Six Vista Annoyances Fixed In Windows 7

[Guest Reimar]

Six Vista annoyances fixed in Windows 7

Vista Annoyance #1: That awkward Preview pane In Vista, it takes at least three mouse clicks, plus a selection from a cascading menu, to show the Preview pane, and you have to repeat the process to hide it again. With Windows 7 you can preview a file with one quick click.

Vista Annoyance #2: The overcomplicated Shutdown button Vista’s Shutdown menu has been roundly criticized for its cryptic icons and unintuitive options. In Windows 7, it’s been simplified dramatically to an easy-to-read, easy-to-customize text menu.

Vista Annoyance #3: Arranging windows, awkwardly Ever try to arrange two windows side by side in Windows Vista (or XP, or Windows 98, for that matter)? Windows 7 makes it dead simple with some genuinely innovative new window management gestures.

Vista Annoyance #4: Unpleasant User Account Control UAC is the Vista feature everyone loves to hate. Security always involves trade-offs with convenience, but with Windows 7, there’s a lot less to dislike about UAC.

Vista Annoyance #5: The ultra-minimalist Defrag utility The colorful, almost mesmerizing progress display from the XP-and-earlier Defrag utility is gone and never coming back. But Windows 7 does restore some much-needed progress indicators and offer more control than the stark Vista version.

Vista Annoyance #6: The no-options backup program In Windows Vista, every edition has a file backup program, but you can’t choose individual files or folders to back up. Windows 7 restores that option, courtesy of a “Let me choose” option that indicates a refreshing change of attitude for Microsoft’s UI designers.

Read the full article HERE

[zzdocxx]

Thx.

[webfact]

Has Vista Annoyance #7 also been fixed?

For Vista someone had to pay a lot of money in exchange for a lot of trouble...

Anything known yet about the retail price here in Thailand?

Edited January 8, 2009 by webfact

[Guest Reimar]

Has Vista Annoyance #7 also been fixed?

For Vista someone had to pay a lot of money in exchange for a lot of trouble...

Anything known yet about the retail price here in Thailand?

Unfortunate not any prices yet! I like to know that as well and as soon as I get them I'll post the price.

[regedit]

Has Vista Annoyance #7 also been fixed?

For Vista someone had to pay a lot of money...

Yep, that part's been fixed...

[bkkmick]

At work we use VisualBasic and SQL Enterprise Server which apparently don't work in Vista. Do you know if those work in Win7 Reimar?

Edited January 8, 2009 by bkkmick

[Pushit]

Reimar: Please advise the hardware resources required to run Windows 7 ie RAM CPU HD space etc

[Guest Reimar]

At work we use VisualBasic and SQL Enterprise Server which apparently don't work in Vista. Do you know if those work in Win7 Reimar?

SQL Server works with Vista! I think it will works with Win 7 as well and Visual Basic will works too.

Just before install right click on the setup file ->Properties ->Compatibility and check the box for to Run in Compatibility Mode Windows XP SP2.

I also run some 17 years old software on Vista in Mode Windows 95 and that works well!!

Reimar: Please advise the hardware resources required to run Windows 7 ie RAM CPU HD space etc

Less than Windows Vista and not more than XP to get the same and even better result! Even older Hardware works very well. d run Win 7 on an ols MSI MB with GB Ram and 80 GB HDD, VGA onBoard and the speed is faster than XP! and on the same computer as Vista (my Laptop) Core 2 Duo 1.66, 4 GB Ram, 320 GB HDD, boot time below 30 secs while Vista nearly 2 min with the same apps installed just two different Partitions!

Cheers.

[astral]

They sound like good reasons to stay in XP for the moment

and skip Vista all together.

[Guest Reimar]

They sound like good reasons to stay in XP for the moment

and skip Vista all together.

I want go back to XP!

Just installed to day on and new computer XP 5 times and get BSOD about 50 times. Installed Vista Ultimate and everythings works just fine!

From the point of security Vista also beats XP in all ways.

Cheers.

[britmaveric]

Personally love VISTA - much faster than XP. Any rate I'll jump on Windows 7 like I did Vista.

[Guest Reimar]

Personally love VISTA - much faster than XP. Any rate I'll jump on Windows 7 like I did Vista.

Win 7 is even faster (a lot) than Vista! I use the Beta 1 on my Laptop already and one desktop and haven't any problems yet, run's like a dream!

Cheers.

[britmaveric]

Good News - least for Windows 7, but I'll wait til the full release before I make the move.

Only complaint with VISTA is the UAC, and shutdown times.

[Familyonthemove]

What about the remaining 996 annoyances?

[Guest Reimar]

What about the remaining 996 annoyances?

No BSOD's!

Full support of Multi CPU's

and and and!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you talking about? Much much less annoyances than with XP!

Cheers.

[britmaveric]

Never had a blue screen in Vista and been running it now for nearly 2yrs unlike XP.

Edited January 10, 2009 by britmaveric

[Sabum]

I love Vista but it has given me headaches, still having a real hard time getting wireless to work well as compared to xp but thats due to old modems not working, this is Thailand so apartments that have internal internet will be working on older tech that is not compatible with Vista.... ugh. Also, trying to delete certain files is RIDICULOUS.. got to get permission from myself and still it wont let me... its my dam_n pc let me mutilate the dam_n files if I so wish, hate being treated like a child at my own pc. Microsoft actually FREELY ADMITTED that the UAC is solely there to ANNOY the end user, yes that is correct it is to annoy us to the point where we will apparently boycott programs that dont require the uac to go on alert and meet the correct safety requirements... ass backwards and stupid.. all it does is make us hate ms... not put any pressure on programmers to program their software in a way that meets the uac requirements so it doesnt ask you if you REALLY WANT TO? Evey single time.... other than that I love Vista.

[nikster]

Windows 7 is Microsoft's way of saying sorry that Vista was such crap. I hope it's going to be good...

UAC is just an example of bad decision making by MS. There are many ways one could go about implementing new security measures - UAC is probably the most idiotic I have seen. "We want it to annoy users" - you couldn't make that up if you tried.

Of course as long as Win7 has a registry it will suffer from gradual deterioration like all previous versions of Windows. The idea of a registry is simply bad.

[raro]

here's another one:

The Network and Sharing Center has become somewhat better organized. Especially connecting and disconnecting has now BUTTONS and not those tiny links that you cannot click fast enough when sitting in bkk traffic jam and moving by an unsecured network....

[dotcom]

Personally love VISTA - much faster than XP. Any rate I'll jump on Windows 7 like I did Vista.

As long as the price is 150 baht I'm in.

[Digitalbanana]

Personally love VISTA - much faster than XP. Any rate I'll jump on Windows 7 like I did Vista.

Eh? I have used XP and I have never found Vista faster other than in user friendliness when one works around the gripes such as UAC. That said, I will jump on the new products like you for ease of use. Unfortunately I don't have time for betas though, so will be waiting for the final before I make the move to Windows 7.

[sjaak327]

At work we use VisualBasic and SQL Enterprise Server which apparently don't work in Vista. Do you know if those work in Win7 Reimar?

Assuming you are referring to MS SQL server, any version lower then 2005 won't work in Vista, and won't work in Windows 7.

Old software will simply not magically work under Windows 7, that uses largly the same code base as Vista.

"UAC is just an example of bad decision making by MS. There are many ways one could go about implementing new security measures - UAC is probably the most idiotic I have seen. "We want it to annoy users" - you couldn't make that up if you tried.

"

Disgaree, and UAC is still there, and it's pretty much the same as in vista, they only made it more configurable. Again UAC is not an inch more annoying (actually less !) then OSX and it constant nagging for admin user ID and PWD, in Vista (and Windows 7) at least when logged on as admin, I can suffice with a single mouse click.

"Win 7 is even faster (a lot) than Vista"

nah it is just slightly faster, but of course this is compared to a bloated more then 2 year old vista installation. Actually I have four Operating systems on my current desktop, Vista X86 (bloated 2 year old install) OSX 10.5.5, Vista X64 (few weeks old) and Windows 7 X64, the speed difference between Vista X86 and the two new X64 installation is indeed noticeble, the difference between Windows 7 and Vista X64 is there, but I'm guessing it's not more then say 5-10%.

[Guest Reimar]

At work we use VisualBasic and SQL Enterprise Server which apparently don't work in Vista. Do you know if those work in Win7 Reimar?

Assuming you are referring to MS SQL server, any version lower then 2005 won't work in Vista, and won't work in Windows 7.

SQL Server 2003 works fine under Vista!! And I do believe it will works in Win 7 as well!

Old software will simply not magically work under Windows 7, that uses largly the same code base as Vista.

"UAC is just an example of bad decision making by MS. There are many ways one could go about implementing new security measures - UAC is probably the most idiotic I have seen. "We want it to annoy users" - you couldn't make that up if you tried.

"

Disgaree, and UAC is still there, and it's pretty much the same as in vista, they only made it more configurable. Again UAC is not an inch more annoying (actually less !) then OSX and it constant nagging for admin user ID and PWD, in Vista (and Windows 7) at least when logged on as admin, I can suffice with a single mouse click.

"Win 7 is even faster (a lot) than Vista"

nah it is just slightly faster, but of course this is compared to a bloated more then 2 year old vista installation. Actually I have four Operating systems on my current desktop, Vista X86 (bloated 2 year old install) OSX 10.5.5, Vista X64 (few weeks old) and Windows 7 X64, the speed difference between Vista X86 and the two new X64 installation is indeed noticeble, the difference between Windows 7 and Vista X64 is there, but I'm guessing it's not more then say 5-10%.

MS Excel Worksheet 49 MB and linked other sheets (nearly 50 of them):

start in Vista until all links working app. 15 minutes;

start in Win 7 until all links working app. 5 minutes

Saving of the same file the same differences.

Startup of Vista on my Laptop (Core 2 Duo 1.66, 4 GB) 1 min 40 sec.

Shutdown of Vista on my Laptop 2 minutes

Startup Win 7 on my Laptop on Partition: 32 sec.

Shutdown Win 7 on my Laptop: max. 20 sec.

And that is anything but slightly faster!

64 Bit I'll install tomorrow and post the result about the same later.

By the way: BOTH partituion (Vista Part.1 ande Win 7 Part.2) contains the same application software!

Cheers.

[webfact]

I don't care if I gain a few seconds faster shut down, or I can open a file in 0.8 seconds instead of 1.1 seconds...

Thats mathematics and nice to read, "woow, I can just save 2.5 seconds of precious production time". Come on. Stability and reliability, thats important.

It would be also interesting to learn from some "field tests", how to upgrade from a perfectly running xp installation to Win7. I guess a lot of users will go this way because they need to maintain their personal settings.

[sjaak327]

I don't care if I gain a few seconds faster shut down, or I can open a file in 0.8 seconds instead of 1.1 seconds...

Thats mathematics and nice to read, "woow, I can just save 2.5 seconds of precious production time". Come on. Stability and reliability, thats important.

It would be also interesting to learn from some "field tests", how to upgrade from a perfectly running xp installation to Win7. I guess a lot of users will go this way because they need to maintain their personal settings.

It's simple really, I would ALWAYS advise not to upgrade an existing windows installation. Period.

It's hardly rocket science to save your documents, favourites and other related stuff, format the HD and install a fresh copy of the OS. I don't think (but I'm not 100% sure) that upgrading will only work from Vista to Windows 7, not from XP to Windows 7.

Stability and reliability has never been a problem for me running Vista (on quite a few machines), so far the Beta (build 7000) and pre beta (build 6801) of windows 7 have been very stable and reliable, considering the fact that one is pre beta and the other beta.

One thing to note is that Windows 7 is basically Vista, but with added Gui improvements, Vista's Aero, has been improved with a few very handy features, of which Aero shake and Aero Peek (which is really really great, and will enhance and improve the time needed to locate the windows that you have currently open).

The new taksbasr, with the jumplists is also a good improvement, it's similar to OSX's dock, but much better. And I prefer to use it as the replacement of quicklaunch, not have to many pinned icons in there. The jumplist features in both the new taksbar and the startmenu are great enhancements.

[sjaak327]

Oh and Reimar, there is no such thing as Ms SQL server 2003...

You are probably referring to the SQL server that was released in 2003 for 64 bit systems, but the version number is still 8.0, which is sQL server 2000.

And that will not run under Vista nor Windows 7.

For Vista and Server 2008, the minimum SQL Version is 2005.

[Guest Reimar]

Oh and Reimar, there is no such thing as Ms SQL server 2003...

You are probably referring to the SQL server that was released in 2003 for 64 bit systems, but the version number is still 8.0, which is sQL server 2000.

And that will not run under Vista nor Windows 7.

For Vista and Server 2008, the minimum SQL Version is 2005.

Yes, the 64 Bit running on vista 64 bit, has printed on CD: Version 2003.

But the SQL server 2000 (Express) is running on Server 2008 and that means it will run on Vista as well and Windows 7 Too. But that I can directly check within a few days becaus one of our customers runn a Barcode software which didn't run with SQL Server 2005, max 2000 and I'll change his Server 2003 to Server 2008 in a few days.

Will let you know the outcome.

[sjaak327]

Oh and Reimar, there is no such thing as Ms SQL server 2003...

You are probably referring to the SQL server that was released in 2003 for 64 bit systems, but the version number is still 8.0, which is sQL server 2000.

And that will not run under Vista nor Windows 7.

For Vista and Server 2008, the minimum SQL Version is 2005.

Yes, the 64 Bit running on vista 64 bit, has printed on CD: Version 2003.

But the SQL server 2000 (Express) is running on Server 2008 and that means it will run on Vista as well and Windows 7 Too. But that I can directly check within a few days becaus one of our customers runn a Barcode software which didn't run with SQL Server 2005, max 2000 and I'll change his Server 2003 to Server 2008 in a few days.

Will let you know the outcome.

Wow, maybe I'm confusing the MSDE (desktop edition) even the MSDE 2000 will not work with Server 2008, which means that I need to virtualize one server, as that software only runs with an old SQL server version.

[nikster]

Just installed the beta. I just put the ISO on a USB stick, clicked on setup (in XP) and half an hour later it was installed. Excellent stuff.

I was offered to upgrade my XP partition but I am not crazy - this is a beta, after all. Installed it on D: drive instead.

So far it's been running great and seems like it finally delivers what was promised with Vista - not the world, but just a nicer looking interface and little improvements here or there. Many Vista annoyances have been removed - the UAC now is reasonable, just like on OS X. One click connect to WiFi networks. No giant screen-filling dialog boxes so far. Looks like a major, major cleanup to me.

One thing that impressed me: It started in VGA mode but I was able to upgrade the driver and it correctly detected my ATI mobility X1600 and installed the drivers. This is one feature that never worked in XP - it was there, it just never worked. Now it works, apparently. Very cool.