What don't you like about Windows 7? | The Coffeehouse

vesuvius
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

OK, the release candidate has been out for a bit, with the beta being out for 5 months already, is there still anything left you are displeased about? Are you in the its Vista but better, or it's what Vista should have been, or it's exactly like Vista camp?

Obviously it couldn't be Vista, as that broke a lot of applications to make us safer - I last used anti-virus in XP. Some people "threw the baby out with the bathwater", but some of us (hopefully wiser) know and appreciate that increasing the security boundary was a necessity.

The typical wearisome XP/Pentium 3 fanboi, with tales on how fast XP is, how not bloated it was, how much prettier it was seems to have gone by the wayside. If you have the audacity to compare Windows 7 with gNewSense or PC/OS and resolve that they are better, then surely a visit to a reputable optometrist and psychiatric ward is in order?

Apart from an issue with me preferring the selected node in the treeview to not be set to "FullRowSelect" as I cannot see why they needed to change this from Vista, I feel as I am a part of something truly special, which Windows 7 absolutely is.

PerfectPhase
"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

My only issue so far is that the PC connected to my TV comes out of sleep over night, apart from that very happy.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

I'm still not sure about the new taskbar, especially launching a second instance of an application. Having to shift-click is annoying and obscure. That said, I'm not sure if launching a second instance of an application is still such a necessity.

I'm also wondering if QA on the gadgets platform is more than an afterthought this time around. Developing gadgets for Vista's sidebar, especially if you're dealing with transparency or embedded media player controls, is a disaster due to how buggy the system is. Initial testing of my gadgets on the Windows 7 beta wasn't promising either: they all broke.

The lack of a decent JScript debugger didn't help either, in Vista's case. Does anyone know if you can use IE8's debugger to debug gadgets running in the 'sidebar' process (or whatever that's called now that there's no sidebar anymore)?

I think the little bird in the login screen is the best feature.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

My least favourite part so far is that they removed the dialog that was there in Vista that asks you what to do when you connect a new monitor, and defaults to duplicate mode again. That they added Win-P so you can easily change is nice, but it's not as discoverable (it's also technically wrong, since that UI talks about projectors, and so far everything I've connected to my laptop has been either a TV or a regular monitor, not a projector).

And why do they use duplicate as the default? Would using extend really confuse people that much? The result of the current option is that one monitor is almost always going to use the wrong resolution by default. And presenter view in PowerPoint is so useful, but only works with an extended desktop and hardly anyone even knows it exists.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

I've used Win7 a bit in a VM and Windows Explorer seems less responsive (I know it's a VM, but you can feel it), that it takes longer to open a directory and list contents than on XP.

Oh, and on XP I always Show Hidden Files and Folders and Show Protected System Files, but on Vista and Win7 there's a lot of junk in the filesystem (especially profile directories) that clutters things up. I don't even know why these shellinks and symlinks exist when I always get Access Denied errors when I try to open them to see where they point to.

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

In reply to Bas

#May 11th @ 6:09 AM

I'm also wondering if the new taskbar is fit for somebody who's chatting a lot... (on windows live messenger for exameple) Each conversation is now futher away to get to rappidly...

And i'm used to closing conversation windows after typing what i wanted. Meaning the preview never shows up propperly if somebody respondse...

vesuvius
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I did complain about this, but think the team have a good enough compromise in this

Here I have the taskbar set to "combine when full". Even Long dislikes this navigation, and most of the Microsoft demos at Mix from the likes of Scott Hanselman had this setting.

The analogy I had in my original complaint (no need to ressurect that post) was that if you are on the ground floor, it usually is quicker, especially if there are a lot of people (windows), to take an escalator and not an elevator. For all the taskbar videos that they have on offer, this problem has not been solved in the new taskbar, and is better suited to the old taskbar.

I have my taskbar set as above and am pleased-as-punch. Maybe I'm a slow learner, and may eventually "get it" but I like the old taskbar best.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to vesuvius

#May 11th @ 7:04 AM

I find the default taskbar too thick. I appreciate them having a Small mode, but why is Large the default setting other than to show off larger, more detailed icons? The bar obeys Fitt's Law so I don't think it really matters.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to vesuvius

#May 11th @ 7:04 AM

Maybe I'm a slow learner, and may eventually "get it" but I like the old taskbar best.

Weirdly, though I usually disagree with people who set the start menu and control panel back to classic mode (confusing "I'm more familiar with the old way" with "The old way is better"), I get the feeling I'm going to be more at ease setting the taskbar to those settings as well. I like the titles in the running application buttons (and it fits the progress bar better), and although I loved button combining on the taskbar ever since I first saw it in XP, I still think it works best if it only happens when the taskbar is full. Am I turning into one of 'those' people?

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to W3bbo

#May 11th @ 7:49 AM

Touch.

Bass
Channel 9, best used in moderation

Everytime I look at a Win7 screenshot I keep thinking I'm looking at a Linux desktop screenshot. I can't help but be reminded of KDE with that taskbar. The default colors and stuff are different but the size of the buttons and icons are pretty much the same. Then again I'm not a KDE fan, I wish Microsoft took Gnome or OS X for inspiration (two panels, top and bottom). That makes the best use of Fitts law by the way. Neither Gnome or OS X make optimal use of the top bar anyway, plenty of room for innovation there Microsoft. Smiley

AndyC

In reply to W3bbo

#May 11th @ 6:23 AM

W3bbo said:
I don't even know why these shellinks and symlinks exist when I always get Access Denied errors when I try to open them to see where they point to

That's precisely why they are there. If a legacy app tries to use a hard coded path it hit's one of the junctions, gets access denied, then the appcompat shims takes over and redirects it to the correct location.

lucianoc

In reply to Bas

#May 11th @ 6:09 AM

You can middle click instead of shift+click

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

I'm suddenly wondering: what if Messenger didn't use the Messenger icon for conversation windows, but a miniature of the contact's display picture? That way, if you don't group buttons and you don't use labels, you can still see which conversation window is which.

Wouldn't this be possible with the icon overlay functionality?

You can middle click instead of shift+click

That still means two different actions (left click, middle click) to do the same thing (launch an application), and one action (left click) to do two different things (launch, switch). How is that intuitive or user friendly?

intelman

I really do not like how IE8 is stable for everyone else but me Sad . I am tempted to download the ISO again, burn again and format to see if there is an issue with my build.

I also hate how the event viewer defers to the action center. "iexplorer.exe crashed, but if you want more information go to the action center". This is just annoying. The action center is unorganized and there is no need to defer someone to something else.

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

Yup it would ! And it's a great Idea (seen it in pracktice in Linux with pidgen) and it really works. They should overlay the thumbnail generetaed per coversation with the persons avatar to!! Since you can alter those thumbnails to!! I would LOVE that !

But let them take there time and first remove the additional Avatar Window from the Live Messenger thumnail list... (have two buttons on taskbar to get to the main messenger window when it's not minimized...)

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

Oh hey, another dislike: not being able to set the file association for actions like "Edit". Or did they fix that in the RC?

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

The app compat shims don't actually do anything there (the junction points actually point to the correct location). The only reason they're not navigable is to not confuse people (Traverse Folder is set to Deny for everyone, which makes them non-navigable but allows old applications to continue to use 2000/XP style hard-coded paths (e.g. Documents and Settings, Application Data).

The big thing that gets on my nerves is actually a graphics driver issue... my screen doesn't refresh properly when unlocking (stays black until you move a window or something) and I get artifacting on glass frames periodically (especially if the app has the glass frame extended into the client area and is drawing there).

magicalclick

In reply to W3bbo

#May 11th @ 7:49 AM

It is not thick. It is ok for me. If it is thiner, I would not like it.

magicalclick

I haven't tried RC, but in Beta, when I use multiple pictures for my desktop, the rename function has really bad contrast color. It is weird because they spend extra time to make bad contrast color.

vesuvius
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

In reply to magicalclick

#May 12th @ 2:23 AM

It is thick if you have a low resolution screen. 19 widescreens are pretty much sold as standard nowadays, with most people going for 22", 24" or even 30" so the default large bar looks good on most if not all new pc's.

If you use a netbook or 14" laptop then the smaller setting is welcome.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

I don't particularly have an issue with the thickness on my 13", 1280x800 laptop either. It's not twice as thick as a regular taskbar, the difference is only 10 pixels.

Simo
With me it's a full-time job.

I'd like the return of 'right-click, select Repair Connection' type of feature. It used to be so easy to tell my boss over the phone to do that + unplug/plug his home router and he'd be back on the internet. These days I get'em to do a full PC reboot.

pathfinder
Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?

The Virtual PC Beta that can be downloaded for Windows 7 should support 1000 Base-T networking. Why am I limited to 100 base when my physical NIC is 1 gb.

Also I should be able to resize my VPC window without having to turn of VPC Integration.

I consider these to be Win7 because it is software that will basically ship with it. Otherwise so far I am really liking Win7

dentaku

It doesn't seem t know how to use my 19" CRT correctly (Dell P991 Trinitron). If I install the 64bit Win7 Nvidia drivers it WILL finally let me use 1152X864 but it ends up just putting out a 1280X1024 signal to my monitor with a small 1152X864 picture centered on the screen so I get huge black lines around the outside.

The only resolutions it seems to like are 1280X1024, 1024X768 and 800X600. I've tried everything and I can't get my GeForce 8800 GTS to output a TRUE 1152X864 85Hz signal in 64bit Win7 (I haven't tried 32 bit Win 7).