How do you like Windows 7?

[Specially Cork]

Why are we viewing pictures with Internet Explorer?

[BlackAura]

I think the task bar and quick launch should be merged, if they are doing the Mac Os X thing they should do it right. Because it is a tad bit inconvenient now, to have half the items on one side and half on the other.

Err... It already does that.

It behaves kind of like the Mac OS X Dock. Icons for pinned applications remain on the taskbar whether the application is running or not. If it's not running, clicking on the icon starts the application. Otherwise, it displays the application's window.

The problem is that it doesn't really work. If your application only uses one window, and you're only ever running one copy of it, it works fine. If your application uses multiple windows, clicking on the icon just shows you a set of thumbnails. For most applications, these thumbnails will look nearly identical, and they will be in a random order which can not be changed. You either have to select each one in turn, or hold the mouse over each of them for a few seconds until you find the one you want.

The worst offender here is Windows Explorer. It's so easy to end up with multiple windows open, and the thumbnails are completely identical.

Internet Explorer presents each tab in this fashion as well. So if you have one IE window open, with five tabs, you can't simply switch to that window from the taskbar. You have to click the IE icon, and look at the thumbnails to work out which page you want. No way to know which page is currently active, of course. If you remember, tabs became popular because using the taskbar to manage large numbers of open websites is very clumsy. Using thumbnails is, if anything, even worse. Unfortunately, it looks like Firefox is adding this feature in the next version...

How about opening another window for an application that's already running? Say, you have Firefox or IE running, but they're only showing a download window, and you want to go to a web page. You click the button, and the download window appears. At least in Mac OS X, you can right-click the icon and open a new window. Usually.

Basically, the thing's unusable without keyboard shortcuts. You have to know that holding shift while clicking the taskbar icon opens a new instance. You have to know that holding control opens one of the applications windows, or cycles through the open windows (in an apparently random order), which is irritating, but still faster than using the thumbnails.

What about applications like Windows Messenger, which try to be clever by moving their icons from the notification area to the taskbar. Good idea. Unfortunately, it does this by having a fake window open all the time. If you just have the main window open, it acts as if you have two windows open, requiring you to use the thumbnails to select which one you want.

The other problem is that we've changed the taskbar to be application-centric, but the rest of the system remains window-centric, or has remnants of the Windows 95 era document-centric approach. You still have keyboard shortcuts to switch between windows, but no keyboard shortcuts to switch between windows in the current application.

Otherwise... it's not that bad. I've been nearly unable to tolerate Windows XP since... 2004 or so. I've mostly been using a combination of various Linuxes, and Mac OS X. Windows XP feels primitive by comparison, and I always felt like I was being continually harassed by both the system, and most of the applications. Not to mention that the theme is hideous...

Vista felt less primitive, but most of the UI felt completely unfinished, and many of the new features actually felt like regressions. Not to mention the terrible support for older hardware, and the abysmal performance. If anything, the feeling of being harassed by the OS got worse in Vista. There were even more notification balloons than in Windows XP. They bothered implementing UAC (at last - running as a non-admin user and running certain applications with elevated privileges is something that both Linux and Mac OS X have always had), and even writing guidelines on how to make applications work with UAC, but didn't bother following those guidelines for the operating system itself. That resulted in the barrage of UAC prompts for doing almost everything.

They partially fixed the UAC issue in Windows 7. Which is to say they didn't fix it at all. They just allowed certain components shipped with the OS to automatically elevate themselves without a prompt. It gets rid of the UAC prompt at least, but blows a huge hole in the protection UAC was supposed to provide.

Windows 7 feels a lot a finished version of Vista. They finished the bits and pieces they missed last time around, cleaned off a lot of the rougher edges, and even fixed a few issues from Windows XP. The notification area which only shows notifications that the user has enabled is long overdue. Despite being rather clumsy, the new taskbar does work better than the Windows XP one. It's a lot faster than Vista, and on high-end hardware, it's faster than Windows XP as well.

It's good enough that, for the first time in six years, I don't recoil in terror at the thought of having to use a Windows machine.

The Vista-style start menu is still useless though. The only thing that works properly is the search box, and the frequently used applications list (which is redundant, considering you can just pin them to the taskbar anyway). The only thing I use the Start menu for in Windows 7 is the shut down command, and that only because they managed to break the keyboard shortcuts for it...

[Specially Cork]

The worst offender here is Windows Explorer. It's so easy to end up with multiple windows open, and the thumbnails are completely identical.

They are all clearly titled at the top...it's a rare occasion that you're going to have multiple windows of he same app with the same title open - especially in a browser. I guess it depends on how big you have your icons too - in my case...pretty large.

but no keyboard shortcuts to switch between windows in the current application.

If it is one of the first nine on the taskbar you can use windows key+number to shift between windows in that application.

[Quzar]

How about opening another window for an application that's already running? Say, you have Firefox or IE running, but they're only showing a download window, and you want to go to a web page. You click the button, and the download window appears. At least in Mac OS X, you can right-click the icon and open a new window. Usually.

Maybe I changed my setting in an extreme way, but when I right click on a taskbar item, I'm presented with the the option of closing the window, pinning it to the taskbar, or opening a new one. If the item is grouped, it also gives the ability to switch between active windows. For many it also gives a 'recently opened with this application' list (this works for me with windows explorer, Opera, MPC-HC, and others)

They partially fixed the UAC issue in Windows 7.

To this and the previous thing about UAC: I've found the biggest problem that people tend to have with UAC is that their first interaction with the newly installed OS is to install all their software, new drivers, and change system settings to their liking. So the first exposure to the UAC prompt is getting it every time they want to do... any thing they're doing. In normal use, it shouldn't appear often at all. One thing I thought they got really right (for the average user) was the screen dimming. I've found that most users see popups that are between them and installing something and simply click 'ok' regardless of what it might say. The screen dimming really sets it apart from the rest of the 'popup noise'.

[cube_b3]

Why are we viewing pictures with Internet Explorer?

Because they are on a website www.something.com/some.jpeg

[cube_b3]

I think the task bar and quick launch should be merged, if they are doing the Mac Os X thing they should do it right. Because it is a tad bit inconvenient now, to have half the items on one side and half on the other.

Err... It already does that.

It behaves kind of like the Mac OS X Dock. Icons for pinned applications remain on the taskbar whether the application is running or not. If it's not running, clicking on the icon starts the application. Otherwise, it displays the application's window.

Just to clarify I didn't read everything you wrote, moving on what my complaint is that Task Bar & Quick Launch shouldn't be seperate anymore cause it is slightly inconvenient:

For example I am using a software that is programmed to go automatically in the task bar when it is minimized, it will immediately disappear from the Quick Launch

Programs include Internet Download Manager and Bit Torrent. I don't have a lot of softwares on thepc right now so I can't give more examples but I am sure Winamp would be experiencing this as well.

[Specially Cork]

Why are we viewing pictures with Internet Explorer?

Because they are on a website http://www.something.com/some.jpeg

Fine,
Why are we viewing websites with Internet Explorer?

[Quzar]

Why are we viewing pictures with Internet Explorer?

Because they are on a website http://www.something.com/some.jpeg

Not Found

The requested URL /some.jpeg was not found on this server.
Apache/2.2.15 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.15 OpenSSL/0.9.8m PHP/5.2.13 Server at www.something.com Port 80

[Jeeba Jabba]

Scratch that. Bad Company 2 just crashed on me.

[Specially Cork]

Scratch that. Bad Company 2 just crashed on me.

It wouldn't crash on Xuboontix Flamingo Linux. You should get that!!!!!

[melancholy]

I've been using 7 since beta, and even then it was better than Vista.

I've been using Windows forever and have no intentions of ever switching. I've tried both OSX and Linux, but I'm so used to Windows that I couldn't stand either of them. Especially Linux, since I couldn't even get the thing to install without scouring the internet for hours trying to figure out why I couldn't get video on the install screen.

[Specially Cork]

I've tried Linux a few times and everytime I just run into huge problems.

I'd love to try Mac, but try means "live with for a few weeks" - and I don't believe there's a way of doing that.

[BlackAura]

If it is one of the first nine on the taskbar you can use windows key+number to shift between windows in that application.

Better than nothing, but it still requires you to know whether the app you're using is one of the first nine, and which number it is. Nowhere near as quick as Cmd+~ on a Mac.

Maybe I changed my setting in an extreme way, but when I right click on a taskbar item, I'm presented with the the option of closing the window, pinning it to the taskbar, or opening a new one.

I don't remember seeing that. That said, I only looked in the beta, and couldn't find one. Then I worked out the keyboard way, and never bothered checking the release version. And I posted from a Mac, so I couldn't check.

Hmm... Firefox on a Mac doesn't have a new window option on it's right-click menu, for some reason. Safari does though. Seems to be application specific. I think the jumplists in Windows 7 are the same way.

The screen dimming really sets it apart from the rest of the 'popup noise'.

First thing I turned off, actually. Then again, I'm abnormal - I actually read things, and I know when to expect a UAC dialog.

Personally, I have this thing against modal dialog boxes (dialog boxes that block the entire application). Aside from being annoying, in most cases I consider them to be a sign of lazy design. Same goes for pointless notification pop-ups. Most of them could be completely removed if the application developers stopped to think about what they're doing. It doesn't help that Microsoft have abused both modal dialogs and notifications in the past, and many application developers justify bad UI design by saying that it must be OK if Microsoft are doing it.

I work on software for a living, and do a fair bit of UI work. I've learned how badly normal users respond to popup noise. I just find it irritating, but normal users find it absolutely baffling, often to the point of being completely paralyzed by indecision (but never to the point of actually reading the message).

I had one case at work where we added a crash reporting system to an application. In testing, we got plenty of testers saying that the application had crashed, but virtually no crash reports being sent. I sat down with one of the testers and watched them crash the application. The crash reporting dialog popped up, with buttons labelled "send crash report" and "do not send crash report", and the tester hit the "do not send crash report" without hesitation. When I asked her about it, she didn't even know what the dialog box was for - she just instinctively clicked the "no" button to get rid of the dialog box...

Having a dialog box that blocks the entire system annoys me even more. For average users, it's probably a necessary annoyance, since years of exposure to badly written applications has trained them to blindly click through things without reading them.

OK, rant over...

I'd love to try Mac, but try means "live with for a few weeks" - and I don't believe there's a way of doing that.

No, there isn't.

You can install Windows on a Mac easily enough. Of course, that means you'd actually have to buy a Mac first.

Running Mac OS X on a standard PC kind of works, but tends to run quite poorly. It also requires intimate knowledge of Mac OS X to set up, and often actually requires a Mac to start from.

Borrowing a Mac, or trying one in a shop, doesn't help either. As you say, you need to live with it for a few weeks. A long-time Windows user trying to use a Mac generally finds it frustrating, since it doesn't behave the way they expect. The first impression they usually get, especially if they're used to Windows' quirks, is that it's broken or useless.

[Code-Red]

Borrowing a Mac, or trying one in a shop, doesn't help either. As you say, you need to live with it for a few weeks. A long-time Windows user trying to use a Mac generally finds it frustrating, since it doesn't behave the way they expect. The first impression they usually get, especially if they're used to Windows' quirks, is that it's broken or useless.

Summed up my words beautifully. I got rid of my iMac G4 after about two months of trying to get adjusted to OSX, and couldnt.

I had an easier time picking up Linux.

[cube_b3]

Why are we viewing pictures with Internet Explorer?

Because they are on a website http://www.something.com/some.jpeg

Fine,
Why are we viewing websites with Internet Explorer?

Because it has better compatability with other softwares on Windows
where as google chrome has no compatability with Mass Downloader.

[JuddWack]

Thanks guys! I'm gonna see if I can get my upgrade.

[Specially Cork]

Why are we viewing pictures with Internet Explorer?

Because they are on a website http://www.something.com/some.jpeg

Fine,
Why are we viewing websites with Internet Explorer?

Because it has better compatability with other softwares on Windows
where as google chrome has no compatability with Mass Downloader.

www.getfirefox.com
www.downthemall.net

[not just souLLy now]

itt users discuss methods of automatically downloading all of the linked porn images in a thumbnail gallery

[cube_b3]

Why are we viewing pictures with Internet Explorer?

http://www.getfirefox.com
http://www.downthemall.net

I hate firefox.

[impetus]

I can see why people might cling to XP, but if you're on Vista, there's really no reason not to upgrade to 7 unless for some reason you can't have an IE8 base. It's really so much better. The only thing that really annoys me about it is the newest version of Windows Media Player - it's utter garbage that mucked up the interface and makes it nigh unusable.

I edited the taskbars and Quicklaunch so that they look and run just like XP. Much better this way.