Windows 7 What I miss from xp

wt.pm

Senior Member
In windows explorer, on the left side of the screen, you had a choice of a folder tree pane, or a common task pane. I want my common task pane back! I used this all the time, and I get so frustrated without it.

Is there anyway to (A). Turn this on, or (B). Get this request to the programmers? I know it's kind of late to make a change like this, but it might could be done.

I think this is what I dislike the most about 7. Of course, I get lost with all the libraries, users, and the C drive folders. I mean, I just went through the folder tree, and every folder is listed in 4 different places, why?
 
It's a good idea wt.pm but unfortunately it's much too late for something like that to be changed before the final release... ;) Though it would be something that could be implemented with a Service Pack.. ;)
 
In windows explorer, on the left side of the screen, you had a choice of a folder tree pane, or a common task pane. I want my common task pane back! I used this all the time, and I get so frustrated without it.

Yeah, I 'm not sure why Microsoft got rid of that in Vista. After all, they made such a big deal of it in XP. I guess their usability studies must have shown that either people didn't like it overall, or it didn't do the job they thought it would.

Is there anyway to (A). Turn this on, or (B). Get this request to the programmers? I know it's kind of late to make a change like this, but it might could be done.

No. This feature is not there. There are still task panes in some parts of the OS, like the control panel, windows update, etc..

I think this is what I dislike the most about 7. Of course, I get lost with all the libraries, users, and the C drive folders. I mean, I just went through the folder tree, and every folder is listed in 4 different places, why?

Seven introduces the Libraries feature, which allows you to organize different folders into a common location. For example, you might have mp3 files on a USB drive. Now you can add it to your Music library.

By default it gives you two places, your private files, and your public files. public files are shared by all users of the computer, and if you enable file sharing anyone who has access to file sharing. Private files are kept only to you.
 
Seven introduces the Libraries feature, which allows you to organize different folders into a common location. For example, you might have mp3 files on a USB drive. Now you can add it to your Music library.


Those are common files, what I want is the buttons that say "move/copy to...", "delete", "email/share this folder", and the "other places" section. I know all of this is available in the context menu, or the edit menu. It was just so much easier the other way.

While I am on this subject, and complaining (lol), what happened to the menu bar? In xp it was customziable, you could add icons for, stop, back, move to, delete etc.... Now you have to decide to turn on the bar. When I first saw 7, I was about to uninstall it, because those two things were missing. But I decided to play around with it for a while, and I am glad I did.

As far as the library's go, that is one thing I want to turn off.
 
Those are common files, what I want is the buttons that say "move/copy to...", "delete", "email/share this folder", and the "other places" section. I know all of this is available in the context menu, or the edit menu. It was just so much easier the other way.

There actually is a task bar across the top, below the address bar. It includes some common tasks like "New Folder", "Burn", etc.. there is also an Organize drop down that includes commands like Copy, Rename, Delete.. etc..

While I am on this subject, and complaining (lol), what happened to the menu bar? In xp it was customziable, you could add icons for, stop, back, move to, delete etc.... Now you have to decide to turn on the bar. When I first saw 7, I was about to uninstall it, because those two things were missing. But I decided to play around with it for a while, and I am glad I did.

I don't recall Explorer ever having a customizable menu bar. In fact, I just checked in a copy of XP i have, and there is no way to customize those things. What are you talking about exactly?

EDIT: I see what you're talking about now. Not the menu bar, but the toolbar can be customized. No, that feature is not present in Vista or 7. It would be nice if it were though.

As far as the library's go, that is one thing I want to turn off.

Why? You know you can just click on the Library and it shows all the files from all libries in one view. I guess I don't understand what is so bad about it.
 
Those are common files, what I want is the buttons that say "move/copy to...", "delete", "email/share this folder", and the "other places" section. I know all of this is available in the context menu, or the edit menu. It was just so much easier the other way.

While I am on this subject, and complaining (lol), what happened to the menu bar? In xp it was customziable, you could add icons for, stop, back, move to, delete etc.... Now you have to decide to turn on the bar. When I first saw 7, I was about to uninstall it, because those two things were missing. But I decided to play around with it for a while, and I am glad I did.

As far as the library's go, that is one thing I want to turn off.


Actually, I agree with you 100%

Third-party programs are the only ones that use the Common places panel.

i remember a registry hack to change those locations to your own preferences.

And I've always felt Windows Explorer need an update, but how cares about Choose details....hundreds of useless entries IMHO.

Anniversary?
Assistant's Name?
Betas-per-minute
WTF?
 
wt.pm
I am not certain to which item you are referring in your first post, but do you mean like my attachment?

You can regain a right click option for Move/copy.

I have enclosed a zipped attachment to do this. Unzip and just run the reg.
 
Hi all
one thing I miss (and It's been done to death already) is the Classic menu - the new menu system whilst I'm used to it seems to cover much too much screen real estate -- the classic menu on XP if you chose small icons only occupied a fraction of the screen.

Now on a large monitor this might seem trivial but on a small netbook this becomes much more noticeable.

I also miss the Virtual desktops power toy. The Sysinternals one doesn't work properly on W7 x-64 and the deskpot application whilst OK doesn't have the full functionality of the old XP Powertoy desktops.

With a large amount of RAM and a decent processor its not unusual to run loads of applications concurrently -- to manange these sensibly having Virtual desktops is to me a MUST. In XP the individual desktops could also be indpendently configured with their own backgrounds and applications pinned on them.

Otherwise I don't miss XP at all any more now.

Cheers
jimbo
 
Virtual desktops is to me a MUST

Something like this will undoubtedly come along, Win7 is perfect for it.

I have not tested this in Win7, but CubeDesktop is pretty good

Something I am following is BumpTop, not a Virtual Desktop but still very interesting.
 
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