Windows 7 My List of 30 Windows 7 Annoyances

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EveningStarNM

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Sure, I know I'm going to get a lot of static for this, but here goes anyway:

  1. Left and right panes of Explorer windows are not synchronized. The inevitable result will be (and has been) that people will press the Delete key on the wrong item. This is a major design flaw which causes the loss of data. It is anti-intuitive to have the same window represent two different locations in the navigation pane and in the contents pane.

  2. Shared folders do not have an icon indicating that they are shared. (The argument made by the Microsoft team that users wanted it removed because it cluttered the display is a lie.)

  3. If you delete a file or folder in an Explorer window, the file or folder might not disappear from the display until you refresh the view. (This is probably a bug.)

  4. With full row selection in the Details view of Explorer windows, it's harder to draw a selection box around a group of files. Full row selection can't be disabled. Users may unintentionally drag items to different locations when they are trying to draw selection boxes.

  5. The functional Internet Explorer Icon can't be put on the desktop. Only a normal shortcut can be used. After more than a decade of having a functional IE icon on the desktop, which made our lives easier, arguments that not giving users the choice to have that functionality available from the icon do not make sense.

  6. All Explorer windows which show folders open to the same size. You can't customize the size of a window for a particular folder. Being able to adjust the size of individual windows was one of the most useful features of windows. Removing the ability to personalize particular windows when personalization should be a core objective of any user interface is foolish.

  7. The user can't create a secondary file association action which he would in Windows XP. The Microsoft UI team seems to have decided that removing functionality is a good thing. I believe that removing the Microsoft UI design team would be a good thing.

  8. The user can't set security properties/ACLs/permission on multiple items from Properties because there is no Security tab like Windows XP for multiple files or folders.

  9. Explorer toolbars can no longer be customized.

  10. The "Details" metadata tab is gone from the file and folder Properties dialog. Metadata cannot be edited for popular file types without third-party add-ons.

  11. The Details pane of Explorer windows cannot be disabled even though it takes up a lot of screen space to display very little information. And, sadly, neither the Details pane nor the Status Bar show the total size of a folder being displayed when no files are selected. The only way to get a folder's size is to view its properties from the context menu.

  12. File lists in Explorer windows are automatically sorted. Auto-sorting cannot be disabled. This can be very inconvenient when working in folders with large numbers of files.

  13. The user cannot execute multiple actions on a set of files from the GUI which was possible in Windows XP.

  14. Autologon cannot be bypassed with the Shift key.

  15. The user cannot set multiple connection icons, cannot customize connection icons, and cannot access connection status quickly from the connection icon all of which was possible in Windows XP.

  16. There are no indicators of network activity in the Notification Area. They have been removed.

  17. Easily customized searching is gone.

  18. Taskbar buttons are now permanently grouped rather than displayed in the order in which they were opened. Grouping cannot be disabled (although some third-party tweakers offer ways to do this). This is anti-intuitive.

  19. The user cannot disable jumplists in favor of old context menu. Jumplists are just another menu that changes unpredictably, making navigation more difficult for the average user.

  20. The user cannot quickly access the Network Connections folder and actual wired/dial-up connections. It is buried several clicks inside the UI.

  21. New network connections, such as VPN or dial-up connections, are made from the Network and Sharing Center. But they are not shown there. They're shown and available for editing in the Network Connections windows, in which you cannot create a new out-going connection. You can only view existing connections or create a new incoming connection. This is not logical.

  22. File and folder security settings are still as cumbersome as they were in Vista, with separate dialogs used to view and edit settings. Many dialogs could be combined, and lots of extra mouse clicks could be avoided. If the goal is to clean up the UI, why this?

  23. The new Start menu style cannot be disabled in favor of the "Classic" menu. The Windows Classic Start Menu was a masterpiece of sound ergonomic design. The new style eliminates the logical structured tree view of the Classic style and confines the menu to a small window in a corner of the display. The menu does not stretch as the number of menu items increases, making scrolling necessary.

  24. The new Start menu style (actually introduced in Vista) lists folders below single items, completely reversing the format we've become familiar with over the years.

  25. Explorer now has “Favoritesâ€Â￾ and “Libraryâ€Â￾ nodes that can't be removed in the left pane. They waste space and present the same logical UI problems as having a menu that constantly changes, making it harder to find things. Items on menus and navigation links shouldn’t move unpredicably; it makes navigating harder, not easier. The Library does not make it clear to average users that files may be located on different computers or in different user accounts on the same machine. Accurate navigation requires that you know where you are and have a clear path to follow. These new “featuresâ€Â￾, as well as the new Start Menu, blur the path and make it difficult to know what you are looking at both on your computer and on the network. While this is less of a problem for expert users than for average users, average users must be the target audience.

  26. Explorer no longer shows free disk space in the status bar. This is a big problem for portable drives.

  27. Various hardware interfaces, including audio outputs and keyboard controls, are not restored properly after after waking a Windows 7 machine from Standby or Hibernate mode. The only solution is to restart the computer. These are major problems that will frustrate a lot of people.
  28. If you drag a window to the side of the display, it automatically expands to occupy half of the display. In what way is that a useful “featureâ€Â￾? Who decided that filling half of the display would be a useful size for a window? (Some third-party tweakers allow you to disable this questionable “featureâ€Â￾.)

  29. As with Vista, user interface design controls are split up into many different windows and dialog boxes rather than being conveniently accessible in a single dialog box as they were in XP.

  30. During installation, you cannot specify on which drive the boot manager will be installed.
Overall, a lot of useful functionality and information have been removed from the GUI which should not have been, and there’s no way to get it back without third-party tools. While the GUI certainly needed cleaning, this is ridiculous. It’s as crippling and expensive as forcing the world to learn a completely new UI with the Office ribbon bar after more than a decade in which the world learned to use the menus.

Microsoft should realize that sales are up not because people are happy, but because we simply have to upgrade our aging machines. Balmer’s claim that he has “no responsibility for anything besides the making of moneyâ€Â￾ will come back to bite him in the ass, hopefully very soon. Microsoft did the world a good service when it created a useful visual “languageâ€Â￾ for using computers. Drastic changes such as these only muddy the waters and make their products less useful. While it’s true that a significant, if uninformed, part of the population is satisfied with eyecandy, the rest of us are not so easily fooled.
 
I agree. They really took away quite a bit. Microsoft says "Enjoy, It's designed for you" and "PC, simplified". It was designed for somebody other than me, because the ability to configure the simple and efficient way i had my system set up before, is now not an option. Maybe take away options in the "home" or "basic" versions, but some of us are professional computer techs and options are good.


On #23

I don't like the lack of the Classic Menu either. I did figure out that the new menu will expand as shortcuts are packed in.

new-start-menu.jpg


I have watched this start menu expand as i've place shortcuts into it.

Also, i used the Quick Launch before, but now it's gone. I was able to create a toolbar to pack my regular apps into it.

I didn't like the fat taskbar either but somehow i accidently shrunk it.

I was able to rename and change the targets of some of the buttons to the right side of the start menu.


Over-all Windows 7 should have been the next service pack for Vista.
 
A better menu

Check out Vista Start Menu:

Vista Start Menu – Convenient alternative to Start menu

It's a classic start menu on steroids which was written for Vista but which also works on Windows 7. I recommend it. But the author also has a more faithful classic start menu for Windows 7:

CSMenu Official Site

It looks like we'll be relying more and more on third-parties for fixes to Microsoft's user interface mistakes, which seem to get worse with each new release.
 
No one's twisting your arm to upgrade to windows 7. If your satisfied with Vista, then there's no reason for you to upgrade.
 
No one's twisting your arm to upgrade to windows 7. If your satisfied with Vista, then there's no reason for you to upgrade.

Who said I was satisfied with Vista? My list of annoyances with Vista is much longer. However, you're wrong that "no one is twisting" our arms to upgrade. Modern hardware is wasted on Windows XP, and despite their flaws, both Vista and Windows 7 are more secure than XP. And Microsoft will not give the same level of support to XP as it will to Vista and 7, which is a very important factor.

We are forced to upgrade by sheer necessity. Time marches on, and even if we have an inferior user interface, we have little choice if we want to standardize. The market has determined that Windows is the standard (although, ironically, Microsoft seems desperate to change that).
 
I'm going to give my response to each of your 30 issues.

1. With Linux you can customize all aspects of your GIU to look just the way you like, you are bound by nothing.

2. Again, as a function of your personalized GUI you can display shares however you like in linux.

3. You're right, but with Windows you get only the highest quality bugs, and a def ear to hear your complaints. The reality of things is this, you can be part of the problem, part of the solution or part of the landscape, with windows, the user doesn't get to be part of the solution, with Linux you can be all three.

4. You have a keyboard too, learn how to use it those shift and ctrl keys aren't there for decoration.

5. After more than a decade you're still using Internet Explorer? Dear god man you have one of the coolest browsers available, Chrome. And at the very least, Firefox.

6. Refer to number 1.

7. I Agree.

8. chmod = win!

9. Refer to number 1. (i'm gonna put this in clip board cause your gonna get it a lot).

10. Refer to number 1.

11. Refer to number 1.

12. Refer to number 1.

13. Refer to number 1.

14. I don't see a problem here.

15. Refer to number 1.

16. Refer to number 1.

17. unfortunately I must admit that search functionality isn't perfect no matter what OS you use.

18. Refer to number 1.

19. I Agree. You should have choices.

20. Refer to number 1.

21. Sigh, Refer to number 1.

22. Because Microsoft still thinks that everyone wants to do things the same way everyone else does, which insedentaly is their way. Linux is a lot like Burger King, you can have it your way.

23. Refer to number 1.

24. Refer to number 1.

25. Refer to number 1.

26. Refer to number 1.

27. I would be pissed, if I where one of those people.

28. You're right, but that's what happens when you design an OS while you're taking a shower. Also, That feature is useless on dual display setups.

29. Stop kidding yourself into thinking you have any real control over your UI in windows. Changing the wallpaper and color schem doesn't constitute a custome UI, I will say however, the Linux UI is split into almost a dozen places, but at least at the end of the day, it looks and feels the way YOU want, not what Microsoft says you want. Customizing your UI in Linux is as addictive as WoW. and no two UI's look the same. they're like fingerprints.

30. This is because Microsoft believes that they're OS is the only OS so why on earth would you want to put the boot manager on anything but the primary master? BTW the Windows boot manager will exterminate all other boot managers and leave no indication of one of their competitors. Fear not, Grub will load Windows and it wont feel bad about it's self for it either.
 
What a ridiculous reply! Let me suggest this: when Linux has an appreciable market share, i.e., some meaningful acceptance among a significant number of people (which it does not have now), let me know and I'll take you seriously. Until then, please go away. You're wasting my time. You've offered nothing constructive here.
 
It's funny that people still believe that market share means anything other than the number of sheep in the flock. When your a sheep someones gonna where your fur as a sweater, and you still get left out in the cold.
 
Well, i'm mixed on all this.

After reading djarrum's thoughts on linux, i took a look a ubuntu. I've looked at it before (1 or 2 years ago), but for some reason didn't really look much further. This time i decided i'd try to install in on an extra computer i have laying around. I'd love an alternative to Windows (besides MAC). Realistically though, because i'm an IT professional, i can't leave Windows, but i'm definitely going to try it out.

i guess the constructive aspect of djarrum's ideas about ubuntu is atleast my look at it, thanks.
 
Scott,

I'm glad that you've taken this step. Please also understand that Linux is like a box of chocolates, each one is different but you know they're all going to be good. Ubuntu is a good place to start and it's potential is as limitless as any other Linux distro but once you become familiar with Linux, You may feel better with a distro more suitable for those who like to build everything the way they want it from the ground up.

I also firmly believe that it's a tragedy that so much of the IT world relies on a POSIX of some flavor or another yet there are IT professionals who don't know thing one about it. Not trying to degrade you in any way. I would encourage you as an IT professional to open this door and learn as this would only serve to further advance your career possibilities. Where I work there has been a posting for a Unix Operator on the board for 9 months. it may be that where I work they don't offer enough compensation for the job or they may not be able to find people to fill it, but in this economy I just can't explain it. If my job didn't pay so well I would throw my name in the hat.
 
Thanks for the info. I work on what's most common, so I have to stay familiar with Windows. I've worked on a handful of MACs and 100s of PCs. Linux is pretty rare, so i've never been called to deal with it. Besides if people are using linux they probably don't need my help, they probably know how to deal with their problem. Like i said, i'm definitely gonna install it on a spare system to explore it.

Although i do IT work, i really end up doing all types of digital work. I do system maintenance and construction, small business networking, web development, graphic design, audio and video recording and editing, etc... I wished i had time to go deeper into IT, but i also wished i had time for going further with every other corner of the digital work. I guess that's why digitallyoverwhelmed.com was my first website, i felt it, and i am still stuck in it.

One thing i like about finding a decent free OS is for a recommendation for those are not IT techs. If i didn't work on systems, i could see me switching to something like ubuntu.

Thanks again for the info, i'm looking forward to trying ubuntu
 
When your a sheep someones gonna where your fur as a sweater, and you still get left out in the cold.

... and you get free food, folic in the meadows, sleep when you fell like it, have sex when you wanna, and they cut your "fur" when it's hot and you wanna cool off. Probably the lifestyle I would chose over being a rogue hog and getting slaughtered young for someones breakfast. Yeah.. you can have my fleece, just leave my ham hocks alone!
 
Sure, I know I'm going to get a lot of static for this, but here goes anyway:.

No static from me. I have invested a little effort and learned how to tweak just about all those "problems" on your list. As for all the search related issues, don't you know where you put your stuff? I hardly ever have to search for anything. Perhaps a little bit of organization would solve most of your problems.

You do have some good ideas though... why not take carge and develope your own file manager?
 
... and you get free food, folic in the meadows, sleep when you fell like it, have sex when you wanna, and they cut your "fur" when it's hot and you wanna cool off. Probably the lifestyle I would chose over being a rogue hog and getting slaughtered young for someones breakfast. Yeah.. you can have my fleece, just leave my ham hocks alone!

You totally missed my point. let me translate my statement, The sheep = you, the fur = your money, they person sheering it off of you = Microsoft, the sweater = Bill Gates' private yacht.
 
Oops! Sorry. I didn't realize that you were a troll. I shouldn't have fed you.
 
I manage just fine. I've found lots of third-party tweakers, too. But it's not me who I'm worried about. Its the short-sightedness of people like you who fail to realize that 99.999% of the people who will use Windows 7 wouldn't know a hard drive from a video card, shouldn't need to know a hard drive from a video card, and who know that anyone who would use the word "tweak" is a geek on whom they should not waste their time if they want to make progress with their own tasks. A properly designed personal operating system would not have the flaws that I mentioned because most users, as opposed to experts, won't know how to tweak their systems.

Or are you yet another one of those who wants to blame the user for not knowing how to compensate for the design flaws of the operating system?

Sorry, but I didn't like your tone of undeserved superiority. I've been in the IT profession for thirty years, sonny. That's why I consider the needs of the average user whom you so clearly have ignored.
 
Hom nom nom nom

BTW, a forum troll is commonly confused with other thoughtful posters who say what you don't want to hear. If what I've said has upset you so, report me.

Sorry, but I didn't like your tone of undeserved superiority. I've been in the IT profession for thirty years, sonny. That's why I consider the needs of the average user whom you so clearly have ignored.
Lol sonny. If you truly understood the needs of the everyday user, you would understand that what the everyday user really needs is to learn how their computers work. I think what you actually suffer from is the IT world's equivalent to the god complex. To the know nothing user, you are god, to me, you're and under skilled Sys-Op who wants to keep the people "below" him ignorant to justify his perpetual superiority. After all if they knew WTF they where doing, they wouldn't need you but for rare events beyond their control.

TBH I cant believe that someone expects me to take them seriously when they say they've been an IT proffessional for 30 years, whilst at the same time claiming that Linux has no "meaningful acceptance." Some of the most meaningful work ever done was accomplished on the POSIX platform. Your problem is that you can't see past the volume.
 
You totally missed my point. let me translate my statement, The sheep = you, the fur = your money, they person sheering it off of you = Microsoft, the sweater = Bill Gates' private yacht.


But Bill gave me what I asked for - a great operating system. I guess I should have given him my money but I consider myself a voluntary for Microsoft's customer support department (to justify evaluating Windows past the suggested time limit)... yeah.. I agree, Bill doesn't treat his volunteers like his employees so we have to re-install windows every 4 months... but the kind of testing most of us do usually NEEDS to be reinstalled at least 3 times a year anyway. I've averaged reinstalling windows 7 two times a month. I've already had a couple people offering to give me a reg key but I want to run the Ultimate version so I didn't need it.

Don't entertainers take your money when you go the movies or a sporting event. Aren't you infuriated when Koby Brian buys his wife a 2 million dollar ring? I don't care... I don't care how Bill spends money ... the ony thing that riles me up is when crooks pay off politicians to get contracts and bailouts that congress has forced from our wallets.
 
Hom nom nom nom

BTW, a forum troll is commonly confused with other thoughtful posters who say what you don't want to hear. If what I've said has upset you so, report me.

djarrum, you are a typical, dime-a-dozen Linux troll. The topic of this article is Windows, but you want to hijack it to discuss Linux, an unpopular operating system that is far from ready for prime time (proven by the fact that it has such narrow acceptance). I'm not denying that Linux has its uses. In fact, I own and use a Linux machine, too. But Linux is not the topic of my article and I don't want to discuss it here. Quit being so rude as to try to hijack this article. If you don't want to discuss the topic of this article then please go away.
 
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