I will not buy Windows 7 unless it has ... *Feature*

[majortom1981]

For me Windows 7 needs to be modular...

Install the basics, as mentioned here start menu, task bar...etc.. just the small bits and pieces to make teh PC run. Have ability to add/remove anything else...

I only use windows at home for gaming, so less system resources for the OS and more performance to games :p

Oh and reduce the footprint..and OS should not take 15Gb (even XP takes 1.5Gb) and OS should be small.....

vista has a winsxs folder that is most of vista's footprint. It takes up 8 gigs on my hdd and its very annoying.

[xinary]

I'm not buying it unless it comes with built in USB robot arm to wipe my arse...in 64 bit.

[brandnewfantx]

Get a bigger HD -^

To be honest I have a 250 GB just for Vista, So I don't really have to worry about these "Space Issues"

One thing I would like to see is a reduced price for upgrades, I don't want to have shell out a ton of cash for a new OS.

[xendrome]

1. Improve performance over Vista.

2. Modular install for space savings and ease of backup. (I don't need every language installed)

3. Make it easier to migrate settings to new machine.

4. Complete overhaul of the search feature (schedule, index filenames only, index right now, etc.)

5. An actual File Manager like Directory Opus 9.

I'm shocked at how little has changed from XP to Vista after 5 years of working on it so I don't have high hopes for Windows 7.

1: Performance will be improved, because by then you'll be running a 8 core CPU with 8GB of ram.

2: The language updates are optional, you don't have to install them.

3: The Windows Easy Transfer works pretty good, have you ever even tried it? It works on a Network or via Removable Media.

[nX07]

I will buy it.. regardless... that's just me haha.

[majortom1981]

Get a bigger HD -^

To be honest I have a 250 GB just for Vista, So I don't really have to worry about these "Space Issues"

One thing I would like to see is a reduced price for upgrades, I don't want to have shell out a ton of cash for a new OS.

Total space is not a problem .Its just I hate having a folder that takes up 8 gigs thats there just incase i download a bad program and that also has files for 64bit in it when I only have the 32bit version of the OS.

[spacer]

-modular design: allow me to install only the stuff I want/use (like Linux)

-smaller footprint

-better performance: yeah I know we'll all have multicore CPUs with several gigs of RAM by the time W7 comes out. But I don't want to have to use 60% of those resources just for the OS.

-built in support for customized themes

Basically all of these would be possible, and most importantly feasible, if MS would throw away the crappy legacy code and start from scratch. But, thats just a pipe dream. I don't have high hopes for Windows 7.

[outlando]

Hopefully by the time it's out I'll have educated my missus on how to use Ubuntu, so I won't need Windows any more :p

[Lt-DavidW]

How about...

- Decent anti-virus security.

Microsoft would get sued by the EU for being anticompetitive.

Or write the OS so it can't get viruses. Far fetched, but it'd be nice.

That's the purpose of UAC, but most people disable it. It's impossible to make a computer both 100% secure and 100% efficient. You have to reach a compromise between security and usability.

- Built in theme support. Which is why I love Linux; you can make it look like anything.

Would be nice, but Microsoft are far too protective of their closed source to allow access to the shell.

- A partitioner that actually works during install. Cuz I don't know how many times I've installed XP and it hasn't been able to detect my Linux drives (which it should) or my OS X drives.

Not sure how much of a problem this is to other people, but I've had no problems.

- Doesn't make me feel like downgrading to Vista, or XP for that matter.

Care to elaborate why Vista makes you feel this way?

[tunafish]

Well what i want in Windows 7 is the following

Remove the current compatability thing and replace it with sandbox emulation. As half the time stuff never seems to work with it for me.

Fixed folder/file icons on desktop. So when i hit arrange they dont all go back to the left side etc, they will be arranged in their group orders. So as such grouped desktop icons and folders, no matter were i have them on the desktop.

Something that will monitor what gets added to the startup part of msconfig, and having an option saying you want this program to be added to the startup thing or not. As some of the time programs will add them to it and not tell you etc.

Something i know maynot be in Windows 7 but is cool - A totally modular OS, meaning less restarts for updated stuff, only reload the module as such.

[markwolfe Veteran]

ON xp and vista couldnt you just create shortcuts for the drives and put them onto the desktop by right clicking on the drive and creating a shortcut?

Wouldn't you have to manually create all of these? And, in the case of removeable media (usb sticks, CD/DVDs) you would have to have them created and present, even when no media is present.

I think MrEggsalad is looking for icons that appear when media is there, and go away when it is removed. There are probably add-ons to Windows that already do this.

...

- A partitioner that actually works during install. Cuz I don't know how many times I've installed XP and it hasn't been able to detect my Linux drives (which it should) or my OS X drives.

...

I assume you are a Linux user (your username is a giveaway). I am a Linux user as well, but I see no reason that Microsoft should be made to (or would want to) deal with other OS filesystems. Should they support ext3? ext4? ReiserFS? XFS? Asking for "Linux filesystem" support is asking for an awful lot, and then people will rightfully blame Microsoft when it doesn't work. All for what? About 1% of the population?

I don't think so.

[ViperAFK]

They need to change their whole licensing scheme it's getting way overly restrictive and ridiculous and does nothing but hurt the legal users.

Mainly, I would like it to be more modular, I mean I never have to restart linux or OSX after updates, but with windows installing updates or many programs you need to restart. I just want windows 7 to be a very polished/secure/stable upgrade.

[markwolfe Veteran]

^^^ Yeah, something like Apple's "family Pack" would be great!

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Seems like about half the features listed here are already in Vista...

[Slimy]

WinFS.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

yeah but that will unconditionally set all folder views to the view type i have chosen for that folder, i want to selectively choose how to view certain filetypes, eg i like viewing music as tiles, images as thumbnails, videos as a list, etc...

It already works exactly how you want it to. The "Apply to Folders" button applies to all folders of that type. So if you're in a music folder, you set it up the way you want, then click Apply To Folders and it makes all "music" folders look that way. Then you can go to an image folder, and do the same thing.

Otherwise if you change an individual folder and don't use Apply To Folders, Explorer remembers for that folder.

WinFS.

What possible reason could you have to want WinFS? WinFS isn't a feature. It was a technology that didn't work and wasn't useful. We already have most of the features that were going to be powered by WinFS.

You don't want WinFS. You may think you do, but trust me, you don't.

[Gabureiru]

I would like for the next version of WinOS, to removed or have an option to be installed, all the components elements. Vista should have been a great OS, but, since MS wanted to bundle Media Center module to it, it start having driver issues.

If you want Media Center, sell it separately and make it easy to install as an addon

[gxsaurav]

[*]An OS is meant to be secure, right? So how about bundling Windows Defender and Windows Live OneCare in Windows 7? That would increase the sales!

[*]Bundle Office into Windows 7 (or at least a minimal version)

[*]The ability to use custom themes right out of the box, without having to download a modified uxtheme.dll.

Microsoft will be sued by third party vendors like LavaSoft & Symantec (Again) for killing the competition

[markwolfe Veteran]

Microsoft will be sued by third party vendors like LavaSoft & Symantec (Again) for killing the competition

When has that stopped them in the past?

[dysmatik]

WinFS.

second that.

[P!P]

It doesn't need to have any new features as long as there's a significant performance increase.

[1Frothy]

I would also like to see the sidebar and taskbar mergable. I should be able to have components of sidebar running docked in the taskbar.

[Slimy]

When has that stopped them in the past?

Well obviously we don't know because Microsoft doesn't announce things like "Vista will not feature Windows Live OneCare" ;)

[The Grasshopper]

Windows 7 would have to be faster than vista. i'd really like vista to open programs faster. have a faster startup. it can be embarrising when you are bragging about it to xp die hards and it loads up slower than win2000.

this laptop has two gig o'ram, a dedicated graphics card and a dual core turion.

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Yeah.

I refuse do buy it when there is no mouse cursors!

:rofl: awesome LOL