Comment Feed for What don't you like about Windows 7? (Coffeehouse on Channel 9)

Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

contextfree — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:48:36 GMT

Sounds like a job for a Saved Search?

Re: Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

LeoDavidson — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:23:37 GMT

It's worse because the cursor bug really exists while the chkdsk thing was part misunderstanding and part 3rd party chipset driver bug. :)

i.e. The chkdsk thing is 0 bad and the cursor thing is 0.00000001 bad. :-D

Nobody is (seriously) calling it a showstopper, of course. Just a small cosmetic glitch that will drive some people with OCD crazy. (I can see it really easily but, thankfully, it doesn't bother me. It does have me curious about what the cause is, though, as the .ani cursor file plays fine in other things.)

Edit:

I solved the mystery. The Win7 busy-cursor files have two sizes embedded (48x48 and 32x32). The larger size is fine and are what you'll see if you open the file in most editors. Not sure if any ani-cursor tools understand the dual-size files so I used a hex editor to extract the individual 32x32 frames. Those are the ones Windows actually uses (at default DPI anyway). It's then easy to see that frame 6 is an exact copy of frame 7, and what should be frame 6 is missing, causing the glitch. (You can also see that the 48x48 versions are fine.)

Very simple explanation in the end. It only seemed confusing because the tools we were using to look at the file hid the fact it had two sizes of images inside of it.

Edit 2: I made fixed versions of the cursors, for a 0.00000001 increase in the greatness of justice.

Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

PaoloM — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:35:33 GMT

This is as much a "showstopper" as the infamous "chkdsk" bug :)

Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

Tommy Carlier — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:20:49 GMT

OMG, stop the presses!

Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

Long Zheng — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:18:48 GMT

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090815/windows-7-busy-cursor-misses-a-beat/

Re: Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

LeoDavidson — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:34:32 GMT

Thank you! I hadn't seen that. It looks better than all the other tools. Score!

Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

PerfectPhase — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:26:28 GMT

Open the task manager, go to performance, click resource monitor and select the network tab.

Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

blowdart — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:14:18 GMT

Aside from the usual complaints about Nvidia's bugs, I wish libraries were more than directories. I want a Visual Studio Projects library which looks for sln files automatically and uses the directories they're located in as the library directories.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

sushovande — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:18:40 GMT

Nvm double post.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

sushovande — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:18:19 GMT

Definitely, I support your complaint.

However, changing DPI on the fly is complex because applications (gadgets, explorer for example) load different resources depending upon what DPI you are running. I dont think there is a way to send a system wide message saying "Hey, the DPI changed!", and even if you did, existing applications wouldn't support it, leading to a disconnected experience.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

AndyC — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:42:41 GMT

Probably not, but high DPI was still so flaky in Vista that I never worried about it. In essence, 7's improved high DPI support is now bringing the issue to light.

I'm not sure that changing DPI on the fly should be that complex an issue, or at least no more so than doing a resolution change on the fly. It's probably doing that and maintaining application compatibilty that really makes it tricky, it's usually where things start to get tricky.

I shall however, complain about it in case nobody ever noticed and can get it fixed in future.

Re: Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

sushovande — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:26:38 GMT

Was it different in Vista? AFAIK, in Vista to change DPI settings you had to reboot, whereas in 7 a logoff is sufficient. It would be dreadfully difficult for a logged on session to change to a different DPI once you remote into it.

Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

LeoDavidson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:59:40 GMT

It also lost the handy display of apps and their network connections.

You can do the same stuff using some lightweight (install-free) alternatives, though:

Sysinternals' AutoRuns is a good for managing startup items (and a lot of other stuff). TCPView (or the built-in netstat command) can show the network connections open by each process.

Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

andokai — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:20:55 GMT

Anyone else notice how Windows Defender has been stripped down? It used to be possible to use it to remove all the junk from your startup items. That's no longer the case.

Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

AndyC — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:19:49 GMT

The most annoying thing about 7 is how it handles RDP to a machine with a different DPI setting, since it uses the remote DPI setting rather than your local one. This means that if I RDP from my netbook into the machine connected to my large screen TV the usable screen space is even more cramped than usual. Which meant I ended up having to compromise the setting on the TV PC to 125% rather than 150% so that it was at least workable remotely if needed.

Re: Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

W3bbo — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:38:47 GMT

There is no "normal" refresh rate for CRTs, the gamut runs from 60Hz to 120Hz with a fairly even distribution, but I'd say 75Hz was the most common. The problem with high refresh rates coupled with high resolutions on CRTs is that it causes blurriness, lower refresh rates give you a sharper image but at the same time the flicker is more apparent.

Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

LeoDavidson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:10:18 GMT

I just noticed a cool improvement in Win7's remote desktop for multi-monitors (unless I imagined it happening):

When you RDP from a single-monitor PC it moves all the windows to the one screen (Vista stopped doing that and it was a mixed blessing), but when you go back to using the machine locally it moves the windows back to the monitors they were on (fantastic!).

On the flipside, I don't really like how when I RDP into my desktop the desktop's monitors come out of powersaving just to show the screen lock (logon desktop). I guess I can give the logon desktop the Blank screensaver with a short timeout to stop the monitors lighting up the room for long, though. (Assuming you still can. There's no longer any screensaver on the logon desktop, by default, which seems odd.)

Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

Red5 — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:47:47 GMT

So far, I'm pleased and impressed with this version over Vista. Vista set the bar sort of low so to reach beyond that probably wasn't to much to ask.

I have win7 on my acer netbook for 3 days now. So far so good. I think my use of the OS features though is a lot less than some of the descriptions I see here.

Compared to XP though? time will tell. My netbook had XP Home on it from the factory and so far Win7 seems a little slower, which I expected, but it's not enough to for me to be too vociferous yet. The 60 second lag someone mentioned previously is about the biggest complaint I have so far.

Once i get it on my dual monitor desktop, I may have more to say...

Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

Dorian Muthig — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:20:37 GMT

You're not still using a CRT monitr, are you? 1600x1024 @88Hz? Are you crazy? That's the oddest screen resolution and refresh rate I've ever heard of. Normal CRT people use 85Hz and LCD people use 60HZ, 120HZ or even 240Hz...

Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

Knytestorme — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:30:55 GMT

The only problem I am having with the RTM atm is that my network interfaces (wired and wireless) on my main desktop will just randomly lose dns resolution so I have to disable/enable them to get it working again.

It doesnt lose internal resolution, only external and it can be anywhere from 5 minutes between incidents to a day or so.

Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

androidi — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:53:18 GMT

No idea about RTM but same issue still on latest NVIDIA driver on RC. It is possible to get around it, after wasting enough hours on trying everything. Not so sure about what is the specific solution. hacks: Try add custom resolution and go through every timing standard, only one works and it's not the default/automatic for me. After it's added, you need to go to the windows own resolution control and re-change the res to the custom one, otherwise win7 forgets it on boot. For getting particular refresh rates in games these steps didn't help, have to also edit binary in registry, there's a tool for that. Otherwise games may use 60 hz in various non-desktop resolutions. Phoenix 1.3 EDID editor. It exports a file with some hex that had to be manually converted by notepad to the registry format and put like on below example. Use Process Monitor to determine right reg key if you can't find it or doesn't work.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY\SAM002F\5&2e866165&0&UID16777472\Device Parameters]

"MaxResolution"="1600,1024"

"DPMS"="1"

"EDID_Override"=hex:00,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,00,4C,2D,2F,00,39,31,51,41,\

17,0C,01,03,6F,24,1B,5E,2B,02,99,A0,57,49,99,26,\

13,48,4C,FF,FF,80,31,7C,45,7C,61,5C,81,9C,A9,5C,\

A9,5C,D1,40,E1,45,86,3D,00,C0,51,00,30,40,40,A0,\

13,00,60,08,11,00,00,1E,00,00,00,FD,00,32,A0,1E,\

6E,00,00,0A,20,20,20,20,20,20,00,00,00,FC,00,53,\

79,6E,63,4D,61,73,74,65,72,0A,20,20,00,00,00,FF,\

00,48,32,52,54,36,30,30,37,30,38,0A,20,20,00,21,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"PreferredMode"="1600,1024,88"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY\SAM002F\5&2e866165&0&UID16777472\Device Parameters\MODES]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY\SAM002F\5&2e866165&0&UID16777472\Device Parameters\MODES\1600,1200]

@=""

Re: Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

androidi — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:41:51 GMT

I'm talking about the timestamp that's visible by default (modified I believe). When I looked at this, it changed on the move and the undo didn't undo the changes. Then there was the merge dialog on top of that crap. Not been able to move any directories without going to the prompt because I have to have the dates preserved when moving. As to the "created" I would also disagree on that one. The directory is not created when it is moved. Only an engineer would say that it is created. That's a technical detail. And not how it should work so I say it's broken. Modified should only change when content are modified and not moved. If they mean something else than what they say then change the english ... And consistency above all. Now it's inconsistent whether you move it inside a partition or into another partition.

Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

Dorian Muthig — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:29:56 GMT

1) Changing the created and last access timestamps is normal and intended. The last modified timestamp should stay.

2) InPrivate browsing windows/tabs cannot access cookies or cached fiels of one another, which is also by design, as far as I know.

Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

androidi — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:23:56 GMT

Haven't try the RTM yet but are these fixed?

1) moving folder with files in them from hdd/volume A to volume B should not change directory timestamps

1b) see also that original timestamps in source A were preserved after undo of move

1c) does undo of above move cause confusing merge dialog for no reason?

Re: Re: What don't you like about Windows 7?

PaoloM — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:10:26 GMT

This is not Usenet. Don't crosspost.