UI Features That Didn't Make It Into Windows 7 342
TRNick writes "TechRadar talks to Windows 7's Senior User Experience Designer and discovers the interface ideas the Windows 7 team almost, but didn't put into Windows 7, and the stages various UI features went through to their final form. Quoting: '... The next prototype, in February 2007, was called the Bat Signal; when you moved your mouse over an icon in the taskbar, the full window would pop up on screen, highlighted by beams of light (a little like the Batman signal projected over Gotham City). Bat Signal made it easy to find the right window but it caused other problems: 'sometimes people toss the mouse down to the bottom of the screen when they're typing because they don't care where the mouse is and the Bat Signal pops up and that's really intrusive in their flow.' Bat Signal evolved into Aero Peek in Windows 7; you can hover over an icon to get thumbnails and hover over a thumbnail to get a preview of the window."
Sounds interesting. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds interesting. (Score:5, Funny)
KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently borrowed their ideas this time.
Re:Sounds interesting. (Score:5, Funny)
KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently stole their ideas this time.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Sounds interesting. (Score:5, Funny)
Should be -1 Troll.
Wow, nobody has any sense of humor today....
as Microsoft has a well paid legal team at their disposal which would most likely prevent unauthorized usage of patented ideas.
Yeah, when [theregister.co.uk] would [infoworld.com] Microsoft [infoworld.com] ever [zdnet.co.uk] violate [vaxxine.com] patents?
Re:Sounds interesting. (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, this idea you speak of, was it patented? I am guessing that it was not, as Microsoft has a well paid legal team at their disposal which would most likely prevent unauthorized usage of patented ideas.
A legal team such as the USPTO?
You can't patent an idea. An idea must be realized as an invention before it can be patented.
For example, you can't patent the idea of a flying man. You can however patent an airfoil suit that allows a man to fly.
Re:Sounds interesting. (Score:4, Insightful)
KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently borrowed their ideas this time.
What from KDE 4 is in Windows 7? Seriously? The only UI concepts I see shared are ones that KDE 4 stole from Vista and Windows 7 inherited.
Here are some subtle differences to help the mentally impaired:
1) Windows 7 does not crash whenenver you look at it funny. Applications more often than not close cleanly when the user wants them to, instead of just randomly throwing a SIGSEGV.
2) Windows 7 has latent functionality- meaning that you will find the UI interacting with applications in a contextual fashion, instead of just providing a taskbar interface that looks attractive, but actually is just a glorified launcher.
3) Your systray is not full of graphically corrupted garbage in Windows 7.
4) Your system will not randomly shoot to 100% cpu usage for mysterious causes in Windows 7 (but that doesn't mean applications won't do this).
5) Windows 7 has a fully documented application development API- and it's actually complete! This means that Windows 7 provides features that aren't simply planned or imaginary. This should be a dead giveaway if you're used to KDE 4.
I suppose when you see an Aston Martin driving down the street you're like "OMG THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE A FORD TAURUS". Well, you're right... they're both cars. Is this just because some braindead aussies thought KDE 4 was Windows 7 on the street. Well.. why not. It's got a start menu on the bottom with a button in the bottom left, icons on the desktop, looks pretty shiny and reflective. To the average user, it might as well be Windows... but you just wait until they try to get something done with KDE 4. If Microsoft tried to sell anything like that as a product, they would go out of business. It would make Vista look like a glorious success- for them to steal from KDE 4 would be like a bakery stealing cow shit from a nearby ranch to decorate their cakes.
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There was a reason KDE 4.0.x and 4.1.x were explicitely not recommended for production use... the stuff you listed, some of which I never encountered at any time, has been sorted out in 4.2 which is the first version I consider as rock solid as 3.5.10 and use as my main desktop now.
The aussie video was just an example I googled BTW. Put some screenshots side by side and you will see that the Windows 7 taskbar in its current state looks very KDE like, rather than Vista like. On the other hand, the KDE 4 pane
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Yes,
thumbnail previews.
Hover over task to get preview.
Click once to get a full size, fully interactive preview.
Click again to hide it.
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That's so 20th century - those previews of yours don't even have the Close button in the corner! ~
Re:Sounds interesting. (Score:5, Funny)
KDE 4. Microsoft saw it was incredibly pretty and also didn't bloody work and thought, "I gotta get me some o' that!"
Re:Sounds interesting. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, some guys from ZDNet presented it as a Windows 7 beta [zdnet.com.au] and nobody noticed the difference.
4.2 works fine for me BTW and I switched to it from 3.5.10 for everyday use, but the former releases indeed were quite unfinished.
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You should be fine with any non-ancient graphics hardware. KDE 4 does hardware checks during startup and disables desktop acceleration on hardware that fails the checks. You can alternatively switch to an XRender backend in that case which will disable most of the fancier effects, though, as it only accelerates 2D.
Full OpenGL desktop acceleration works on my eee 701 netbook (Intel 910GM) but not on my crappy old laptop (Mobility Radeon M6).
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Yeah, Compiz "Window Preview" is probably what they copied, the Bat-Window probably is just a better story and makes it look like M$ doesn't take all their ideas from others.
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Given that compiz-fusion came late in the game I think you'll find you're talking out of your ass again.
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Hey now, don't paint us all with the same brush. We're not all dicks you know. And FYI to others, as far as I know, GP's links do not reveal a sufficiently similar feature in OS X, and I certainly haven't found one on my mac.
Dispite what everyone says... (Score:4, Insightful)
MS is making a comeback. Win 7 looks great and even as a chrome/ff user I have to say that I'm attracted to IE8.
This is Slashdot, home of the penguin I know. But you have to give MS some credit. They're doing better.
shame on you Firefox/Chrome user... (Score:2, Offtopic)
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XFCE [] less is more
Why do you run such bloatware when you can have RatPoison? ;-)
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A couple of bash screens and some macros does for me...
Re:shame on you Firefox/Chrome user... (Score:5, Funny)
Bash screens. Macros. Feh.
I wire 75 baud 20 ma current loop leads directly into the muscles of my left forearm. I use slightly rusty safety pins to pierce my "insulation". I key Baudot by flexing my left index finger and decode Baudot from the computer by feeling the twitches of my left pinky finger.
Yes, half-duplex. It's a luxury, but you gotta treat yourself right sometimes.
Oh, yeah, I use csh too. Because sometimes you gotta treat yourself badly to compensate for the luxuries of things like half-duplex.
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That's not manly. I use them to toggle in the OS loader every time I need to boot.
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It's like the Oracle/MS-SQL argument... for years MS-SQL has been "getting better" and "more enterprise". Why dick around with a tinkertoy DB when Oracle has done it all for years? Why reward a Johnny-come-lately?
Re:Dispite what everyone says... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like the Oracle/MS-SQL argument... for years MS-SQL has been "getting better" and "more enterprise". Why dick around with a tinkertoy DB when Oracle has done it all for years? Why reward a Johnny-come-lately?
Why not, if it does anything that you need it to, for much cheaper? Or maybe because it has better integration with your platform of choice?
Note that your argument can be equally applied to PostgreSQL or MySQL. And the answer will be the same there, too.
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> Why not, if it does anything that you need it to, for much cheaper?
Except that statement isn't even true. It's just a perpetuation of FUD and urban mythology.
Depending on your licensing requirements: Microsoft isn't necessarily cheap and Oracle isn't necessarily outrageous.
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Except that statement isn't even true. It's just a perpetuation of FUD and urban mythology.
It's not. Notice that I didn't say that MSSQL is always cheaper than Oracle (I'm fully aware about free editions of Oracle, BTW). I merely pointed out that there may well be cases where you do get more bang for the buck for MSSQL. For .NET development, for example, MSSQL is a reasonable default choice because of its superb integration with the platform, and many Microsoft shops (particularly partners) get MS software heavily discounted. Then, of course, maybe the company already has SharePoint, which requir
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Vista has a beautiful UI, but that UI has nothing to do with my purchase. Same with IE8. I didn't switch to FireFox because it looked better. I use an OS for stability, compatibility, etc. I use a browser for security.
I have yet to see an article headline like "Windows 7: Network and Sound performance problems resolved" or "Windows 7 beta crashes 1/10th as often as Vista" or "Windows 7 performs 47% better on mid-range hardware"
When I see headlines like that, I will be interested. Until then, I run Wind
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I use an OS for stability, compatibility, etc.
Then there's no reason to avoid Vista. I've used it since release: the only time I've had issues with crashing was when the new WoW expansion came out, and it's been compatible with everything except KOTOR 2. I'd say that's pretty damn good.
Re:Dispite what everyone says... (Score:5, Insightful)
I realise I'm just feeding a karma whore but considering every man and his dog has been raving about how much quicker Windows 7 and there are articles on how to get it working on an Asus EEE pc. You must have had your heard in the sand.
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In the initial astroterf phase I had similar thoughts, but no, they really haven't gotten better.
The only difference is that MS has become even more entrenched in nickle and diming the consumer and in making pro-DRM decisions with content provider's approval. Until or unless Ballmer and a sea of other managers leave MS, it is destined to be nothing more than a vague R&D patent holder that survives through litigation. Even then I have my doubts.
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Looks great. So what? What productivity advantages does it give you over XP? In fact, for a business user, it's a new interface and that means a drop in productivity for most users -- at least in the short term.
Now, in these times of recession, explain to me why I want to spend extra money on an operating system that will only cost me money in production loss.
What is the point of Windows 7 exactly? Prettier, sure. Who cares. MS doing better? Probably. MS doing enough? MS doing a c
Vista adoption.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where can I go into a shop and buy a PC with the previous incarnation of Windows? And if Vista is such a success why is MS moving to Windows 7 already?
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How long do you think Microsoft should take to release the next version of Windows if Vista is a raging success?
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How long do you think Microsoft should take to release the next version of Windows if Vista is a raging success?
About two or three service packs long?
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Well, given that Vista SP2 is almost out (been in RC for weeks), that looks like it's about the amount of time it'll actually take.
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Where can I go to a car dealership and buy a brand new 2004 model car? Where can I go buy a new 8-track tape player?
"And if Vista is such a success why is MS moving to Windows 7 already?"
Let me give you a hint:software companies sell software. If you stop making new software you have nothing to sell.
Re:Dispite what everyone says... (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering MS discontinued selling XP (thus consumers don't have limited choices), that's hardly an endorsing statement. When you buy a consumer PC from Dell, HP, etc, you get some version of Vista as standard. You have to pay more or figure out how to get XP somehow. Also the Vista adoption rate only includes those people that bought a computer with Vista and does not include those that downgraded to XP later. With OS X, people have to choose to migrate to a different OS. That they are doing so at one third the rate of Vista adopters says that 1 in 4 people actively chose to avoid Vista by migrating to a completely different operating system says a lot about how much they are avoiding Vista.
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Anybody who's actually used Vista knows that it is a total piece of shit,
Come on, man. Give him a break. At wait for him to get it booted up once before cutting him down for his opinion.
Its going to be great once it actually starts up. I just know it.
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So how is being a Linux shill any better? I'm guessing your just using the word "shill" to designate people that you've decided aren't as "cool" as yourself, thus denigrating yourself to the level of the rest of the "fanboys" out there.
It is an operating system, nothing more, nothing less. Your preference in operating systems says nothing about the worth of your character. Also, sadly, going with the meaning of the word "shill", it doesn't mean that Apple/Microsoft is throwing large amounts of money my w
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You obviously don't work here. It's an office and a fridge full of beer, not a cubicle ;).
Post XKCD's "ballmer effect" strip, there was a Q&A session where someone asked about how the ballmer effect is being addressed here. The response was something like "We tried pumping alcohol through the air vents, but that just created vaporware. Then we decided to put it in the water coolers, only to find out none of the engineers drink water. In the end, we just decided that we'll see you at the next morale even
"Bat Signal" in miniature is annoying enough (Score:5, Funny)
It makes me nervous enough to have miniature popups of certain windows....
K.I.S.S (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read (though I don't know for sure and can't find backup at the moment) that Microsoft's GUI design is much more of a trial & error approach than Apple's. They throw stuff in, put it in front of users, ask users what they think, and study the users' reactions in a scientific sort of way. If it make test users' workflows more efficient by Microsoft's measures and causes positive reactions in test users, then the design is used. There exact process may be much more complicated than that, but from what I've heard, that's the general idea.
I've read that Apple's process, on the other hand, has a little more emphasis on the opinions and views of GUI designers and experts, as well as the personal opinion of Steve Jobs. (again, supposedly)
It wouldn't be clear to me at the outset which approach would give better results.
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:5, Insightful)
If it make test users' workflows more efficient by Microsoft's measures and causes positive reactions in test users, then the design is used.
Except that they can only expect their test subjects to spend a limited amount of time with the product.
Research has shown (don't ask me to cite, Google for it) that users start out with the GUI and all the little helpers turned on. As time goes by and they gain more experience, they turn off the animated paperclips, the help pop-ups and rely more on keyboard shortcuts. Autocad is an example of this (one I use occasionally). Inexperienced users (like me) tend to rely on the point and click interface. But the experienced users rarely touch the mouse, doing the bulk of their work with the CLI. This isn't something that would be revealed by a few days of testing. These changes occur with months (or years) of experience.
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If it make test users' workflows more efficient by Microsoft's measures and causes positive reactions in test users, then the design is used.
Except that they can only expect their test subjects to spend a limited amount of time with the product.
Research has shown (don't ask me to cite, Google for it) that users start out with the GUI and all the little helpers turned on. As time goes by and they gain more experience, they turn off the animated paperclips, the help pop-ups and rely more on keyboard shortcuts. Autocad is an example of this (one I use occasionally). Inexperienced users (like me) tend to rely on the point and click interface. But the experienced users rarely touch the mouse, doing the bulk of their work with the CLI. This isn't something that would be revealed by a few days of testing. These changes occur with months (or years) of experience.
It depends on the task being performed. Folks working with relatively advanced applications, like CAD, will learn the keyboard shortcuts.
Your standard office worker, though, often does not know even the most basic keyboard shortcuts, like cut/copy/paste, even though these shortcuts are identical across all the applications they use daily.
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EXACTLY. Since Win 98, I always customized Explorer to show most of the extra buttons on the toolbar, changed the folder options to suit me, etc. In Vista these options are gone. You see, in designing the Vista UI they just used the old Explorer defaults and threw away all the extras, figuring that nobody used them anyway. In other words, they designed for the inexperienced users who hadn't been using it very long, not an experienced user that knew they could choose which view they preferred for that direct
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What a troll, you clearly didn't spend much time with Vista.
Look to the left for file data? Now you look to the bottom. Or you use the details mode. There are so many ways of finding that information. Hundreds of MBs? DWM used around 30MB I found. Windows 7 uses around 23MB for the window manager. And while Vista on a low resource system was, admittedly, pretty bad. On a high resource system, it more intelligently used extra CPU cycles, extra RAM, and most computer's largely idle built in graphics to do use
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From what I read Apple's approach historically relied on users but also the opinion of experts. In this blog [cognitivevent.com], Apple relied on learning how children interacted with their computers to help refined their UI:
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're trying to actually /sell/ an operating systerm to home users, the first thing people will look at, and the main thing they will use in judging whether or not it's worth buying, is the user interface.
And if the user interface looks cheap and lazy, they're going to think, justified or not, that the entire operating system, therefore, was cheap and lazy. /That/ is why there are so many, as you put it, 'gee whiz' features in new versions - it's the only thing most people will ever see.
Do you understand that acronym (Score:2)
K.I.S.S. is not another way of saying "I am too lazy to implement that feature."
There's a difference between implementing an OS well and cluttering it up with dohickeys and gadgets.
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I always wondered how so many Sky/Solstices were sold. That seems to explain that phenomenon. Looks good, breaks easily, hard to use (have you ever messed with that top? It's a nightmare!)
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I'd say it's the difference between the initial "Wow, those new window borders look sooo kewl!" and "I wish those bloody window borders didn't take up half my screen." later on. The eye candy gets the box out the door and the cash in hand. After the novelty wears off, people want something that works.
But when a company relies on selling a product rather than providing a servi
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that a modern operating system must look good and flashy, but more importantly, configurable. It should appeal as trendy and nice to those who don't care to look under the shell, yet configurable enough to appeal to geeks who want features on or off.
Finally, I'd like to say that features like the bat signal should be included in Windows 7, but disabled by default.
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I used to think just like you do now. When XP was released, I forced the ugly Windows 2000 theme because I didn't want graphical interfaces left and right. Then I realized that it's not really cluttering anything, just that I am not used to the looks.
Just because the XP interface doesn't "clutter" anything doesn't mean it isn't butt fucking ugly and a huge distraction. I'm typing this message on a Windows Vista machine (stuck with them at work, still on XP for Windows @ home) and I still dumb down the interface to the Windows 2000 look. It's less distracting, less obtrusive and (IMHO) easier on the eyes. Sometimes less is more.
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:4, Funny)
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:4, Informative)
Then I realized that it's not really cluttering anything, just that I am not used to the looks.
IMHO, it was never so much a problem of "clutter" with the Windows XP "Luna" aka Fischer Price interface so much as it was inefficient use of space. The buttons, borders, title bars, etc...were all just a tad bigger than they really needed to be. While there may be some users who enjoy the "big buttons" look I and many other users were never really fans. Microsoft would do well to learn a bit more about their different classes of user (and there were more than just "classic" OR "luna" users with XP) and offer some more logical choices for different user interface designs. Personally, I use the Stardock WindowBlinds software (which plugs into the theme APIs provided in Windows XP and above) with the "soft crystal" theme (a modified copy of a KDE style interface) as my UI of choice because it is space efficient, unobtrusive, and substantially less 90s than "windows classic".
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No a modern OS shouldn't look flashy or at least in my case, it should have an OPTION to make it look basic and crappy like XP classic, 2000, 98SE
I still run Windows classic UI on Vista, Windows 7 and XP to this day, not because I don't like the other look but because this is the neatest, fastest way of getting things done.
I realise this place is a linux shop but we do have Windows users like myself here and I can tell you, we DO a lot of RDP in Windows and RDP is rubbish with all the fluff turned on.
If I'm
Why yes, everyone wants the exact same thing (Score:2)
Nobody is interested in nifty guis, or transparency, etc.
If you want to have the graphic goodies that actually suit your personality, you probably need Linux.. otherwise you're going to get what the majority wants (or is led to believe they want(or apple put in their previous release))
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For those of us not all that interested in gosh gee whiz features ...
Agreed, but I'm still scratching my head after all these years wondering why so much emphasis is still being placed on the taskbar when virtual desktops offer a better solution.
The idea of relying the taskbar in the Windows world to switch between applications (typically full screen) may have been appropriate in the day of tiny CRT monitors, and may still be appropriate for those with trivial needs, but I'd prefer to see everyone move on.
S
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Win7 still has the good old Classic theme. And PowerShell 2.0 out of the box. What more do you need?
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The problem I have is the back/forward/address bar that can't be removed, moved, or resized at all. On screens that it's not needed, it's still there.
Also, the countless wizards/interfaces that get between me and changing my IP (or other options)...
The tree view that doesn't have lines anymore...
The "Organize" bar that cant be removed or moved...
The oversized status bar that needs to be toggled back to small mode...
The lack of "File" menus that need to be toggled visible... even when they are needed to get
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The lack of "File" menus that need to be toggled visible... even when they are needed to get to your bookmarks in IE.
Huh? Right-click the IE icon on the taskbar. You get a list of your bookmarked favorites and your recent history as choices to open. Just wish Chrome supported it.
The only place I've ever had an issue is WMP. It can sometimes be very difficult to navigate through it without the menus.
Re:K.I.S.S (Score:4, Insightful)
this is why I no longer mess with betas (Score:5, Interesting)
when I worked at MS, I used to always install the IDS and IDW builds. Not the dailies - they never worked. But I got really tired of learning about possible features that would never really exist, and now from the outside world I'm tired of learning about betas, because it's never exactly like the shipping product. Who cares? I'll just learn about it when it's done.
It does me zero good to know about things that I'm not going to create myself. If MS will implement it in five years, I'll learn about it in five years.
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give this one its own thread!
It's 2009 and yet the trend of hyping Microsoft Windows betas goes back to 1994, the Chicago years. And so does the 'it doesn't look like the beta' look of the final product.
Is this one of those "Entertainment Tonight" things where worthless crap is pushed to mindless idiots and they keep sucking it up? If so, an improved education system will really mess up the Microsoft hype machine and/or the press.
LoB
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If MS will implement it in five years, I'll learn about it in five years.
Well, you have the right attitude to work for them and use their software. The perfect user. Accept their pace...accept that they know best.
Re:this is why I no longer mess with betas (Score:4, Funny)
Unless you're Google. Then the beta is the shipping product. ;)
So Aero Peek is like Opera (Score:2)
Where hovering over a tab gives a tab preview.
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hovor over icon hovoring over preview window (Score:2)
How about ALT+TAB that pops up a viewable preview window, with a translucent thumbnail selector in the middle? Less is more
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Its still there, along with the window_key-tab, which looks prettier... (kinda like coverflow in iTunes)
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Other features (Score:2)
The etch-a-sketch [today.com].
Also, you know how the beta background is the beams of light shining down? About two screens above that is Steve Ballmer's ass.
The Ballmer Signal Didn't Make It Either (Score:2, Funny)
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pay no attention to that drone, I thought it was funny. I'd also heard the Recycle Bin mouse-over caused the cursor icon to change to a chair and it would then wildly swing around the desktop and bat desktop icons around the screen. Anything flying over the Recycle Bin would get smashed/deleted. It was also considered a new 'Sort Icons' menu option.
LoB
"UI is everything", but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ignoring number #3 and assuming that "productivity" is a goal of the user, here is my assertion:
;-) And because speed is a critical part of UI, having to swap out memory slows it all down. Chances are, there is ONE APP that dominates your workflow, whether it WordProc, Spreadsheet, Coding Environment, Graphics/Flash. Whatever that is SHOULD dominate your 24" monitor. All the other stuff (the web page yer copying text from, the Email your reading for specs, etc) are in the background, BEHIND the window that's doing the work. What if it were off to the side? And what if your chat and stuff were on the computer beside you. Why buy Moore's Law next machine, when the 1.8GHz, 1GB can run your side-surfing, and it only takes a glance, not an Alt-Tab? And chances are, you have older machines and CRT monitors. Oh, but they use energy? And shipping them to the Third World doesn't?
"It is amazing how much more productivity you have with multiple computers with multiple screens."
So much of the UI is spent on "switching" apps or discerning between windows/tabs of the same app. Think Office/Email/PhotoWhatever/MSVC. Behind all that is your websurf, Facebook, chat, tunez, Skype, FTP, Remote Sessions, site monitoring, Limewire
I like UI. UI is everything, but... But I like ignoring it while I work. Most UI improvements aren't.
FSOD (Score:2, Funny)
The new Fuschia Screen Of Death was left out after they determined that it would *not* require users purchase new FSOD-Ready video cards and monitors.
"User prefs..." (Score:2)
Why couldn't the bat signal be a user pref?
Isn't giving options and remembering things what computers are supposed to be good at?
Simplicity through simple implementation (Score:4, Informative)
Many years ago -- about 25 years, maybe a bit more -- others realized the exact same thing: Users don't want to see the mouse while they're typing. The solution at the time was to simply hide the mouse pointer at the first touch of a printable key. Amazing!
One of the little reasons I like my Mac.
Reminds me of something in Gnome.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Particularly the auto play of music files when hovered. If you are prepared for it, it's okay. But I usually don't have icons shown on my desktop and that particular day I decided to clean up my download folder of mp3s by moving them all to the desktop. (mv ~/Downloads/*.mp3 ~/Desktop
) Because of some gconf problems I tried resetting my whole gconf folder so my desktop was back.
AGH! The agony! My computer keeps randomly playing mp3s when I didn't want it too! For the whole day I would wonder for about 5 seconds where a sound was coming from until I realized it was music.
All Wow No Fuctionality (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever is designing the interfaces at Microsoft seems to be living in a fantasy world where functionality is irrelevant and the only thing that matters is "wow".
Things have been going rapidly down hill since around 2005 when they reversed the order tabs appeared in Visual Studio. The new arrangement meant that tabs appeared on the left and pushed all the other tabs along so the position of your files was constantly changing making it hard to keep track of where they are. Microsoft could simply provide the option to revert to the sensible behaviour used by every other application where new tabs appear on the right but despite the public outcry they refuse to do this. So much for their claims of "Work your way".
Next came Internet Explorer 7 where they ditched the traditional tool bar and spread the buttons to the four corners of the earth so nobody can ever find the button they one. I don't think there's a single person who likes this arrangement but once again Microsoft refuse to include any customisation to the intereface so you can "Work your way" just as long as "your way" is the way Microsoft tells you to work.
Then there was Windows Vista which adopted the attitude of "why do in 5 clicks what you can do in 20". Everything now takes more clicks to do so productivity is reduced. For example in XP you could change your resolution, theme, wall paper, screen saver and power saving options all from the Display Properties dialog but in Vista they were spread to multiple different places, making it harder to get things done. The functionality and consistency of interface provided by menus was abandoned and now every window has a different interface with stupid pictures and lots of "wow". The new start menu is worthless and abandons the tree structure to replace it with a list of applications you have to scroll through slowly, further reducing the productivity of Vista users.
Then there was Office 2007 which also ditched the consistent menu style interface and switched to ribbons. It makes it impossible to find the options you're looking for and someone who had the misfortune of getting Office 2007 with a PC once said to me "I've just spent 20 minutes looking for one options in the ribbons".
Windows 7 takes Vista and makes things even worse. The combined quick launch bar & task bar makes it hard to see if an application is running or not and impossible to see how many instances of the application are running. The fantastic Windows Classic theme has been removed completely and now you're forced to use wasteful themese where all windows have thick borders and fat title bars. Consistency has been further abandoned and things like the theme selection dialog box has been replaced by something entirely customised which users have to learn to use. Ribbons have been added to other applications like Paint and the whole thing seems to have been designed to be has hard to use as possible.
Other application interfaces have been destroyed, for example Windows Media Player with it's 1 pixel thick jog bar, lack of menus and ridiculous button arrangement.
The one thing Microsoft used to do right was user interfaces but they've now abandoned everything that makes a good interface. Things such as consistency, clarity and efficency have gone and instead all we have is "wow". I used to use all Microsoft applications but by destroying their interfaces across the board I've been abandoning them one at a time. After trying the Windows 7 beta I've been forced to switch to Linux.
I must admit I'm having a hard time with Linux and there's a lot to learn for a 30 year old who has been raised on Microsoft products. However, it's definitely worth the effort since Linux really does let me "Work your way" while Microsoft just makes that claim and in reality you have to work the way Microsoft tell you.
I always wondered what would bring an end to the Microsoft monopoly and it turns out it's Microsoft themselves. They seem intent on making their own products such a nightmare to use that people are forced to go elsewhere and I'm more than happy to oblige them.
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I'm going to hold out till we get the official release version, but I'm right there with you. I HATE wasted screen real estate and gimmicky gadgets.
I can "de-vista" Vista in about 5 minutes ... completely turn off Aero, remove the gadget bar thing, turn on classic menus and interfaces, turn off the UAC, reduce the size of icons on the desktop, and a few other things. It turns out not to be all that bad to use then, but at this point, it is indeed looking like Windows 7 will not be giving us those options.
I'
Re:All Wow No Fuctionality (Score:5, Insightful)
Things such as consistency, clarity and efficency have gone and instead all we have is "wow"
Hear,hear. It's shocking how inconsistent Vista/Win7/Office2008 is. Just try to find "Options" in IE, Explorer, Windows Mail, and Word08. It's completely random. Don't even get me started on the Control Panel.
I wish they would focus more on usability for everyone, and not just the lowest common denominator.
I'd like to see a consistent level of detail implemented across all of the tasks that an OS is really supposed to be good at, like moving data around.
For example, You drag and drop a file to a different location and the file copy dialog box appears. This first dialog box can remain unchanged from XP except for the addition of a 'More' or 'Details' button. Click on that button and now you have detailed stats like, copy speed, # of files to be copied, # of files left, etc.... And then there's one more 'More' button. Click on that and now you see the entire queue which you can manipulate live (remove files, add files, etc...)
This would give 2 or 3 classes of users a much better experience. Grandma never has to click more and things work more or less as expected. Someone who wants a little more depth, might click more once to see detailed stats, and more hard core users could click yet again to manipulate the copy queue as the copy is in progress.
This is the kind of functionality I wanted added to Windows. Improvements to core capabilities and windows into what is really going on which can be opened as needed. MS has a tendency to hide how a computer actually works from the user. They are doing them a disservice, IMO.
There are 1000s of cool utilities that add truly useful core functionality to Windows. If MS just bought the best and figured out a way to integrate them in a consistent manner, they'd have a much better product (and probably for a much lower cost), than Vista/Win7.
I like a pretty UI as much as the next person but if what's under the hood is invisible and doesn't perform, then what's the point. And half-assed utilities like Notepad, Windows Mail (in win7 beta anyway), wordpad, Paint, and Hyperterminal (thank god that's gone) are just a waste of space. How hard is it to include useful text editor for goodness sake? I think MS at least owes me that.
Re:All Wow No Fuctionality (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally agree. I'm not sure if it's still there, but they used to have a document on MSDN that discussed how to implement consistent user interfaces for Windows apps. They seem to be completely ignoring this themselves.
I've not used Windows at home now for about 10 years. Linux UIs may not have looked pretty back then, but at least they were consistent if you stuck with apps designed for your chosen desktop environment.
I've found OS X apps to have a consistency level somewhere in between.
Aero Peek... not TOTALLY new, Vista has it too (Score:3, Funny)
Aero Peek isn't totally new. Vista has had Aero Peek all along. The difference is that in Vista's Aero Peek, you weren't able to see ALL the peek preview windows by hovering over the taskbar stack. You had to open the taskbar stack's context window that showed all the different items, then you could peek at each item.
Oh wait, I forgot. Vista doesn't exist. Sorry about that. I must be new here.
Virtual Desktops? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are virtual desktops going to be in Windows 7? I haven't tried the beta, and all I get with google is some stuff about RDP. Any desktop without virtual desktops is pretty much unusable for anything non-trivial. What is taking them so long? UNIX has had them since the early 90s.
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Any desktop without virtual desktops is pretty much unusable for anything non-trivial.
You really exaggerate "unusable", "non-trivial", or both. People doing non-trivial work get by just fine without virtual desktops all the time.
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I don't know how they do it. Seriously. I end up spending way too much time moving windows around if I don't have virtual desktops. If I'm trying to multitask it's much, much worse.
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Just because they include a power tool doesn't mean it works. I have software that reliably crashes if I try to run it under MSVDM. Plenty of other software doesn't play nice. (i.e. it displays on all desktops, or none at all) All of the 3rd party tools are hacks and are slow, and do awful things like shuffling the minimized windows on the task bar.
I want REAL usable virtual desktops.
Hey MS, attend to what's IMPORTANT! (Score:3, Insightful)
Once more, MS wants to sell an operating system on the merits of its GUI. Once more, they have completely missed the point. They have failed to address the number one issue that faces all classes of PC users: the lamentable lack of security that is characteristic of all Microsoft operating systems. Please note that this is not an "MS is trash Unix is cool" rant; I think the only reason there aren't more hijacked Unix boxes is that they're a small target, and the people who own them catch on too fast.
I'm particularly hot on this topic because I just blew my last three weekends salvaging two Windows XP boxes that were riddled by multiple trojans, virii, and just plain annoying trash. (They belong to two family members who shall remain unnamed—but I'm married to one of them, and cutting off her internet access could be deleterious to the climate around the ol' homestead.)
Now, I understand that no one can make an OS completely secure, except perhaps by removing all networking features. However, it should not be so easy to infect a PC, and it most certainly should be possible to recover from a malware infection without going through the pain I experienced.
Yes, I had backups—full image backups of the C drives (I use Acronis, and it's very good at what it does). The question was how far back I had to go to find a clean image. And how can I be sure it's clean, when the virus scans themselves couldn't detect all the contamination? For example, one machine was pronounced "clean"—but every time I rebooted it, several Internet Explorer processes not associated with any GUI windows would spawn and start sending packets to all sorts of interesting places. (I think I figured that one out—the malefactor was hiding in the OS System Restore file.)
What do I think MS could do about this? Well, for one thing they could provide an actually useful system recovery capability. I do not consider the "Fix your Windows installation (y/n)? that comes with the installation disk remotely useful. A truly useful recovery capability would reside on bootable media provided along with the OS that does things like:
Until MS "hardens" their OS and provides tools that do what I've described, I see no point in buying any further MS operating systems. One is just as bad as the other.
I don't think it's going to happen, though. You see, building a hardened OS would not be in Microsoft's interests. I talked to the guy who takes care of my swimming pool the other day, and mentioned my malware hassles. He furrowed his brow and said that maybe he had had some viruses too; his computer was running really slow and would reboot a lot. I asked him how he fixed the problem. "I bought a new computer" was his answer. When he said that, it hit me—just how many people decide to buy a new computer for precisely th
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Both are deprecated. It seems you meant compiz.
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I've got an easy solution for that: make some folders and group things logically. Works for me. I do NOT want to have to search for my applications. As it stands I've got tons of stuff installed, but I can easily find it all because I spend a little time and thought on organizing my start menu.
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You know something? I don't mind Vista that much... know why? Cuz I can turn off all the whisbang crap and still use that start menu just like Windows NT 4, Win 2k, and Win xp (after de-xp-ing it).
I can't stand most of the eye candy they added in Vista. Takes up graphics, cpu, and memory that I don't care to spend.
Honestly, if the interface doesn't give me the option to revert to the classic stuff, it may well push me over to the Linux side. I already got my biggest Wish: UltraEdit is coming out for Linux,
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Personally, I'm a huge fan of the XP style start menu. I've got my 6 or 7 "pinned" programs that are always there when I need them and then 6 most commonly used programs below that. I very rarely have to actually go into the "All Programs" menu and hunt something down. I understand your frustration, though, and don't understand why they'd take an _option_ away. I can't imagine it being that hard to keep around, but then again, I'm not a windows programmer. :)
-John
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marketing concept to instill how important right now is and not dwell on how late the product is. ;-)
Yes, they've sucked at software development as far back as the early DOS/Windows days. And they've been riding that DOS monopoly IBM handed them so long ago.
LoB
Priorities (Score:5, Funny)
Remote cockpunch feature still unimplemented
First things first. We need to invent a device that remotely stabs people in the face [bash.org], first.