I've been fortunate enough to have gained the attention of a group of people dealing with Vista who are willing to listen to suggestions for improvements to Vista and possibly take action to have these improvements included in future patches, add-ons, or 'power toy' type items.

I'd like to gather comments from this community (i'm already getting feed back from others). This is not a rant thread, its for real information gathering purposes. The rules are simple; list 6 items that satisfy the following criteria in the context of things that should have been but wern't done properly, should have been better, or could be better (you don't have to give 6 but 6 is the max - this doesn't mean you don't have more then 6 but please limit to 6);

A. An item dealing with the Vista shell, limited to 60 words or less.

B. An item dealing with the Vista UI, limited to 60 words or less.

C. An item dealing with the core functionality of Vista, limited to 60 words or less.

D. An item dealing with Vista networking features, limited to 60 words or less.

E. An item dealing with Vista anti-piracy/activation, limited to 60 words or less.

F. An item dealing with Digital Rights Management (DRM), limited to 60 words or less.

THIS IS NOT A RANT THREAD - THIS IS NOT A CRITIC THREAD - SO PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC AND WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE REQUESTED INFORMATION -PLEASE DO NOT BE CRITICAL OF ANOTHERS POST Thank You

To start off heres a few of mine;

1. The ability to customize small things like having the ability of making 'Advanced Search' as default view instead of having to click the 'Advanced Search' button each time. A good example of the admin account not having full control is in the registry - key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\CatalogNames\Windows\SystemIndex] - right click on the key and choose 'Permissions' and you will quickly find that only WSearch and TrustedInstaller have full control and not the admin accout - then try to edit the 'IgnoreShortcuts' value (which would speed up search if it would ignore shortcuts if you have a ton of them).

2. The ability to effectively Admin a system without UAC intervention without having to disable UAC. The Administrator needs to have true un-restricted access to the system.

3. The ability to choose upon install IPv4, IPv6, or both, networking attributes and the ability to choose which one you do or do not want to install while maintaining the capability to install either later after Vista install.

4. Vista Anti-Piracy/activation requirements are too limiting, assumes the user is basically dishonest and has too much control over, and indeed at times may violate a persons legal rights, concerning their property rights over their computer. It could have been done better. Its kind of insulting the way it is now. Anti-Piracy is a MS problem, we shouldn't have to pay for their problem.

5. DRM doesn't take into account a persons legal right to duplicate a music CD for their own home use, or d/l'd music legitimately purchased prior to the birth of DRM.

6. Finally, the Aero Glass theme should have been advertised as 'Aero Translucent Glass'. Its not transparent its translucent - there is a difference. There should be more control for customizing the visual aspects of the Aero Glass theme such as being able to adjust the transparency of the whole window.

Thank You for your participation.

the fact that there is no ipx

that there are programs that just dont work with the vista glass theme so it has to revert to another theme...

the desktop properties interface is completely different and a big pain, they should go back to the xp style which is much more effective

Just FYI, the built-in Administrator is the only account who does bypass UAC.

Edit: I attended a week-long course on supporting Vista and have the flow diagram of how UAC is implemented with split tokens, there is an explicit decision for the built-in Administrator's well-known SID to jump straight to the secure desktop without the OTS prompt.
Aynthing that prompts you is not using the Administrator's security token.

By default this account is disabled except in Safe Mode, but can be enabled if you need "unhindered" access to the various tools.

If you need all members of the Administrators group to have this kind of freedom, then launch an Explorer or CMD prompt elevated and run your tools from there, as the split tokens are inherited from the parent process.

(The translucency of windows is controlled by the application I think - try running "perfmon /sys" and then click "Compare" / "Set Transparency" and select one of the predefined options to see an example.)

IMO, I will not be migrating to Vista for the following reasons:

1) I don't see it as a stable platform. Way to buggy for a RTM release, it's how Microsoft releases software nowadays, Microsoft's RTM should be Beta. It's not stable enough IMO for business use until at least SP1, if not SP2.

2) Besides DX10, and new Aqua GUI, What am I getting above Windows XP? Not anything worth jumping through the activation/WGA crap that treats me like a thief.

3) When I'm ready for something that looks like Vista, why not go with the orginal; Mac OSX?

4) When Vista come back from sleep or hibernate, it loses the network connections sometimes. When it does, you end up having to reboot the machine to get them back.

"the built-in Administrator is the only account who does bypass UAC."

Hmmm...not exactly...even the admin account has trouble taking full control of some areas, even the admin account receives prompts for install of software some times - this is UAC interaction, it just doesn't look like it.

People have said that about every windows release (since Win 95 at least). Yet, millions of users and tons of large places have used the RTMs without a single problem (or very minor issues - often drivers). I don't recall of any major/critical bugs that ever made me wish I had waited for a service pack.



There's hundreds of new features/enhancements/new stuff and what not. Lots of it is VERY significant/real improvements IMO. But then again, it depends where cuts the line as "how much makes it worth it", and for some people, there just couldn't be enough no matter what.

As for the activation & WGA crap, as much as I despise being treated like a thief and an OS vendor installing spyware (at least trying to) on my PCs, it's really not all that different from XP. XP had a mandatory activation for almost everyone - just not corporate customers. Most people pirated that one, hence the recent whining about activation, as there is no bypassing it now. WGA? Yep, XP's got that too. The ONLY real difference is that Vista has to be re-activated every 180 days. If being automatically re-activated twice as year (should be totally transparent) is a reason to not use a far superior OS, you're never going to upgrade past XP (think you'll be running XP in 50 years?)



Perhaps because one doesn't want overpriced ghey looking hardware with a crap OS that doesn't run any of the software I need and want? Game selection for that "platform" is reason enough for 99% of home users to never want to buy one. I need a mac like a hole in the head - it's the absolute, very last resort IMO (right before not using computers anymore ever, and even then, I'm almost hesitating).



Sleeping (or hibernation) disconnects the network on any OS. Some OS/hardware/driver combinations have more problems than others. Vista is FAR better than the older versions of windows WRT this. If you're having problems, I wouldn't instantly blame the OS (very well could be drivers). And that shouldn't be a reason to reboot - ever, on any OS. You just have to reinitialize it (manually reconnect).

Seriously, there's a lot of FUD, misinformation (like the "no RAID support" in another thread, like it's not there just because someone doesn't understand it!) and such being said about Vista nowadays. Like the "it's bloated" claims from people that have seemingly forgotten about every previous windows (or ms office) release, where everybody said the exact same things! (bloated/same OS with a new skin - because they can't tell apart from GUI changes since they have no idea of the underlying stuff nor care about it/bothersome activation stuff/etc). Some people try to resist change, they're confused and have to actually learn something, so they all say "this new xyz feature sucks, it was so much better with [version -1]!" just because things are done differently, even if it's improved a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Vista is a perfect OS or anything. UAC is definitely a PITA, but then again there were countless linux folks saying it basically needed this to be secure... Much of it is "damned if you do, damned if you don't". Sometimes you just can't win.

Same with the drivers signing. You have millions of people making the same old tired BSOD jokes. And if you read into their online crash analysis service, you'll see that nearly all crashes (the vast majority) are because of bad drivers. So to reduce crashes (and undeserved perception of a buggy OS), the solution is to reduce usage of crappy drivers, which should help in the long run. But now folks are whining about it (wanting to load drivers that can likely make their machine crash - and them in turn blaming MS for making an unstable OS). Their "solution" is to totally disregard singing and load any old crappy drivers regardless - it's not much of a solution either... So they decided to force ppl to use signed drivers as much as possible (the next best thing after "all drivers being perfect/having no bugs at all" which is impossible), but then ppl complain. Again, you just can't win.

Give it 6 months to a year, and most people will be using the latest version, and those "Vista sucks" people will be very quiet. They'll be used to the new ways do to things, there will be more drivers, it will ship on all new PCs, etc. Eventually, most people wouldn't ever want to switch to anything older (like most people wouldn't want to go back from XP anymore nowadays). But there will always be a small minority who will stick to the older OS'es for a very long time (like those still running 9x nowadays). It's annoying to read all that negative stuff all the time, so I usually try to ignore it altogether. It's only a matter of time before they stop...

Repeat & rince with the next version of windows, and the following, and ... ("it's bloated!", "it does nothing the old OS can't do!", "same OS, just a new skin!", "DRM!", etc)

1.) Totally inconsistent user interface to set software options. For example:

Windows Explorer - Organize > Folder & Search Options
Word Pad - View > Options
Internet Explorer - Tools > Internet Options
Windows Photo Gallery - File > Options
Windows Mail - Tools > Options, or Tools > Accounts, or Tools > Junk Mail Options, or View > Layout
Windows Media Player - Right Click in UNIDENTIFIED area > Tools > Options

It goes on and on. To make matters worse, in Vista, they appear to have randomly moved configuration options around for no apparent reason. Or is there a method to the madness?

2.) MS seems to focus on new features and rarely refines old ones. There's no excuse for the limitations of Notepad, or MSPaint, or the built-in telnet client with no ssh ability at this stage of of game. Make them useful or rip them out. I'd rather they fix these than enhance Media Player. The least they could do is pay off the authors of software like Editpad, scite, and Putty, and include these instead.

3.) Lean & Mean default, not big & bloated default. All bloat should be optional. There should be a core, stripped down OS that installs and does the basics as simply and quickly as possible. A user should be able to add only what they want or need when they want or need it.

4.) Instead of (or along with, at least) a search engine that will find anything on your PC no matter where you put it, (and which will suck up resources indexing everything) it would be better to try and educate your users as to how data is actually stored on a computer... where they should and should not store things. When you cater to the user who has no clue, randomly saves files all over the place, and generally can't find anything on their PC, you do everyone a disservice. Things like adaptive user interfaces which change based on context or users' habits, hiding file extensions, making Documents & Settings a junction point without telling anyone, hiding user data deep within hidden directories with very long unintelligible names, etc.. don't really help my parents use their PC and hinder me from helping them as well. I'd rather they suck it up and learn what a folder is and how to navigate a directory tree. You aren't doing young, potential IT workers any favors here either. Seems to me we'd all be better off if the structure of data at the file system level was as transparent as possible. While there's alot of cool stuff in the new Explorer, the default settings are questionable. Basic navigation has not improved and may even be harder for most people. Stop forcing your particular idea of how things should be organized on us and give us a clearer picture of where things really are. Please....

5.) Favorite Links in Windows Explorer - Why don't links to UNC paths work? If I open a window to say \\server\home\ and drag a directory called 'myhomedir' to Favorite Links, I get a link called 'myhomedir' that does absolutely nothing. A shortcut to a symlink doesn't work as a 'favorite link' either.

6.) Symlinks & Junctions points - I''m very happy Vista has real symlinks now. But I'm very disappointed that Vista presents itself as if they don't exist even though junction points are used to redirect most of the old Documents & Settings tree to the new Users tree (which, btw, is going to confuse the hell out of people...). Don't hide this functionality. Fully integrate this into Explorer (symlinks & Junction points only show up as shortcuts which is misleading... though properties of a symlink will at least show you where it's really pointed). Explain how they work in the help files. And make it clear what & where My Documents really is.

7.) All right... last one and I'll stop. The Windows Key is an abomination and to link it to what's arguably the coolest 'gee wiz' feature (the 3-D window flipping alternative to alt-tab) in Vista is lame. That COMPLETELY unnecessary key should be regarded as a marketing mistake and never used by anything.

...

I would have a smaller problem with this if the "signing process" would involve real testing instead of paying microsoft a bucket of money... Or do you think the software built by big companies is better, just because the companies can pay the signing? Stable, perfectly working software is to be uninstallable just because the authors do not charge money for it and cannot afford paying microsoft.

To Spooky: Sorry for interrupting the thread, but to this I just had to answer, as short as possible.
Unfortunately, I did not have the possibility to test it yet, but if I come across one, I'll post my 2 cents here, too

Greetings,
C.RAZY

Crahak, excellent post. Mind if I quote you on my web blog? You've basically made the best statement I've read in ages. Cheers.

I have to agree on this, as it is just dumbing down the users, and making the technicians jobs harder. All though, Vista would search a folder created with the customers backup after a reinstall too, so maybe it might of made our jobs easier, lol.



I have to totally disagree here. I use the Windows Key all the time, and allows power users to navigate the OS quicker, if you take advantage of it. Just take for instance "Windows Key + E" to open Windows Explorer, or "Windows Key + R" to open the run command, just those two alone used by someone knowledgeable, can navigate to any area of the OS with the keyboard much quicker than using the GUI. If anything, they should extend on it, and add even more shortcut keys, and allow them to be remapped too.

Go ahead. No need to quote me or anything, you can use it as yours



Actually, the small independant writers are more like "collateral damage" if I can say. This isn't aimed at them (not that I'm saying their drivers are typically great stuff either - nor necessarily bad).

This is mostly so people install the WHQL certified ati/nvidia/nforce/intel/whatever video/chipset/soundcard drivers, and not the ghetto stuff. And yes, they actually do testing, even if you find it hard to believe. They try to force you to install the known good drivers by making it inconvenient to install the non-signed ones.

Then there's that small minority of folks with the odd unusual hardware that doesn't have signed drivers (and doesn't have generic drivers or anything like that). It might be more of a PITA to install those now, but I think it's a small price to pay for the vast majority of ppl to use mainly known good drivers (and people stoping to make the old tired unfounded BSOD jokes a few years from now and saying it's an unstable sucky OS because their drivers sucked). I think you're severely underestimating the amount of drivers causing BSODs. There's some information/stories about that on the web, you'd be amazed to see how many such drivers that causes BSODs are found everyday. They just HAD to do something.

Again, one way or another, people will complain.

Keep the same old apps people have been using forever as is (those that some people say are the only things which are "right" - like notepad/paint/calc) and then some whine there's no SSH in telnet and such (Actually, they've redone the calculator and such for XP, paint supports more formats, etc). Yeah, they still suck in a way (well, notepad is very featureless, but very lightweight/barebones - it's OK-ish), but then again, if they added more features like syntax highlighting in notepad, SSH in telnet and such things, then there would be people whining about bundling (just like how it's seemingly a bad thing it comes with a functional [yet so sucky] media player and WM codecs! But that every other OS/distro also does it is seemingly a good thing though - even a BAD thing if they don't. Talk about dual standards!) Ya know, people would all be saying the old "embrace and extend, teh M$ is at it again!", and how they must be trying to kill putty or such (and be accused of using proprietary standards in the way, regardless of any facts)...

As for SSH or syntax highlighting, I'd say 95%+ of windows users don't use it either nor care about it, and those who do already know the apps that have the features they want. Personally, I use SSH like twice a year (truly don't care if telnet doesn't have it), and no matter what they did to notepad, I still wouldn't use it, same for paint). And no matter what changes they did, people would still use another editor ("it's not notepad++/editplus/ultraedit/uestudio/vim/emacs" or whatever it is they really want and have always used). WMP is no exception, no matter what they do to it (just like for notepad or paint), I'd still use ZoomPlayer (and VLC/MPC). Besides, the minute they add a single tiny feature to one of them (that they can notice), tons of people will complain about "bloat" as they always do.

When you're Microsoft, there's NOTHING you can do without having some people complain about it.

Oh, about the inconsistent user interface, I agree on this one. This is perhaps the first complaint I hear about Vista that's seems to be relevant (unlike "there's no boot logo!" or a couple icons - like it actually matters)

i'll try to be short as i'm not in the mood of writing novels right now:

1. superfetch sux - great idea, poorly done..

2. inconsistencies, a bit too heavy

3. no tcpip patch, they've messed everybody with their opengl/d3d stuff.. opengl working as an emulation based on 3d or something like that.. ffs..

4. no easy way to share your files over the network, just like in XP

5. it could've been done better.. just like superfetch

6. never had a problem with that..



after all, vista is great except for these shortcomings..

It is good to see you have an understanding at least, crahak
Just to expand on the driver signing issue:
- it is only enforced for 64-bit Windows
- it is a protection system to prevent unauthorised kernel mode code which includes modifications to existing drivers
- audio drivers use UMDF now, so are not kernel-mode
- the signing is done with the vendor's own PIC, not a "Microsoft stamp"
- it is disabled if a debugger attached, so developing drivers is not a problem
- in corporate environments you can disable driver signing, or create a CA to sign the drivers yourself for distribution
- it is not only for stability through "certified" drivers, but for security to help protect against rootkit-type attacks

Also, Windows Vista was the product of a massive amount of user feedback during beta testing, its design radically altered in response to comments and demands, so while it's not possible to create something that at least a few people won't complain about, a "best effort" can be made while still making advances in security, stability and features.

The 6 things I don't like about Vista:

UAC
UAC
UAC
UAC
UAC
UAC

Well, hows about you disable UAC if it bothers you that much?

Control Panel > Users

Then you lose the benefits that it gives you. Actually, I'd like an option to selectively elevate programs - rather than having to click to elevate.

I'm a big supporter of UAC - but these darned prompts are driving me crazy! It's an XP thing tho' - once Vista compatible apps start coming out it'll solve itself.

I agree, it will drive you nuts. Look in the Tweaks and Tips section for a reg twek i posted that lets you keep it turned on so it can work with things like Protected Mode in IE but will supress the prompts.

UAC. Enough said.

Didn't know that (I don't run Vista yet)

Yet another reason to not use a 64 bit version of windows... Seemingly there's so much problems with 64bit OS'es right now, it's not worth the trouble.

From missing drivers, to lack of 64 bit software, to apps using more memory (due to pointers being twice as big and other things), no legacy 16 bit app support whatsoever, etc. I just see no real pros, but sure are a lot of cons.

I just discovered today another problem running apps with 64 bit Windows: apps can't use the Jet engine anymore. Yes, it's crusty old tech that sucks, but there's a LOT of apps relying on it still. Jet is not ported to x64 platform, and will likely never be! While it's possible to install the 32 bit version (4.0 SP8) on x64, 64 bit apps cannot make use of it (as it's an in-process component).

It could be a problem with many apps. Even for web stuff - there's a lot of small intranet apps that still use jet (ms access .mdb files) for databases. Won't work on 64 bit windows (there's no 32 bit copy of IIS), forcing people to convert their apps to use another database.

Might not be a bad thing to see Jet finally die - being replaced by "ACE" (Access Data Engine), but still breaking apps. Besides, I doubt ACE will be much better (security/performance/feature wise). Why not force people to use a REAL database instead? (they're suggesting it, but then turning around and creating another sub-par engine hardly helps)

While it's not a major problem, it just seems to pile up with the countless other problems/issues/whatever about 64 bit Windows. Maybe in a few years, it might finally be worth it.

I don't get why people complain about UAC! It's there for your protection!

If it does annoy you, why don't you turn it off?? I leave it on myself as I know my system will be alot more safer (and it's below me to get annoyed by something so pathetic *cough*), but the option is there to turn it off WITHOUT having to make a trip to the registry.

1) Very Few Real Improvement's
2) To Many Bug's
3) To Few Compatible Driver's
4) Requirement's are unreal

keytotime;

You just described 100% of the problems with 100% of every operating system in existance as viewed by anyone at any certain time depending on their requirements. Can you be a little more specific for Vista please?

Thank You

Some of us don't need or want the protection. Same reason why I don't run an anti-virus, nor a firewall, nor an anti-spyware, nor any other software or hardware that's meant to "protect me".

Getting back to the original question, here's my list (embellished with some explanations of my thinking).

1. There's been a lot of ballyhooing about UAC, but this isn't so much about UAC so much as it is about user implementation. Most of the griping about UAC comes from computer experts whining that it's sticking its nose in their business when they know **** well what they're doing. And all this wouldn't be an issue if a user created account could be above UAC. The built-in Administrator account is like this; UAC is on but it doesn't bother the built-in Admin. However, just being a member of the Administrators group doesn't bequeath such privileges. This methodology is counter-intuitive. The current setup of Admins in Vista is more like what I'd see the Power Users group be like: able to do most anything, but be prompted for permission anytime it does something with system-wide consequences. Then regular users could also have UAC prompts when doing system changes, but would need to input a password of an account of higher permission level. And then Limited Users would be outright denied these actions. UAC is designed to protect careless users from destroying their PCs, but the first account made by the system is still a member of the Administrators group. The user should be asked what kind of user to make, complete with simplified explanations of what each level (Admin, Power User, Regular User, Limited User) entails. Of course, all this would be moot if the built-in Admin account had a blank password (then a lower level account could just whack return when prompted and do whatever it wanted), thus if the only account a user makes upon install isn't and Admin or Power User the installation should prompt for a password for the "System" account (or whatever wording would be least confusing for non-technical users). This, I think, would go a long way to making everybody happy.

2. Moving on, I have some GUI gripes. First up would be that not all the control applets are integrated into Explorer. Main gripe here would be what used to be Display Properties. It's now been reorganized into the Personalization section (which isn't bad). Each option that used to be a tab in the old properties window now has it's own little section. Only when you click on them it pops up the old style window, but now with just one tab on it. The old way control applets worked wasn't bad, and the new way is indeed slick, but this hybrid is just plain bad. This should be fixed to make everything consistent.

3. Another GUI gripe comes from the new Explorer. There's so many good changes here that it's sad that there's one glaring flaw: you can't hide the Favorites panel. You can hide the Folders panel but not the Favorites panel. Why? I can see myself using it a lot, but having it hide when not needed would allow for more space for the folder view. And while I'm asking for things, how about implementing some tabs in Explorer? IE has them now, why not share the organizational love to local file work too?

4. Keeping up on file management, this is one of my long standing gripes about Windows: how it deals with file moves and copies. Now, Microsoft has fixed part of the equation with Vista. When moving files about, you are given a lot more info and control over file overwrites. I don't know (because I haven't tested it yet ) if any single failure brings the whole operation down or not, so I won't comment on that. However, the third part of this pie is still broke. If you initiate two or more file operations that use the same drives they run concurrent, dragging down transfer speeds. What should be done here is operation queuing; if an operation either originates or terminates on a drive that is currently being used in another operation, it should wait until the other is done (and of course telling the user that it's waiting so as to not look like it locked up). I'd like this to apply to programs too, but I'm certain that'd probably just cause major havoc with some programs, so I'll just settle for the user-initiated stuff.

5. And one more file related thing. Why is it that the size column still doesn't show folder sizes? The tooltip does (or attempts to, as folders with a lot of files can't be tallied up fast enough for the tooltip). The super-nice shell extension Folder Size adds a column that does this; it accomplishes this feat by keeping a small database of folder sizes inside a service. On my PC with a decent amount of drives and folders, it only takes up about 18MB or RAM. Windows itself could do this inside the Explorer process (since it's also the system shell and runs all the time). And before anyone says to just use the extension, no, that won't work; while Folder Size is a nice piece of software, it doesn't work in Vista or any 64-bit Windows versions. But, really, I don't see why there isn't an option to cache such information in Explorer itself considering all the other stuff Vista wants to cache into RAM.

6. The new Start Panel. I'll admit, at first I didn't like the new panel in XP. But after I customized it with the menus I found most useful, I grew to love it. So, instead of extending a good idea, Microsoft just redid it completely. OK, I can let that slide. If the new one was superior to the old one in every way. But sadly that just isn't the case. The search/run box is absolutely awesome, but it's really the only change that's for the better. The Log Off/Shut Down button setup in XP worked perfectly fine, but is replaced with a total mess in Vista. There's again two main buttons, but instead of one of them leading to a user friendly window asking if you want to Shut Down, Restart, or Sleep your PC, you have to push a little arrow button to get ... an old-school popup menu. Oh, and that power button looking one doesn't actually shut down the PC; it Sleeps instead. Not exactly what I expect from the look of the icon; you can change this, but still the default behavior isn't what you'd think. Continuing on with this poor panel, the most recent program list and the system options columns are pretty much the same, only the system side loses the icons with the text and instead changes the user icon to whatever is hovered over. Slick, but I'd prefer the most collapsed look some XP skins have of just icons on this side. The left side is about the same, until you click the All Programs button. In XP this poped up the plethora of menu windows that have been part of the Start Menu since the 95 days. In Vista, though, the programs list instead shows up in the recent programs side. And, well, it just seems so bloody claustrophobic. Plus it practically guarantees involving scrollbars, something I've noticed Vista tries to avoid at all costs. It also doesn't autoscroll near the edges, so you have to manually scroll up and down. And what if you have some really nested file structures (because you're an orgizational freak like me)? You have this vertical nested visual mess that just feels even more cramped. Sure having menus running all the way across the screen isn't very elegant, but it sure doesn't feel as confining. I guess if the panel in which all this was done was wider, it'd work out better. As is, if just feels totally awkward to me.

Well then, disable it! People are saying its a bad thing even though they can have it either enabled or disabled.



And the start menu power button can be change through the power options - but I do agree its a silly idea have standby as standard and not shut down

I complain because I'm frustrated. It doesn't mean that I hate Microsoft, nor does it mean that I hate UAC. It's that it doesn't suit my needs, and I'm too impatient to wait for a "fix" to come out.

UAC is, IMO, too inflexible for those of us who tinker with their systems. And, especially with apps designed for XP, it doesn't let us choose to "Allow" the app forever (like a software firewall will). Actually, a fix probably isn't needed as the problem will go away once my chosen apps become Vista compatible - but until then I reserve the right to b*tch about it!

From my Army days: "A happy soldier is a b*tching soldier."

I'm sure it's useful, (though I stubbornly refuse to use it) but I still think it's an unnecessary key created by the MS marketing department. Ctl-alt, ctl-shift or any combination other existing keys would have got the job done and I would encourage MS to include/keep standard key combo alternatives to the Windows key. Where's my Tux Key or my OSX key (though I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has one) ? Using marketing clout to put a specific OS key on what is supposedly standard PC hardware, capable of running many operating systems, just seems arrogant.

Aside from pure marketing arrogance, the Windows key holds a special place of evil in my heart as the key which causes me to die when I accidentally press it during First Person Shooter sessions and get rudely switched back to the desktop while the start menu opens. I used to rip it off my keyboards for this very reason. (I've improved and most games handle it better these days)

Anyway it's admittedly a minor, personal peeve and I posted it more to be humorous than anything else...


happy holidays!

PS ---

I agree with everyone that UAC is annoying but it's easily turned off!!!! (run msconfg.exe > Tools > disable UAC, reboot)

I can see why corporate environments would want it and think it's good they included it.




I completely agree here and to make matters worse, MY favorite links (to unc paths) don't even work so I can't even make this patronizing 'feature' useful.

I have discovered that if you resize the Folders pane you can completely obscure Favorite Links, making Explorer appear and behave as if it wasn't there. Fortunately, this seems to be remembered after closing and restarting Explorer (though it remains to be seen for how long, as many settings in XP often got 'forgotten' after a period of use).

<Hmmm...note to self, suggest to MS they add an 'Anti-Fat Finger' feature. >

Apple do have their own key - but I don't have a clue what they call it!

It looks kinda like a 4 leaf clover!

There's actually a very good article about that very subject here:
http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html

Briefly;

Actually that key we call the Windows key is not a MS invention at all. Its actually an Apple invention. Many years ago before keyboards were standardized into what we use today, very early computers used a modified version of the old teletype keyboards, there was a key present in the location that today we call the Windows key. When the very first apple computers hit the market many years ago (no I don't mean the MAC, this was wayyyy pre-MAC), the first key boards used on those systems were made just for Apple computers and were an adpatation of the older teletype keyboards and the key was there. As a result of Apple's insistance that their keyboards be used as a standard the key was left in place for 'future use'. MS saw the key and as a result of feed back that wanted a single key to hit to bring up a menu or do something else MS decided to put the key in use and today we have the Windows Key.

Microsoft could have done a lot more with Vista than what they have done.

As was pointed out here, why arn't the things that are already in Windows
fixed? Like Notepad. I mean before making new features?

Look at how good VLC Player is compared to WMP. Does WMP come with
all the codecs you need like VLC does? Nope. Does WMP root itself deep
into your OS like VLC Player does not? Yes!

Microsoft seem to deliberately make it so things are hard to remove.

They should be releasing Vista so its gives you the same freedom as
Windows 95 or Windows NT - remember how you can optionally add
things or leave them out? As Vista sets up it could say "do you want to use
WMP11/IE/OE/media Center/on and on and on" but you have no choice,
its a 6Gb OS or nothing.

u could've just said "i hate windows, i hate microsoft, i hate the world..", u hater!

Maybe every one in the windows forum should start posting here: The Other White Meat

sorry for the double post

1: file transfer time calculation

Wat a stupid idea ??
wen i tranfer a 1mb file from 1 partition to other first windows calcuates how much time it takes to do that
(might doing some benchmarking every time)
after completing the calc it just transfers

ha ha ha....
to calculate ~ 1 min + to transfer 1 sec =1min1sec for 1 mb transfer
this can be really annoying for large files

2:Horrible Network Connections control panel applet
i just want to connect via Dial-up
not at all thikin abt file or resource sharing

3:No componet Choices
if my s/m is not premium and still vista ready
i cant run DVD maker and so on
then why it get installed and give the message "This program cannot be run bacuse u dont have XXXXXX harware"

4:Resource Protection
with all 5 yrs wat r they doing ??
if they can't , and somby is doing to enhace it, why they protect it ??

5:Lokdown kernel
kernel protection will finally go to a place were cracker will break it put payload it it and fo someone can privent it (like AV makers) unable to do that legally

B. An item dealing with the Vista UI
Having to type out the domain login (if you've got more than one domain) or computer name (you can't expect people to know the .\ shortcut) for the splash login screen can get pretty cumbersome. Why not show the available options/domains to the user

E. An item dealing with Vista anti-piracy/activation
The KMS is too silent for my liking, you're not sure whether it's working or not working unless you visit a client machine and see whether it's "Genuine". I'd prefer to be able to sit at the KMS and see what's going on, sure scripts are good but i'd like a GUI as well.

D. An item dealing with Vista networking features
I don't like the way Vista doesn't tell you that the DHCP has timed out and you've lost connectivity, with XP you had a hazard icon and a bubble saying what happened, with Vista you don't get anything. This has caught a number of tutors and students out where IE/Firefox would simply hit an immediate "page not found" and scratch their head wondering why (it was there a second ago). XP was very good at IP address renewals, this is much worse and really unacceptable

UAC is there for good reason, we all want Windows to be more secure but we b***h and moan when they try to do things to make it more secure. Linux users have enjoyed this feature for years and many enter SU without even thinking about it, oddly enough I've seen a couple Linux users who b***h about UAC but have no problem with SU??

I could not agree more!!! You have summarized everything that I think is wrong with Windows in general and continues with Vista.

cheers...

A. An item dealing with the Vista shell, limited to 60 words or less.
Bring back the old "Up one level" button. I can probably live w/o it, but I certainly miss it.

B. An item dealing with the Vista UI, limited to 60 words or less.
Favourite links? WTF - if it won't work why force me to use it?
Personalization? Either return to the old tab style, or make everything using the new look. Stop using both the new look AND one-tabbed windows. Also you should make everything easier to find, I shouldn't be digging in the System properties to go to the Performance window to be able to click the "Adjust visual effects" link, which BTW, has a UAC-like shield icon on it, suggesting you'd need administrative privileges to access it, which it doesn't need.

C. An item dealing with the core functionality of Vista, limited to 60 words or less.
Why have symlinks/junctions if there's no way to create/manage them by default. And why have them at all if they simply won't work (except for those that YOU create manually with junction.exe)

D. An item dealing with Vista networking features, limited to 60 words or less.
Wow... the network and sharing center just sucks. So much bloat... And double clicking the network icon should default to "Manage network connections" instead of DOING NOTHING!

Also forgot to mention... SPEED. It is unacceptable for a high end PC to feel like Windows XP running on 256 MB RAM.

I didn't play very much with Vista but for now only two things come to my mind about Vista that I don't like...

1) The minimum computer resource requirements

2) The classic Explorer Shell is gone

These two points will make me wait for a new computer and then make a decision if I want those new GUI stuff before XP is not supported anymore by M$. Until then, I'm very happy with XP and will stick to it.

1. Protected Mode in IE does not work with UAC disabled.
2. Even as a system admin I still can not do anything I want.
3. Explorer refuses to obey the settings (applied to all folders).
4. Useless services, eg Software Licensing to run Control Panel.
5. As bkraptor posted, it feels like Windows is running really slow.
6. I had to take ownership of all files just to be able to remove them.

I haven't dug into Windows Vista yet so can't say much about it. Besides I'm quite happy with my WinXP Pro. However, I do have one issue with Vista I *can* talk about.... $$$

Me being an IT pro and wanting to have the best / biggest version, I'll be looking at Vista Ultimate. But at 400 Euros it seems priced a bit (understatement) to steep.

But that's just my (poor man's) opinion.

'nuff

the mostly buggy thing that i think about vista is:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

vista use our sources to something we are not gain nothing.....

What were you thinking??

• System requirements. Yuk. The computer crawls at 512mb ram.
• UAC. I know, I can turn it off. I'd like to be able to have a "whitelist" of programs to allow. Maybe have each user have a list of allowed programs that don't require a UAC prompt, so that each time I run an MMC snap in, which is quite often, I don't have to wait while the screen goes dim, the system groans and lurches, a UAC box slowly appears, and then click Continue.
• The logon prompt. Bring back the NT style logon prompt!! I know it's not all pretty, but I much prefer the "Classic" logon prompt, where you can select the domain, and then type the username and password. Much more professional; much fewer resources needed. Better. Also, the fast-user-switching setup is lame. If I lock the computer, anyone else can still log on by pressing Switch User. It doesn't secure the computer for you and ONLY you. Yes, I know it can be disabled. Good thing. Also, there's nowhere to type the user name, so an admin can't unlock the computer if someone else is logged on!
• Have during setup an option to install certain components or not. Do you want IE? What about WMP?, etc. Then, they could be installed later.
• Have a "classic" version of explorer. Maybe on the first log-on, the user could choose "Vista" explorer or "Classic" explorer. The classic version could basically be explorer.exe from windows xp, only with the fancy vista icons.
• What's up with the press ALT to get the menus? Just leave them there.
• Start menu. Bring back the XP start menu.
• Did I mention UAC?
• Why, oh WHY did it take me TEN MINUTED (literally!!) to find the network connections place? Where i could configure the ethernet adapters? Control panel > networking, much around, no, not here, my network places (hard to find...) look for link, no not there... ARRGGH!
• OK, that's all for now. Not to rant or anything, but my initial experiences with Vista have been quite negative.

I think this topic should be stickied.

I think Vista rocks.
I have my box running awesome.
I play games anything for hours not issues.
I have my group policy set up and uac on I think it's very well done.

1. can't install Wingroove and No Crystal FM synthesis Midi output.

2.screen flashes black and a prompt appears to install or view system files.

3. doesn't come with all previous window pictures, ect.

4.Can't change login picture.

5.s***ty programs and things already installed.

6.No Microsft Sam voice

7.Bad internet connections.

@nensondubois: Hey, that was 7!


@idontwantspam:
You complain about some things that I actually think are good things:

[*]System requirements. Yuk. The computer crawls at 512mb ram.
It's about freakin' time that hardware vendors ship machines with 1GB or more of RAM - it's been affordable (especially in bulk) for many years, but amounts are kept down for 2 reasons - 1, no real good usage of it and 2 - something to upsell. Let us start actually getting machines out there with 2GB of RAM or more as the norm, so we can do more with them - most people don't want to try and run Windows on 128MB of RAM, they want features (and those usually come with memory requirements). Features sell product, and I'm all for them, personally.


[*]The logon prompt. Bring back the NT style logon prompt!! I know it's not all pretty, but I much prefer the "Classic" logon prompt, where you can select the domain, and then type the username and password. Much more professional; much fewer resources needed. Better. Also, the fast-user-switching setup is lame. If I lock the computer, anyone else can still log on by pressing Switch User. It doesn't secure the computer for you and ONLY you. Yes, I know it can be disabled. Good thing. Also, there's nowhere to type the user name, so an admin can't unlock the computer if someone else is logged on!
Noooooooooooo!!!! Again I have to disagree with you on this one, even in domain environments. The old-style winlogon methods do not allow for fast-user switching, and also allowed developers to do things in winlogon that they absolutely should not be doing there (*cough*pcanywhere*cough*). Do away with the old style winlogon and use one common interface that is easy for everyone to use and understand, including home users. Oh, and fast user switching on domains is a good thing in my book, which you just can't do if the old-style winlogon box is the default. I don't have anything against it, per-se, but I'm not giving up FUS just so you can press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice to log in .

[*]What's up with the press ALT to get the menus? Just leave them there.
Users generally want things to be simpler when possible, and how many people really, honestly, actually use the file menu on a regular basis (the answer is very, very few - trust me, this was studied to death before it was removed). Normal, consumer and rank-and-file business employees do just about everything with the mouse, even in explorer. The biggest use of the file menu? File > Save. And that's about it. Give me back my screen real-estate, and I'll press ALT if I need those menus (and it really is very rare).

[*]Start menu. Bring back the XP start menu.
No again - leave me with the new start menu, which is not only much better at learning which 6 or 10 or whatever applications to line up in the recently used list, but also allows me to run commands and search my machine just by pressing the windows key on the keyboard or clicking the start button. After using that extensively since RC1, you'll not find me going back to the XP way of doing things ever again if it can be avoided.

[*]Why, oh WHY did it take me TEN MINUTED (literally!!) to find the network connections place? Where i could configure the ethernet adapters? Control panel > networking, much around, no, not here, my network places (hard to find...) look for link, no not there... ARRGGH!
Because, again, it should "just work". Home users and rank-and-file business users don't use the control panel and don't generally configure network settings. Again, simplification is almost universally preferred over complexity, especially with the Windows user-base. And I also approve of that, too - even though I do like to tweak things on initial setup, once it's done, I don't ever touch the control panel settings again.


I'm sure we'll have to agree to disagree, but I wanted to counter some of your points because I do feel the exact opposite on them.

4.Can't change login picture.
OOps!

Well, I agree with you about the RAM thing, and I've only tried it on lower-end machines in the RAM department. So I'll let you have that one.

Well, yes and no. They kind of do if you employ some little registry hacks. I don't like FUS, and I don't like the way it's implemented in Vista, particularly what I said about locking the computer. There should at least be an option to use the regular interface or the older interface. And no-one did much of anything to winlogon, but they did stuff to GINA, which can cause problems (cough*novell client for windows*cough*and many others*cough*) Press C-A-D twice? I only ever have to press it once. And vista does actually let you require Ctrl-Alt-Del; take a look at the group policy. Good thing! FUS and Ctrl-Alt-Del can live together.

Menus... I guess I rarely use them, now that I think about it, but I was very confused trying to find them. Whatever.

Well, on the start menu thing, they could at least have the option. I did away with the six-lat-used-things deal and just set the # of icons to 0, set it to small icons, and put in my own permanent links. I like that. I don't like having the panel which changes instead of the menus spreading across the screen. It's easier to see all my programs when it does it the XP way. The Run thing is nice, true, but they could incorporate that into the XP-style menu.

Exactly what I'm saying!!! It is too complex to get there - what's wrong with double-click on the icon, choose properties, and configure what I need to configure?! Now I get some network-thingamajig when double-clicking the icon.


So, i guess it's up to personal taste.