Engineering Windows 7

With all these improvements to theme management, and 85% users customizing themes, it's very strange to see theme management removed from W7 Starter

The first Microsoft thing that Microsoft have to do with Windows is to offer al least the same functionality like Windows XP.

I think that Aero Peak, Aero Snap and Aero etc is very usefull and nice things to an operating system but this things are not importan if the operating system not offer at least the same functionality that Windows XP do and this is the first thing that Microsoft have to do after developings new features as Aero Gadgets.

In my company and our customers dont like Windows Vista and stick with Windows XP because only few and little things that Microsoft can correct it very easily:

1. Expand "All Programs" in Start Menu. Windows XP can do it. Vista and Seven can't.

2. I want to order the "All Programs" in Start Menu. I disable de option to not order Programs alphabetically, but every time i restart the computer or install a new program the "All Programs" menu sorted alphabetically automatically. This occurs in Windows Vista and not fixed in Windows Seven. What are Microsoft doing this three years with Windows Seven? Correcting bugs and fails or adding touching capabilities and Aero Peaks, Aero Snaps, Aero etc's...?

3. The possibility to customize Windows Explorer toolbar. Windows 95 to XP can do it. Vista and Seven can't. Most users requiered the "Up Folder" button in Windows Explorer toolbar and not need the options that Microsoft put in this toolbar that cant change it.

4. The ability to catalog music in Windows Media Player Library AT LEAST like WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 10. Imposible to catalog in Windows Media Player 11 and 12 because is only album centric and in Windows 7 Microsoft remove the advanced tag editor.

5. If a antispyware program tells me to delete a file called "spy.dll" stored in C:\Windows\System32, can someone tells me how to search this file in Windows Vista or Seven? Very complex and a lot of clicks in Vista ans Seven.

Or if i'm a developer or a technical and i want to find a file in the system or windows folder is very complex to me to find it. For example i want to search the host file to modify it, or to find the winipcfg application. Windows Search is not valid to a very lot of users.

6. Removing tabs controls in some Control Panel options and in more places in all Windows, makes all things more complicated and make doings actions more slowly and with more clicks than in Windows XP. For example, in Windows XP, in the "Appearance" option i cant change the background wallpaper, the screensaver and more things only with one click to change between options. In Windows Vista the same thing is going back and double clicking in other option making changing any option very frustrating.

If some work with Internet Information Server 7 in Windows Server 2008 this same topic of removing tabs is more frustrating making to "Go back" continuously to change between options. Why Microsoft is removing the tab control and making all things more complicate, more complex, more slower, and less practical.

Microsoft need to think that all Windows users are acomodate to a user interface for more that 10 years since Windows 95. Microsoft cant change this from one day to another. Microsoft must offer at least the same functionality and compatibility like Windows XP does. Microsoft cant remove features and cant remove behaviors because all users are acomodate with this.

The Office 2007 toolbar is usefull and good, but Microsoft must put an option to configure it with older menu's and older behaviour because most users are accomodate to it and needs time to change to a new user interface and behaviour. Need to do the same with Windows Vista and Seven.

A user does become to first use Windows Vista is frustrating because its imposible to use it in the same manner like Windows XP do. Its imposible to "Go up folder" because the icon not exist, imposible to search because indexing is not complete, imposible to find things in the caotic "Control Panel", imposible to do the same things that do with Windows XP, and this is the REASON of why this user and all of mayority of users return to Windows XP and discard Windows Vista.

The first reason of the Windows Vista fiasco is not perfomance, compatibility or features. The first REASON is that users are acomodate for more than 10 years with a user interface and changing it at all is frustrating users.

I have a computers company and the mayority of users come back and asked to downgrade to Windows XP because its imposible to work with Vista. Only a few users have complained about the performance or compatibily of Windows Vista.

Microsoft needs to offer the same Windows XP functionality, the same Windows Explorer, the same customizations.

And when all of this is complete, then add new feature like Aero Snaps, Aero Peaks, Aero Tips, Aero Chips, Aero Tricks and so on.

Today Windows Vista or Seven is not for me. Why? Because I cant expand "All Programs" in "Star Menu", cant customize my Windows Explorer toolbar (the options included are not valid for me) and its imposible to me to find the files i want to find and imposible to me to catalog music with Windows Media Player 11 or 12. I'm stick in Windows XP with Windows Media Player 10 as the vast majority of users.

When i see Windows Vista or Seven and think that is an operating system for domestic users only or for multimedia users only. Windows Explorer in Vista and Seven is focusly on media files. But what about companies, technicals, developers and so on. When I open a developer folder project in Vista or Seven i see it like media files. This is incongruent for an operating system. And operating system must cover all kind of users. Not the mayority of users. This is the cause of the fiasco of Vista. Companies, technicals and developers dont want and operating system do only for media or domestic users (the mayority of users).

All technical, developers and so on need the ability of customize the operating system like Windows 95 to Windows XP do. Don't like a closed operating system. If i want it i buy a Mac.

Microsoft needs to think seriously and slowly two things:

1. Cant change a behaviour and a user interface that users are acomodate for more than 10 years. Changing it makes rejection of users.

2. Think not only in the mayority of users. Think of all users, especially technicals, devolopers and more.

When Microsoft develop the Windows 95 user interface used psychologists and sociologists and studied the behavior of people: builders, housewives, children, engineers, developers, governments and others to develop the user interface and get the best performance and ease of use to them.

What happened with Windows Vista?

Microsoft think, please think.

"If I want a Mac, I buy a Mac, not Windows Vista or Seven."

Thank you JaviAl for saying what was on my mind since the first time I saw Windows 7: "It is a Mac!"  Windows is becoming way too Mac-like.  I bought a PC so I could run WINDOWS!

How about deeper theme support? It's needed the uxtheme patch?

And how about Windows 7 UI? It will be nicer to see old-like Vista style (or a black theme) with two lines (like application name/document name) per button on taskbar.

@JaviAl

1. and 2. You can expand All Programs.  

Right Click the task menu and go to properties.

Click Start Menu.  Under Privacy make sure "Store and display recently opened programs in the Start menu.  Now click customize.  

You will see an option for "Start menu size."  Increase the "number of recent programs to display" to something very high.  You can uncheck the Privacy setting and your number will still be put to use.

Now you won't get the scroll bar unless you have so many programs that the menu is taller then your resolution.  And if you have that many programs why don't you start using the new Start menu the way it was designed?

Windows key -> type what you want -> hit enter.  So much faster and efficient then when clicking with a mouse.

3.  How is hitting the "Back" button any different then the up button in the old WinXP Explorer?  Up and Back did the same thing under WinXP except when browsing through multiple computers on the network at the same time.

4.  I don't use WMP for my Music so can't comment but remember there are other options out there that are FREE that will meet your needs.

5.  Set your Indexing Options to cover all of your drives and ensure it indexes DLL files as well.  Then just click the Windows Key and type the file name.

6.  What's wrong with them making everything far more efficient?  The old menus are slow and inefficient.  Yes, some people hate change but that's life.  Better off learning the new method and making yourself more efficient.  Not to mention making life easier.

In the end if you want the "Same Windows XP functionality, the same Windows Explorer, the same customizations" then stick with Windows XP until the end of time.  Or you can accept that evil thing called CHANGE and join everybody else by moving forward with bigger and better things that make you more efficient.

1. When selecting multiple pictures for the desktop background, it's impossible to preview without losing your current selection.

2. It's hard to keep track of which pictures are selected especially when there are many pictures in the folder/library.

3. It's impossible to reorder the pictures in a slide show.

C'mon, when you buy a new car, only a steering wheel a gear stick and the pedals are in the same place (roughly). Everything else is somewhere else. A mob for conditioner always changes places.

Folder up? In Seven it's even better than in any previous Windows. You just click in the address bar on the folder higher in the hierarchy, and you can go up as many levels as you want in ONE click! In two clicks in address bar (not a click and doubleclick like in XP), you can go to a neighbour folder!

I know this is off topic, but here are some quite important problems I experienced recently by using Windows 7 RC:

1. The DEll Touchpad Software is very unstable. Crashes all the time.

2. I installed Real Player but after a while I wasn't able to open it. I just clicked on the icon but nothing happened.

3. The CISCO VPN software of my university doesn't work with Windows 7. I installed it but it slowed down my hole system in a very strange way, it just all went slower.

4. Sometimes when I click on Icons like the one from firefox, the icon changes to a starting programm, then it goes back to being just an icon and after a while, when the programm acutally starts it changes again.

5. I have the Gmail notifier Plus which shows a "Open File Security Warning" all the time.

6. The fingerprint scanner software built into Windows doesn't always work.  

1. Editing themes is a PITA in the RC because it's not possible to overwrite themes as easily as it was in the beta.

2. RSS-based desktop slideshows are beyond undiscoverable as the user needs to know the feature exists before they can use it. Then they need to get the template off MSDN (or an existing .theme from appdata) to modify a text file, which is in no way considered user friendly. I suppose subscribing to RSS image feeds is probably an "enthusiast" feature anyway but it's very odd Microsoft opted not to make any UI for this.

I still do appreciate the personalization features. I changed my desktop numerous times and with themes it has always been a breeze.

Any Windows user (XP users as well) can get any screensaver as wallpaper app such as this one (www.x64bit.net/site/board/index.php?s=9ac1764caaba4a827cb0973ee5eff671&act=attach&type=post&id=3105) and use the Google Photos Screensaver to use RSS wallpaper with nice custom transitions and with a nice GUI as a bonus.

As far as customization can go these days, this unfortunately isn't very impressive. It's nice that it's made easy and such, and I think the RSS feed thing is a brilliant idea. But so many programs feature much more than this already, for instance being fully skinnable. In something as essential and all-around as an OS, and with something that's supposed to be as cutting edge as Windows 7, I would even dare to expect this kind of feature. You already see many users with custom layouts (including start menu button, icons, startup screen etc.), even if Windows doesn't support it out of the box - indicating a strong wish for this.

That's very nice but there are some serious problems in the implementation. Apparently it only supports JPG, and all the other formats are converted to it prior to use. As usual, the conversion is low quality; the chroma is subsampled to half resolution. There are also the typical JPEG artifacts, but these are less visible.

You can work around this by converting it to JPG manually with a program that allows you to save it at high quality (that is, not Paint!)

Example image:

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5907/7test.png

Vista at least supported BMP, 7 supports no lossless format.

What's up with the oldschool INI file format :-/

Wednesday, June 03, 2009 6:15 AM by JaviAl

I totally with this person. I think windows 7 is great to a point but I miss the simple ways thats XP work. I finally got 8 gigs of ram and I put on my system Windows XP 64 bit and Wow I love it its fast its clean and I get to use all my memory. I like things simple. You know I work at a computer service shop and I asked people how many times do you use the windows search to find your program. 100% of my customers so far said 0.0% Nobody uses that stupid feature they make shortcuts to there programs. The Windows Search ie Indexer should be removed from vista and 7. Its nothing but bloat. I allways turn that stupid thing off and every computer I send back to the customer wonders why windows vista now runs so fast.

Wolf-Tech > Search is a very very usefull feature (even with 5.5TB of stuff like I do) that might take some extra "working time" but this work is being done when the computer is idle (like the "new" auto-defrag in vista+)

If you would teach your costumer how to use the new "search" to hit the windows key + first few letters and hitting enter to start the program (much less effort than to click your way through it. (only way to replace Launchy as it doesn't work in vista :()

Why don't you guys replace those ugly common controls with some good looking ones when Aero is on? And why can't the icons in the superbar be aligned in the middle or to the right?

UAC, wait I know you might not be able to fix this before RTM is over but you have to do something to kill all the press attention this issue is gathering .

people have stated  coming to conclusions about the whole architecture of 7 purely based on this issue.There are many out their who can add enough fuel to the fire to leave a near permanent scar in the reputation of windows 7

catch Zack Whittaker who hypothesizes that this issue could trigger a nuclear war

http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=1826

@Haritha,

there are many arguments "for" and many arguments "against" Windows Seven.

Whatever we will say, we must agree, that it's continuation based on Vista only, not really new and revolutionary product (no new kernel, new new architecture).

In my opinion MS will sell probably a lot of licenses, but no so many many like for XP.

I sat with good beer and tried to find, what is wrong here. Without big thinking I have found 37 BIG reasons and I'm finding new one ( UAC is only one of big problems). If you want to read, I invite (link given few comments earlier).

Microsoft needs fresh view on some things and fresh people. Without it will loose a lot of market.

Have a look at gnome-look.org and you'll see that Windows 7's theme options are pretty minimal. Have a look at OS X and they'll look awesome.

Win7 offers a fair bit of customization that doesn't require any expertise. It's a lot harder to create a GNOME theme. However, Win7 themes are very constrained. This does mean it's pretty easy to tell that someone's using Windows, and I'm sure that advertising was no minor consideration.

There is one thing that I do not know how to do - how to change the white background of the windows explorer. In the Themes options there is a window color option, but changing it has no effect whatsoever on the windows explorer background. Same with the "advanced" personalization, which is basically the same as in old Windows, except that there it worked and in Windows 7 it does not.

I have tried to install SQL on 7 and every time I try I get an error on the configuation page. It tells me that I need at least one administrator account. I am the only user on this computer. No matter what account I use or anything that I try I can not get it past that point. I only have one administrator account and password but it won't work. I know I need to install the SP1 to it before I can use SQL, but can't do that until I get it installed.

Can you give me some ideas what I can do to get it installed?

Thanks

I have been trying Windows 7 on my Dell Laptop since the Beta came out and I gotta say I`m impressed so far with how it is working.

I totally with this person. I think windows 7 is great to a point but I miss the simple ways thats XP work. I finally got 8 gigs of ram and I put on my system Windows XP 64 bit and Wow I love it its fast its clean and I get to use all my memory. I like things simple. You know I work at a computer service shop and I asked people how many times do you use the windows search to find your program. 100% of my customers so far said 0.0% Nobody uses that stupid feature they make shortcuts to there programs.

Can we make the title bar a completely solid color?  The slanted washes of color in the application title bars are distracting and too busy.