Comment Feed for Window 7 Worst Feature (Coffeehouse on Channel 9)

Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Heywood_J — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:45:31 GMT

"Removing Windows Calendar and "replacing" it with Windows Live Mail."

I copied Windows Calendar from Vista into Windows 7. Works for me.

Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

rhm — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:17:41 GMT

Windows Explorer worked well in versions up to and including XP. It's (almost) totally useless in Vista, and I guess in Win7 too judging from the descriptions in this thread.

Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

SlackmasterK — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:36:23 GMT

Trolling as it does appear, I must agree with OP that search reached its usability peak in XP and has declined since. Fast, simple, and usable.

I have developed a tool that duplicates the functionality of XP File Search and now I never hit Win-F; because if I do I'll never find the thing I'm looking for. Often I want to find something on a network drive, recursively, containing certain text. While I admit the Vista/7 search can probably do those things, finding the functions is nigh impossible.

Keep it simple, stupid.

Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

contextfree — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:30:32 GMT

If you find yourself often searching for system files and DLLs etc., you may want to do what I did and create a "System" library consisting of your Windows and Program Files directories. Then those files will be indexed there and you can search it like any other library. "hewlett ext:.inf" works just fine for me, and takes all of nine seconds to run. The open-containing-folder action is now called "open file location" and is still in the right-click context menu.

I have to say I've always found the XP Search Companion interface rather maddening to use (and not because of the animated dog), and Vista search frustratingly unreliable. 7 is a very big improvement and a nice experience on the whole.

My votes for worst W7 features:

Removing the horizontal auto-scrolling thing from the Explorer left pane. Apparently some people found it distracting or something, but I never consciously notice it when it's there, I only notice how frustrating it is to navigate deep hierarchies when it's not there.
Removing Windows Calendar and "replacing" it with Windows Live Mail. I guess I'm apparently in the minority but I don't think of calendaring and email applications as related at all, and I don't want to use Live Mail anyway, but Windows Calendar did pretty much everything I wanted a simple calendar app to do. Guess I'll use a third-party app (Sunbird?) but doesn't MSFT want me to use their stuff? Grumble, grumble ...

Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Peter5 — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:24:03 GMT

>About the reduced functionality, it's difficult to choose where to begin.

>First I guess is that now you have only one line to type into when you

>start searching. I kind of usually want a couple of options before

>I begin my search: file name matching pattern, sub directories

>or not, and search for text inside files. Now I just get name,

>and a few VERY lame hyperlink words in the drop down.

>Ugh. I don't even want to describe how bad using hyperlink

>words in a combo drop down to select options is with

>regards to UI design, suffice it to say: it's REALLY bad. Awful.

Sorry about late commenting, 7 months after the original. But that just was exactly my feeling when I tried to do some basic searching with Windows Search routine.

I first thought that this is just my dumbness while I am an old XP user. And there must be better search utility than this, somewhere inside Windows 7.

But it seems that there is none. The only existing search tool is just plain useless, for any professional use.

I was trying to locate warious *.INF files from the hard disk, as I Win 7 did not find any driver that would be able to print on HP Laserjet with PCL-5 capability. The Win 7 search routine was first not able to find anything, no INF files, no matter how i tapped Enter key.

Finally it started to find something, but It always searched also all the CD-ROM's etc, and not just the \sub directory I wanted, but yet I got some results on the screen. Those .INF files it found, they strangely all seemed to have second extension like .SOB (I do not recall) and I could not choose to get only INF files to be shown.

An then Win 7 Search was not able to find for instance word "Hewlett" inside those INF files. If there is a free text search capability in Win 7, then it is very well hidden. I tried almost 2 hours to get PCL-printer driver installed, but I failed.

And for instance, where is the old right mouse menu, and there the "Open Containing Folder" choice? I need this kind of folder manipulating way and tool every single day with my XP computer.

Small children or housewifes may think that this is good now, only one Edit field where you can write your search.

But for any PC oriented guy that has to actually do something with files, find, edit, copy, rename etc, the Windows 7 Search utility is useless garbage.

And why is the Search so damn slow? Newest available software technology, and the searching is magnitudes of lsower than on XP machines. The Indexing is no solution to overcome this shortcoming, I am not going to index for instance alle the thousands of INF files etc. there are on my computer.

-Peter

Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Tommy Carlier — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:50:39 GMT

Sounds like a good idea for a project: a GUI for AQS. Why wait for Microsoft to implement it?

Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Sven Groot — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:01:56 GMT

Windows 7 does help you a little in this regard. For one thing it gives a few (but too few, imo) options in the drop down. And if you type e.g. "dimensions:" it pops up a drop down with possibilities which should help you remember the syntax.

I still agree the advanced search pane needs to come back though.

Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Bas — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:37:40 GMT

I know maybe 2% of AQS.. If I could select a bunch of options on a form and see what syntax they resulted in I might learn more. I say definitely bring back the form.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

intelman — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:31:58 GMT

I believe I replied with

"kind:picture width:120 height:160"

These search commands in Vista weren't too intuitive, but as you see, it is quite powerful.

Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

magicalclick — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:19:05 GMT

Humm... I see your problem. The search box is now super simple for casual users + an adanced search qurey system for super adanved user. But there is nothing in between. We should have an advanced search qurey wizard for people like us.

Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

William Kempf — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:18:11 GMT

Since that time, every other "file browser" on every other OS has also been adopting many of these "web browser features", because the paradigms are the same. So, I'm not so much fascinated that someone is complaining about this in 2009, as I am incredulous.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

ManipUni — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:04:14 GMT

Just get your Windows 98 SE CD, decompress and copy explorer to your Windows 7 folder and now your search works great!

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

PaoloM — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:28:03 GMT

Type "dimensions:" in the search box.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Bas — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:47:33 GMT

For what it's worth, I love the new avatar even more. If that was an actual avatar option in NXE, I'd set it in a heartbeat. Trendy clothes, hello kitty head. Beautiful and surreal.

Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

warren — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:33:52 GMT

I'm fascinated that someone is complaining in 2009 about Microsoft changing how Explorer works in Windows 7 so that it's more like a web browser. This is an argument that started in 1997 with the release of Internet Explorer 4!

Where've you been all this time, sysrpl?

Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Iain Rae Lennox — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:12:43 GMT

Its nothing to do with Male/Female... I was just joking... SORRY! @HelloKitty

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

me — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:09:04 GMT

i remember someone here once told me what to type to search by size

and it worked ( i needed to search for 9er avatars - 120 x 160)

but since then i forgot what that was... and i dont know any other commands.. so i prefered a box somewhere with options you can see

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

PaoloM — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:04:02 GMT

The AQS powered search box is a power user feature... are you not powerful enough, Jamie? :)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

me — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:59:40 GMT

i actually used that a few times. and the advanced search in vista.. so they removed it? Well at least no new users will get confused now. cant have that.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

sysrpl — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:47:05 GMT

I guess I just prefer:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

William Kempf — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:37:54 GMT

In the first search, if you only wanted files with "experience" in their names, you should have said so: "filename: experience".

The second search is a bit more complex, but you can still specify it: "filename: resume contents: experience".

AQS is much more powerful than the old search form, though it's not discoverable and has a learning curve. As others have said, the form should still exist. There's basically three "people" that search should target.

Newb: The simple search box is what someone with no knowledge is going to want all of the time. The fact that it returns more results than they might actually want isn't a bad thing, so long as they can find what they want. In fact, I used the terms "people" in quotes for a reason, and Newb is just a label, because most of the time for most people this is all that's really needed. As a power user, rarely do I need to hone my search down beyond this.

Advanced User: So, the advanced user needs to make an occasional search that's narrower than is possible with just a simple keyword search, but not often enough for it to be worth learning AQS. This is why a form should exist, that's easily discoverable. This won't give you complete control of the search, but gives you enough to do advanced searches like you're looking for. If this form were brought back, you'd have no room to complain (though, based on the rant you just gave, you probably would anyway... see later comments).

Power User: Screw the form. Takes much longer to fill that out, and it simply can't produce the advanced queries I need in any case. This is what AQS is all about, and what's nice is that the same UI can be used for both the Newb and the Power User. See, a simple text box is all you really want for searching, unless you fall into that category of occasionally needing more than a simple keyword search but less than full control over the search criteria. Even for your slightly less advanced queries, if you do a lot of them, you're better off learning AQS. It's just more productive. The only issue is the learning curve and the lack of discoverability.

As for the rant about IE being more like a browser:

1. The stuff you're complaining about mostly has little to do with a browser interface. Most browsers do not have a breadcrumb, for instance, though I'll grant that the breadcrumb came from concepts used in many web sites. However, breadcrumbs have been used in non-web applications for about as long as they have been used in web applications. When navigation exists, which it does here, a breadcrumb is a very useful metaphor. It's also unusual to see a search UI, on the web or not, that didn't have a single text box. This isn't a concept borrowed from the web, as it predates the existence of the web.

2. Like it or not, there are a LOT of similarities here. There's a reason applications like Explorer are called "File Browsers". A lot of UI concepts are thus going to be shared between the two.

Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

sysrpl — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:53:25 GMT

Why, do you think girls shouldn't be programmers, or are you a misogynist?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

blowdart — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:52:54 GMT

I can see your point, but really for "Normal" users (i.e. not us) do they really search for filenames or is it "I know I wrote about my kitty cat snookums somewhere" and search for snookums? I think the default behaviour of a content search is the right one.

But yes, it's painful to limit searchs to files. I don't like AQS - anything I have to lookup every time I need it has a problem

Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

Go Microsoft !!!!!!! — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:51:47 GMT

OT

C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT (Invisible folder)

Regional Wallpaper Warp :D :D

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Window 7 Worst Feature

sysrpl — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:50:04 GMT

Okay, I had a Windows 7 crash there while trying to create a text file to test this stuff out .... so after a hard reset

I set up this example, I want to find ONLY files with "resume" somewhere in the title AND the word "experience" in the contents of the file.

I created two text files on my desktop, one called "resume.txt" the other called "resume experience.txt"
The file "resume.txt" has the word "experience" inside the contents of the file, while the other file does not
Searching "experience" finds both files
Searching "experience name:resume" files both files again

This is not what I wanted. I wanted first search to return only files with "experience" in their names (resume experience.txt), and the second to return only files with "resume" in their name contain the word "experience" in their body (resume.txt).

For the second example, in XP I would just press F3, type "resume" in the file name edit, and "experience" in the file contains edit below, then press search. Simple. Not so with Windows 7.