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

[markwolfe Veteran]

They've been so successful, after all.

Meh. The person you quoted was talking about technical aspects. Your 'evidence' is a marketing reply. I would be hard-pressed to support the claim that McDonalds burgers were great burgers because they are the #1 seller. That avoids the technical aspects and substitutes marketing success in its place.

One can point out that Microsoft's overall marketshare is declining slightly (yeah, I know, what's roughly 96% to 92% anyway?). But, truth is, Microsoft does not want to see any decline. They un-disbanded (not a word, but it fits) the IE team when Firefox started infringing on the browser market. I am sure there is a group at Microsoft that is concerned about any slow leak in marketshare, even if they are still an overwhelming market dominator.

_{Edited to replace my rough numbers of 95% & 90% with values obtained from hitslink}

Edited May 17, 2008 by markjensen

[betasp]

I, too, would like to see Windows get away from the registry and go to a single file install for an Applications. That would remove the need for the Add/Remove Windows Programs, and remove the need for uninstallers (Drag application to the recycle bin). Hard Drive space is no longer and issue and .dll files are extremely small. Do you think anyone would notice if every game has an extra 40MB of DirectX built into the executable?

[markwolfe Veteran]

...

Do you think anyone would notice if every game has an extra 40MB of DirectX built into the executable?

Yikes.

Requiring every app to be self-contained like that (to each having their own versions of DirectX bundled with them, individually installed just for that app) sounds... well... awful. :x

Shared libraries aren't a problem. Windows, Linux and OSX (presumably, since I don't have personal experience with it) are all very capable of managing things like that.

[betasp]

Yikes.

Requiring every app to be self-contained like that (to each having their own versions of DirectX bundled with them, individually installed just for that app) sounds... well... awful. :x

Shared libraries aren't a problem. Windows, Linux and OSX (presumably, since I don't have personal experience with it) are all very capable of managing things like that.

Actually, many of those OSs have one file installs. They handle managed resources differently and don't require anything like the Registry. You are not getting the point, though. Nothing would be "installed." Nothing additional. Just grad the executable from the CD/DVD to the computer and then run it. No more install/uninstall.

[Julius Caro]

Actually, many of those OSs have one file installs. They handle managed resources differently and don't require anything like the Registry. You are not getting the point, though. Nothing would be "installed." Nothing additional. Just grad the executable from the CD/DVD to the computer and then run it. No more install/uninstall.

By one file installs you mean something like the way some linuxes manage packages (.deb, .rpm, etc), or the way many OS X apps are drag-and-drop installs?

Neither is self-contained nor "one-file". If anything, they're just "one-click". If an app needs a library that wasn't bundled with that library, they just ask the OS to tell it where it is, or depending on the OS they look on this or that folder.

On debian based distrubutions, the package manager keeps tracks of everything, solves the dependencies, etc. On OS X I think an .app file is just a container, which would be no different that a folder inside "program files", and I suppose it has a configuration file to tell the OS which binary to run when a app file is opened.

It's not a matter of how an application is installed (although we all agree that easy one-click installs are ideal in some cases), but how the OS becomes aware of what applications are installed. On windows this is done via the registry (I believe), on debian based distros this is done by apt, and on OS x there's the application folder. In all three cases you can just put a program in whichever folder you like and run it and the OS will simply not acknowledge anything has been 'installed'.

But they DO require something like the registry. .DEB package files have a configuration file inside, which tells apt what the dependencies are, and where the files should be copied to, and for those apps that require initial configuration, everything is in the .DEB. That's the 'registry' in this case. It's not the registry, but you still need something to keep track of installed apps

[soldier1st]

if you ask me Windows 7 should be 64bit only and all that legacy code should go as well(It wont be easy), it was good for a time but you can only hold onto old code for so long and the Idea that has MS has about a subscription based model is very stupid and should not be introduced.

[markwolfe Veteran]

...

But they DO require something like the registry. .DEB package files have a configuration file inside, which tells apt what the dependencies are, and where the files should be copied to, and for those apps that require initial configuration, everything is in the .DEB. That's the 'registry' in this case. It's not the registry, but you still need something to keep track of installed apps

A tiny blurb of text listing dependencies for automatic resolution in a .deb file is nothing like a system-wide registry that is loaded at startup.

The .deb file is read, processed, then purged from memory when done. It is not needed any more.

I think I know what general direction you were heading, but just wanted to clarify the whole ".deb is equivalent" thing.

[stevember]

I'm not even sure what you're asking. Users can control start-up tasks via Windows Defender (or msconfig.exe for the more advanced users).

Yes, but most wouldn't know where to start (not talking about Neowinians).

Over time more apps and drivers start with windows pre-login, most I think don't need to. I believe this can potently make win 7 more stable if pre-login start-up couldn't be added to.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

A tiny blurb of text listing dependencies for automatic resolution in a .deb file is nothing like a system-wide registry that is loaded at startup.

The entire registry is not loaded at start-up. That's one of its advantages. You don't need to load data until it is needed. If we have one simple XML file for all of COM registration, it would be HUGE and would have to either be loaded and parsed at start-up and held in-memory forever... or it would need to be loaded and parsed (very slow process if it's XML) every time someone calls CoCreateInstance. The effect of that on performance would be enormous, and so your only option is to keep that whole thing loaded in memory all the time.

So maybe that's not so bad. It just makes start-up slower than it is today in Windows (load the whole file, parse the XML) and increases memory usage, but after that it should work alright. Until someone updates it. Then you have to write out the entire thing again and go through a slow XML generation process. Clearly this is far from ideal.

The .deb file is read, processed, then purged from memory when done. It is not needed any more.

I think I know what general direction you were heading, but just wanted to clarify the whole ".deb is equivalent" thing.

I don't know what .deb is, but if it is an XML description of the application's dependencies, it would be rather like the application manifest in Windows, which incidentally is also XML (and it is where apps hook up registry-free COM).

Apps have no requirement to use the registry. They can already do registry-free COM. And of course they're free to use XML for their own configuration persistence (my own Start++ app does this, although I dare say it isn't quite yet perfect). So there is no requirement at all that applications rely on the registry for anything. In fact it's easy enough to write a fully-functional application that doesn't use the registry at all, even indirectly (of course, you can't use .NET since that automatically leads to some indirect registry usage, CoCreates, etc).

For the OS, it seems the only thing being argued is the persistence format. I have yet to see any reason why would you switch to a monolithic flat-file plaintext format with inherent performance penalies. Not when you already have a binary persistence format that has undergone years of optimization for its specific uses.

If your problem is the API, well, bring up your concerns and I'm sure the registry guys will consider them. Or just write a wrapper that works the way you want.

If your problem is the human readability of the raw data, then send your complaints to whoever wrote regedit.exe. Of course, that was only written for debugging purposes, and isn't meant to be a shining example of user-friendliness. But there are several third-party registry viewers / editors. Or you can write your own.

But so far the argument seems to be "fast binary format bad, slow XML text format good." Frankly I don't why anyone would support that argument.

[markwolfe Veteran]

A .deb file is the package installation file. It contains a list of what it depends on, as well as the payload. If the intelligent installer sees it needs a dependency that isn't currently installed, it flags those items for install as well.

Once you give permission to install, it installs the .deb file payload (and any dependencies that were identified). After the package is installed, the process terminates. Mission complete. ;)

I don't know what part(s) of the registry are loaded at Windows startup, but I do know that it must read at least parts of the registry in, as a lot of user/system information is contained in there. I say (nor did I mean to imply) that every single byte of it is read into memory at startup, and your clarifications are appreciated.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

A .deb file is the package installation file. It contains a list of what it depends on, as well as the payload. If the intelligent installer sees it needs a dependency that isn't currently installed, it flags those items for install as well.

Once you give permission to install, it installs the .deb file payload (and any dependencies that were identified). After the package is installed, the process terminates. Mission complete. ;)

Neat. Sounds similar to ClickOnce, and also the installer work being done as part of VS 2008 SP1, for .NET apps. But then, this is an installer technology, and really has little to do with the persistence format of the Windows registry. Heck it hardly has anything to do with the registry at all.

I don't know what part(s) of the registry are loaded at Windows startup, but I do know that it must read at least parts of the registry in, as a lot of user/system information is contained in there.

Right, because the registry is the Windows configuration database, so Windows loads lots of configuration data from there. It's also the database for component registration, so creation of most COM objects involves accessing the registry, and Windows sure does a lot of CoCreates. We try to avoid hitting the registry when it isn't necessary, and we're working to cut down the number of accesses in existing components. But when it is necessary, I'd much rather be reading from the registry than from an XML file...

[markwolfe Veteran]

Neat. Sounds similar to ClickOnce, and also the installer work being done as part of VS 2008 SP1, for .NET apps. But then, this is an installer technology, and really has little to do with the persistence format of the Windows registry. Heck it hardly has anything to do with the registry at all.

:p

Which is why I wanted to correct where Julius Caro said that a .deb was the registry (then also said it wasn't, so I think he knew the point he was trying to make, but it wasn't clear - especially when it included a statement saying that it was a *nix registry)

Yup. Load into memory. Process for install. Release memory back to OS. :yes:

[_bobcat_ Veteran]

I think the user interface needs to be cleaner and simpler. Vista feels like a lot of fluff which is one reason I don't like it very much. A much more customisable UI would also be nice although I can see why MS might prefer not to allow completely open skinning.

I have found both XP and Vista to be painful when trying to do anything network related. Things are unreliable and you have to *learn* where everything is. You can't look at it for the first time and recognise what's going on and where to look for things. To be fair to XP I was a noob when I started using it with very little knowledge about networks, but the same can't be said for Vista.

It's becoming more and more common for there to be several computers in the households of non-techy people so I think they need to work hard on making networking as easy and seamless as possible.

Another problem I have is they way MS try and force usage of Internet Explorer. I'm happy for it to be bundled with the operating system but I am not happy that you HAVE to use Internet Explorer in order to get updates and that other MS software tries to force you to use it. For example I remember MSN always opening stuff in IE even if another browser was set to the default. If I have chosen to use another browser, that choice should be respected.

It needs to play nicely with other operating systems instead of pretending that no one ever dual boots. I absolutely will not have anything to do with Windows 7 if it can not do this properly. I am strongly opposed to the kind of anti-choice thinking that leads to a Windows install breaking bootloaders. At the end of the day, if I happen to be installing Windows, it's because I want to use it, so trying to erase the competition is stupid.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

I have found both XP and Vista to be painful when trying to do anything network related. Things are unreliable and you have to *learn* where everything is. You can't look at it for the first time and recognise what's going on and where to look for things. To be fair to XP I was a noob when I started using it with very little knowledge about networks, but the same can't be said for Vista.

I think Vista made great strides in this area. It's not perfect, but far more seamless than XP or OS X. It took me quite a while to get a handle on "Locations" in Leopard, and getting my per-network connection settings applied correctly. It requires a lot of manual configuration and manual switching of "location." Vista just makes it all happen automatically. I agree some of the networking UI needs work. Mainly I think there are just too many different screens with entrypoints that I can never remember (like how to get to the page that lets you remove a network location - not an access point, but a location with customized settings).

It's becoming more and more common for there to be several computers in the households of non-techy people so I think they need to work hard on making networking as easy and seamless as possible.

Agreed.

Another problem I have is they way MS try and force usage of Internet Explorer. I'm happy for it to be bundled with the operating system but I am not happy that you HAVE to use Internet Explorer in order to get updates and that other MS software tries to force you to use it. For example I remember MSN always opening stuff in IE even if another browser was set to the default. If I have chosen to use another browser, that choice should be respected.

Which MSN program? If that's true, it's probably a bug.

IE is not necessary to get updates in Vista. Windows Update is an integrated app, not a browser-hosted one.

It needs to play nicely with other operating systems instead of pretending that no one ever dual boots. I absolutely will not have anything to do with Windows 7 if it can not do this properly. I am strongly opposed to the kind of anti-choice thinking that leads to a Windows install breaking bootloaders. At the end of the day, if I happen to be installing Windows, it's because I want to use it, so trying to erase the competition is stupid.

I agree here, but I don't think Windows does anything to intentionally break another OS's bootloader. It's also a very, very, very tiny minority of users that dual boots. And of those who do, most are probably dual booting Windows versions - which should always work automatically. Dual-booting on a Mac is pretty seamless, too.

I wonder if what you're asking for is the ability to configure the bootloader options in setup? That would be nice, but I think it's probably been deemed too confusing for most users and otherwise just not worth the time it takes to implement. Besides, if you're a really advanced user you can already take more complicated steps to make things work during setup to make things work the way you want (like using the unattend options, WinPE, the command prompt via shift+F10, etc.).

Edited May 19, 2008 by Brandon Live

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Networking is always a more in-depth process, regardless of the OS, you can make it easier but you'll "never" (Prove me wrong, I'd love that) get rid of all the technical aspects.

the Vista networking section is quite nice, my only problem with it was that every so often, it made my network card into 2 separate networks and decided neither one of them was connected.

I ended up having to disable the network card in the device manager, reboot then re-enable it.

[Julius Caro]

A tiny blurb of text listing dependencies for automatic resolution in a .deb file is nothing like a system-wide registry that is loaded at startup.

The .deb file is read, processed, then purged from memory when done. It is not needed any more.

I think I know what general direction you were heading, but just wanted to clarify the whole ".deb is equivalent" thing.

I know I know. Of course .deb is not the equivalent. I meant that regardless of the OS, some of sort of 'tracking' of installed apps is needed. On windows I believe this is done using the registry, but of course that doesnt mean that the debian apt is the equivalent of the registry, and that even with one-click application packages, it's still desired to have an organized way of telling what's installed and what's not.

But I guess you got what I meant anyway :p

Another problem I have is they way MS try and force usage of Internet Explorer. I'm happy for it to be bundled with the operating system but I am not happy that you HAVE to use Internet Explorer in order to get updates and that other MS software tries to force you to use it. For example I remember MSN always opening stuff in IE even if another browser was set to the default. If I have chosen to use another browser, that choice should be respected.

Are you talking about MSN Messenger? mmm I can't remember how it works right now (even though that's like the only app I use on windows), but I think that only hotmail opens IE instead of whatever is set as the default, links opened in conversations are not opened on IE but on the default browser. I believe that this has more to do with security reasons (opening hotmail without letting the password be easily 'known' midway through the process) than anything else. I could be wrong, though.

Although when IE is open, links in conversations are going to be opened in IE even if another browser is the default. Tricky!!

[Brandon Live Veteran]

I know I know. Of course .deb is not the equivalent. I meant that regardless of the OS, some of sort of 'tracking' of installed apps is needed. On windows I believe this is done using the registry, but of course that doesnt mean that the debian apt is the equivalent of the registry, and that even with one-click application packages, it's still desired to have an organized way of telling what's installed and what's not.

But I guess you got what I meant anyway :p

Well, the registry is used to enumerate the applications that appear in the Uninstall control panel. App writers don't do that themselves, though, the install technology (MSI, etc) should take care of it. Otherwise, you can pretty easily have an application that doesn't use the registry at all. That is, links in the start menu are just shortcuts in a known folder.

[Julius Caro]

I wonder if what you're asking for is the ability to configure the bootloader options in setup? That would be nice, but I think it's probably been deemed too confusing for most users and otherwise just not worth the time it takes to implement. Besides, if you're a really advanced user you can already take more complicated steps to make things work during setup to make things work the way you want (like using the unattend options, WinPE, the command prompt via shift+F10, etc.).

I think there's a third-party app that does the job just fine. There's a command to configure the bootloader in vista. I do think though, that there should be some sort of crappy front-end to that, even if hidden somewhere, like most of the useful things for semi-advanced users are!

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I won't buy it if Nuhi doesn't make Windows7Lite :p

Really I can't think of anything I want. XP and Vista are great, both work well for me. I now use Vista.

Actually, on that first notion, it would be great if MS could offer a lot more custimization on what you install and don't install prior to the OS being offloaded onto your drive.

I'd still need to use a nlite/vlite equivalent though, as I rip a lot of stuff out MS just wouldn't want you to.

[blade1269]

Hey,

Srap the Registry, and simplifiy App install process Like OSX

[Julius Caro]

Well, the registry is used to enumerate the applications that appear in the Uninstall control panel. App writers don't do that themselves, though, the install technology (MSI, etc) should take care of it. Otherwise, you can pretty easily have an application that doesn't use the registry at all. That is, links in the start menu are just shortcuts in a known folder.

I know. But for the app to appear in the uninstaller, the installer has to add the entry in the registry. And the app developers are responsible for providing the uninstaller. And not all app writers use the same install technology.

My point is, on windows, properly handling the entries in the registry regarding the 'fact that an app is installed' is pretty much a task of the installer used. On debian-based linux, it's all a task of apt.

It's by no means ideal, anyway.

[BajiRav]

Work on the UI. Vista's UI although nice over XP, is a big mess. One example: File open dialog - How many different versions of the dialog do we need in a single OS? I want one standard File operations(Open/Save) dialog.

For ****'s sake stop using class ID in application folders - see how WL photo gallery saves backups of changes photos. :x

Fix the Favorites Links section in explorer.

Provide Document thumbnail previews for common file types - TXT anyone?

Get rid of drives (which as we know, is mostly a compatibility "feature")

Seach in start menu needs some kind of persistence + history display

Come up with better names for Windows BLAH BLAH Applications (e.g. Windows DVD Maker) :x :x :x :x

Slap the team that design Vista Control Panel and Fix the Control Panel and then slap that team till eternity.

Hire designers that don't use puke green everywhere in the UI. :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x

Either fix UPnP or License Bonjour/ZeroConf from Apple

Do something with Contacts that actually makes them useable

Provide Sync framework for all phones and not just Winodws Mobiles :x :x :x :x :x

[Brandon Live Veteran]

I know. But for the app to appear in the uninstaller, the installer has to add the entry in the registry. And the app developers are responsible for providing the uninstaller. And not all app writers use the same install technology.

My point is, on windows, properly handling the entries in the registry regarding the 'fact that an app is installed' is pretty much a task of the installer used. On debian-based linux, it's all a task of apt.

It's by no means ideal, anyway.

On Windows it's usually handled by MSI. On Debian it's usually handled by apt. I don't see the difference.

Not everyone uses MSI, but not everyone uses apt.

[zerologic]

1. Windows DVD Maker (Not idiot's edition - as we have now). With a better quality encoder, an option to de-interlace etc.

At the moment I prefer to use Ashampoo Burning Studio 7. It encodes better quality DVD's and has downloadable themes.

2. A more powerful firewall with add-on functionality for blocking known fraudulent / malware websites.

3. Convert standard (in-box) Windows Vista Apps to use the full power of DWM (see Yahoo Messenger for Vista). No more ugly Apps.

4. Make the Vista theme more customizable. I want to change sizes of toolbars / what buttons are on them etc.

5. Allow customization of not only the 'Color intensity' but also the amount of 'blurring' or the amount and type of transparency.

6. That aqua blue border highlight on the right and bottom of windows. It's got to go. :x

[Mayhem]

1. I want that programs installs has a type of sandbox or virtualization (probably spell it wrong lol), in this way you still have Registry basicly only for OS, has of Apps that require Really <--- real access to the registry simply on the install/run, Vista (or UAC) detects that and asks if we permit that the program passes from sandbox to full acess (type of right now apps requiring Admin rights and for distinguish this read point number 2 :)

2. UAC telling more information, example if a program require admin rigths i want it to tell me what is the reason, example: program want to to something adminish :f, or better yet, the simply install to program files, i want UAC to tell me that is the reason of the popup, if a app requires acess to some registry (the stuff of point 1) important i want it to tell me that the program x want to access/write the real registry because it really needs (most of the programs out there dont need access to the real Registry to function

The main idea for point 1 and 2 is simply, security for malware that dont install all the stuff in runs registry etc etc and when we want to uninstall one program we simply uninstall all the files and their sandboxed registry stuff, with this solution we kill 2 rabbits with 2 points :f, 1 for bad malware or other stuff and 2 for not making the registry full of "crap" and many ppl here will be happy because of that :p