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

[Linkinfamous]

No - you skip over the registry effects of a program that way and would leave registry/COM garbage.

Rambling random though: Perhaps if there was a way to register com stuff for unregister on delete, and whenever you went to delete a folder, if the installer sucked or something, the com garbage would manage to vanish.

[spenser.d]

I will not buy Windows 7 unless it has a new computer to get installed on to. That's the reason I don't have Vista. My computer would run it, but it's not worth it.

Fortunately for MS, I'll probably buy a new computer by the time 7 comes out.

-Spenser

[Scrinner]

A small feature that i would really love would be sub groups.. For example i want to group music in my Music Directory by Artist and then make a sub group for each album so i dont have to wade through a billion songs for each artist and so forth.

[olavinto]

I don't think this will happen, but it would be great. I'd love to have a "Windows Seven Basic Lite" version that is stripped down to only the explorer, a basic image viewer and a few necessary services but will then cost nothing more than 30$. Great.

Further features I'd like to see:

• virtualization for running old Windows apps
  
• built-in theme support
  
• a filesystem that doesn't fragment (applies that to WinFS?)
  

That should be the way to distribute Windows and other os. This way the user can choose whatever they want to use without having the need to keep useless stuff like WMP (which I never use) on their computer. At least there should be an optional "Custom" feature in installation so that the user can remove unwanted stuff.

[jmc777]

Auto tagging. I'd like Windows to be able to automatically tags files as they're added to a folder.

[.Frederick]

As I do agree that Autotagging would be cool, if would get kind og annonynig at times. As long as it would could be disabled though it would be fine.

[jjrambo]

We need new paint, wordpad, and notepad app. These are used since windows 95 and they are pretty useless...

[Windam]

The mobile Core Duo (Yonah) was Intel's last big 32-bit processor. It is by no means slow, and there were still laptops being sold with those last year.

Indeed.. I for one use a Yonah and it's hella fast on Vista w/ 2GB of RAM

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Auto tagging. I'd like Windows to be able to automatically tags files as they're added to a folder.

Could you define "auto tagging?" The foldername is already a part of the item's metadata, and can be searched on. I'm a bit unclear on what exactly you want to see.

[1Frothy]

I'd like to see the feature where I can search by 'rating' so if I type rating *** in search, I get to see all the files I have marked as three star files. ;)

[thertrain]

:devil:

Borrows a new kernal and code from OS X

[1Frothy]

Not a big bugbear here, but this time ship really final screensavers, ones that actually have options.

[Linkinfamous]

:devil:

Borrows a new kernal and code from OS X

First: it's 'kernel'. Second: do you even know what the kernel does? Third: why on earth would you want that?

[jmc777]

The foldername is already a part of the item's metadata, and can be searched on. I'm a bit unclear on what exactly you want to see.

Yeah and that's why, on reflection, it was a daft suggestion. :blush: :laugh:

[SVG Veteran]

Dunno if anyone's mentioned this but it would really be great if Windows 7 had the installer from a live session

[Mike Frett]

Unless:

It's completely redone and has the ability to scale to any hardware. Has the ability (Win95/98) to allow you to choose what you want installed during the setup process. They take their time with it and not release something half-ass, even if it takes 10 years.

[y_notm]

I'd like to see the feature where I can search by 'rating' so if I type rating *** in search, I get to see all the files I have marked as three star files. ;)

THat wouldn't work as * is a wildcard in Windows. How would the search engine know if you were searching for everything or just 1 starred items if you searched "*"?

You can search by rating now if you type "rating: X stars" I believe (it definitely works, I have search folders set up by rating, I just don't know the exact syntax)

[Smigit]

A small feature that i would really love would be sub groups.. For example i want to group music in my Music Directory by Artist and then make a sub group for each album so i dont have to wade through a billion songs for each artist and so forth.

WMP already by default rips music into Music/Artist/Album directories to accomplish this but unless I've mistaken what you want. I think directory's do it fine. Perhaps theres some arguement for using ID3 tags also though (that has it's own issues mine, the least of which is not all formats in the music directory's may support ID3.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

I'd like to see the feature where I can search by 'rating' so if I type rating *** in search, I get to see all the files I have marked as three star files. ;)

Just type rating:3 stars

[Badcrew]

I'm not actually all that sure what I want to see in Windows 7. I mean although heaps of people have a negative attitude towards Windows Vista, is it really that bad? And as for all those high system requirements, firstly, there not really that high. I ran Home Premium on a Laptop with a Celeron 1.6 GHz Processor and 512 MB of RAM with no trouble at all. I am now running Ultimate on a computer that isn't really that high end but Vista is running smooth and sweet on that too. As for compatibility, yes, there is some hardware that Windows Vista will not run on, but think of all the hardware configurations that it does run on.

So I guess what I am saying is that Microsoft can do whatever they want with Windows 7, make it the best OS ever, have a suite of top-notch bundled apps, and people will have some dirt to smudge around.

So, if you don't like Vista why not use Linux, go to root, (with admin permissions ofcourse), and type "i am better than everyone else" then go to bed feeling that you have accomplished something really useful.

[XX55XX]

Certainly, it's true that Vista doesn't use as much resources as its critics tend to exaggerate, but still, Vista is still relatively bloated with plenty of bundled software that many people won't find too useful. Thus, I wish the following:

Make Windows 7 more modular! I want to customize my install as much as possible, thank you.

[Electric Jolt]

I want Windows 7 to have....

- No Registry, built from the ground up.

- No processes, more flexibility, pause and stop applications. Mac has this capability, checkup1.0 has the ability to show you processes, not really processes but current running apps, and you can choose to stop them or pause them, like pausing itunes freezes the app..

- Static configuration, without anything like a registry, so during installs of apps, it takes less time because your writing files to the HD and then its done installing, no writing registry entries and then starting a service and then doing this and etc. To make it easier and faster. For example to install Firefox in Windows means installing it with registry entries and all this other stuff which takes longer, while installing Firefox in OSX is just dragging and dropping it to the applications folder. Not like all installs in OSX are like that, but they are generally quick.

- New filesystem that makes Windows more organized, maybe some more polished work on WinFS.

- Sleek new design, thinner taskbar, vector design.

- Adjustment of apps sizes, on a regular 1280x1024 screen resolution, sometimes the screen gets too cluttered, and something like Visual Studio or Expression Blend are too cluttered with functions, you need to make everything smaller, and Expression Blend has this feature and I love it! Now we need to fine-tune it so the fonts can still be clear and not broken and distorted, and that it works in all apps.

- No whatsoever compatibility! Microsoft is bad at this, and they drop many good features because they want compatibility, .net framework 3.0 was gonna be called WinFX and have all this and that, but they just kept the plain boring name to not confuse people, and now its a download for xp, all this backporting is going to make more and more apps adopting WPF and .net framework more compatible with xp and that just throws back good features...

- WPF and WinFX integration into the system. right now there is all this backporting, and every window in windows can be so customized, everything sticks out. WPF needs to really work with Windows 7 so the style looks like Windows and they can incorporate true animations.

- UAC polished... UAC right now asks for all these privileges, why, because the registry ruined it, we cannot go further into the future with the registry, for example, for an app to install, it needs to have registry entries, and that requires admin privileges and if you wanna know where and what wants privileges, then you click the details thing in UAC, and it shows a long registry entry, what kind of admin is going to know what app wants privileges if UAC tells you a registry entry. sometimes a regular user wants to install something, like their own app they use and do not care if somebody else uses, but they can't do that because they need registry entries. for example, if I want to use firefox while everybody else uses safari, then I download it and drag and drop it into my applications folder. Now I should be able to use it while everybody else uses whatever they want. Now if I want to install Office for Mac, that has its own extensions, its a big product, and its just huge in general. To install that, you use the installer, and that requires permissions, and it tells me what type of permission it wants and what application is asking for permissions. thats designed just right. not UAC, every app is designed to use registry entries and its like installing Visual Studio on vista screws up and you have to install .net framework 3.5 first, because UAC denies the install and never asks you.

- customizable resolutions, use a screen resolution inside a screen resolution, for example, use a 1280x800 resolution inside a 1280x1024 so it cuts off the top and bottom edges by a little bit.

- favorite part about having no processes, you can run 6 windows of Safari in one app, or close all windows and it still runs in the background and responds quickly to opening a window of it. Windows needs this.

- no more program files, just an applications folder with applications... can help clean the start menu.

- designed on WPF, everything WPF.

- bootscreen enhanced to run the process of starting up differently, so the bootmanager automatically boots the drivers when it loads and then the bootscreen is designed to test the drivers by showing an HD video similar to the xbox360 video with the planet lighting up and stuff but more slow to showoff better, and if the drivers are bad, then during the video it will pop up saying the test had an issue and shows you information and stuff and what you can do.

- resizing an explorer window scales the items in the window to fit the window right. coooool animation.

- much more!

[Brandon Live Veteran]

- favorite part about having no processes, you can run 6 windows of Safari in one app, or close all windows and it still runs in the background and responds quickly to opening a window of it. Windows needs this.

It's easy to dream, harder to build.

I don't even know what most of this post means. No processes? That's what computers do... run processes. Processes are one of the basic ways we seperate and isolate different tasks. You could change the name, but you'll always have the same thing. Unless you meant something else by "no processes?"

Running all windows within a single process instance can be good for performance, but bad for reliability / robustness. And you can't do it if those different windows have different needs in how the process is run (which user account / privilege level it is running under, for example).

Running everything in the background all the time doesn't work either. Nobody is going to accept that their computer is wasting CPU time and memory on something they aren't using. And which applications do you let do that? All of them? Just the ones the user runs frequently? What if I want to play a game or use some tool that requires the entirety of my systems' resources?

It may help to consider that operating systems are incredibly complex constructs, and nothing about their design comes without a great deal of thought and consideration. You say you don't want a registry. Well what would you replace it with? How would you implement CoCreateInstance without it?

[Linkinfamous]

Running all windows within a single process instance can be good for performance, but bad for reliability / robustness. And you can't do it if those different windows have different needs in how the process is run (which user account / privilege level it is running under, for example).

Indeed. Vista actually goes in the opposite direction of what Electric Bolt seems to think he wants.

-IE splits itself off across multiple processes for security reasons

-Explorer branches off processes for high-IL tasks, and preview handlers

-the indexer has a few processes for security reasons, etc.

etc.

Personally, I think it's great, and would be a terrible decision to reverse. It's led to some nice stability and security improvements.

WPF and WinFX integration into the system.

The DWM itself can be thought of as a WPF application. WPF applications are also hardware accelerated under Vista. How much more integrated can you get?

favorite part about having no processes, you can run 6 windows of Safari in one app, or close all windows and it still runs in the background and responds quickly to opening a window of it. Windows needs this.

You've still got processes. Safari is still running a process, it's just chosen to keep every window in the same process. Virtually every browser on Windows does this too. Explorer does it by default (It can be configured not to, for stability reasons, if you desire.) The only thing it's also doing is not killing its process when you exit the last window. Any process on Windows is perfectly free to do this as well.

UAC polished... (snip)

No. no. no. no. You don't understand the purpose of UAC, or even what it's doing if you think that. It's not blocking specific actions, it's blocking the privileges assigned to a process at launch, nothing more. Can you imagine the nightmare that would result if Windows had to somehow suspend a process when it attempted to perform an action that would otherwise be denied, and ask for your permission? Then, repeat when it wants to do something else? No. UAC has it right: Assign process privileges at launch. If a process needs to do something, it can spawn its own child process that triggers a prompt.

Edited February 19, 2008 by MioTheGreat

[Electric Jolt]

It's easy to dream, harder to build.

I don't even know what most of this post means. No processes? That's what computers do... run processes. Processes are one of the basic ways we seperate and isolate different tasks. You could change the name, but you'll always have the same thing. Unless you meant something else by "no processes?"

Running all windows within a single process instance can be good for performance, but bad for reliability / robustness. And you can't do it if those different windows have different needs in how the process is run (which user account / privilege level it is running under, for example).

Running everything in the background all the time doesn't work either. Nobody is going to accept that their computer is wasting CPU time and memory on something they aren't using. And which applications do you let do that? All of them? Just the ones the user runs frequently? What if I want to play a game or use some tool that requires the entirety of my systems' resources?

It may help to consider that operating systems are incredibly complex constructs, and nothing about their design comes without a great deal of thought and consideration. You say you don't want a registry. Well what would you replace it with? How would you implement CoCreateInstance without it?

Ok, I don't know technically how processes and all those work, but I do know you should integrate more flexibility into handling processes. I mean pausing a process would freeze the application, and really its a new operating system your making. You don't need to care about security, for all you care, you can make Windows an encrypted image closed-source. Then you can make a handler and everything, but my point is, having an application's instances in separate processes for security reasons is wrong. Windows is about compatibility, get rid of it, make an operating system that is built completely different from older versions of Windows, then there would be a less chance of security threats. Then flexibility of processes comes in.

About the registry, what it sounds like your saying is how would you start a process, for example starting IE7. You don't need a registry, thats just what Microsoft uses (and you should know that since you work for them), like Apple uses LaunchServices to handle processes. What you should do is get rid of the registry like you should've a long time ago and pull out 3 pieces of paper, on one sheet of paper put your highs and lows about the registry, on another put what the registry does, on the last sheet of paper take all those things the registry does and make them categories, then put on there what you can do to make it function without the registry. Like placing a window on a 1280x1024 display, the dimensions of the window and everything can be saved on an xml. Starting processes can be done by a utility similar to LaunchServices in OSX. Just please get rid of that death thing... I just googled to get some information about the registry and stuff, and I just saw some bad things about the registry like a person having like 49 errors in their registry.

Indeed. Vista actually goes in the opposite direction of what Electric Bolt seems to think he wants.

-IE splits itself off across multiple processes for security reasons

-Explorer branches off processes for high-IL tasks, and preview handlers

-the indexer has a few processes for security reasons, etc.

etc.

Personally, I think it's great, and would be a terrible decision to reverse. It's led to some nice stability and security improvements.

The DWM itself can be thought of as a WPF application. WPF applications are also hardware accelerated under Vista. How much more integrated can you get?

You've still got processes. Safari is still running a process, it's just chosen to keep every window in the same process. Virtually every browser on Windows does this too. Explorer does it by default (It can be configured not to, for stability reasons, if you desire.) The only thing it's also doing is not killing its process when you exit the last window. Any process on Windows is perfectly free to do this as well.

No. no. no. no. You don't understand the purpose of UAC, or even what it's doing if you think that. It's not blocking specific actions, it's blocking the privileges assigned to a process at launch, nothing more. Can you imagine the nightmare that would result if Windows had to somehow suspend a process when it attempted to perform an action that would otherwise be denied, and ask for your permission? Then, repeat when it wants to do something else? No. UAC has it right: Assign process privileges at launch. If a process needs to do something, it can spawn its own child process that triggers a prompt.

Maybe if everybody used the same programming language broken into several smaller ones, there would be simplicity in windows, like with all applications in Mac OS X, all the preferences can be changed by clicking the name of the application running in the top bar and clicking preferences, the best part is it has its own key shortcut. In Windows, windows can have whatever they want inside them. No consistency, no simplicity, just complex programming languages to choose and learn. Windows 7 can change that, there can be consistency so applications would look the same but do different things, it would be simplicity. Its like Windows Search capable of searching for contacts in Windows Live Messenger because they use the same programming language and it knows where to look, how it will do it. It would get rid of some applications having multiple processes. It would be more productive.

Yeah if we still had the registry in Windows 7 and just changed UAC to prompt for permissions every time an application needed administrative privileges would be bad. But if we got rid of UAC and the registry, and what permissions do in Windows today, and integrated a new security platform like Keychain in OSX, then permission would be completely different, I mean it wouldn't just get admin privileges, it would get a type of permission to do something like change system settings, and when the application was exited, and then opened again later on, it would ask for permissions again. Keychain asks for permission, then when your done with the special privileges, just click the lock and your back to regular permissions. And about having permissions from the start of the process, that is bad, its not flexible, what happens if a regular user without those permissions wants to use that application but then gets prompted for admin permissions, thats kind of limited. you don't need to mess with your computer constantly unless its a server, and if security wasn't an issue, then you wouldn't mess with your computer so much.