually rip them all for me. Since I don’t have the hardware to do so.
Then I converted them into Xvids. There about 350-500mbs per rip. So there not that great.

P.S. I hope theres no cops in here

Winston Pang wrote:

I always thought that WinFX was an integral part of Vista itself.

WinFX was pretty much always going to be preinstalled out of the box.

In the April CTP some aspects of the UI will be using Avalon for things like Preview Pane Aurora and a few more eye candys are ment to be heading back in.

And if you have been watching all the C9 videos you will see that it makes it fairly clear that the user will be able to run the new wave of applications straight out of the box.

AdityaG wrote:

qatal wrote: If that thing that draws pictures of your network and what's broken where, ACTUALLY WORKS, I'll buy it. If they include even one theme that looks like a 14-year-old designed it (Glassy Aero Buttons, anyone?), I might rescind that commitment though. From the look of the betas, the vista philosophy is more or less "Everyone has lots of cycles now, and fast GPUs, so we can bloat the hell out of the shell and noone will complain. After all, the average user doesnt flinch when their start menu takes 5 seconds to pop up, and their machine half an hour." Use the GPU for something useful, if you assume its existence. Like massively parallel disk index maintenance. Just my 2c. -Chris

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

1. XP Luna may look childish, but it my opinion it was very functional. Everything was clearly color coded. The red X was clearly visible, the green start button was the same. etc. A lot of it preference but it certainly wasn't a 14 year old's design.

2. You can't do much with a GPU. You can't maintain a disk index with your GPU or use it to do so. A GPU can only do simple arthemetic stuff FAST. But that's about it. That's why in windows right now, most of the time, the GPU isn't used (unless you are playing video or a game). Using the GPU for the interface is a much better idea because now you can use your CPU power for other things (even disk index maintainance!). Basically right now, you are rendering the whole UI in "software renderer mode" (not really.. but thats the concept).

Cheers,
Aditya

There heaps on this in the open source communities.
I'll provide you with resources about this later on.

I think the Blue style is bloody terrible. Looks way to childish, just like the Blue Luna theme. But I have to agree with DCMonkey in that the blue will go very well with Luna and that the Black will go great with Aero Glass.

I think the Office Orb looks cool because it matches the Vista start Orb. Though will “Joe” know where the hell the file menu went at first glance?

Also don’t forget that when running on Windows Vista, Glass will be used in certain places. This will make it look even nicer, I hope.

Though I must say the Black does look very nice.