Old icons from windows 3.11 and 95 still on Windows 7!

[-Hiroshi-]

One word.. Beta.

[Kronir]

I don't particularly care if those old icons get updated; you rarely see them anyways. Actually, I kinda *like* them looking retro... ^_^

[tpor_again]

I'm sure they have their own legitimate reasons. One example being that they didn't change the Fonts dialogue from XP/Vista from the 3.1 days due to potential compatibility issues.

:| COMPATIBILITY?!?!?! With what? With a 20years old OS? This is ridiculous.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

i agree it's time to change ALL of the icons.

These are mostly dummy files there for compatibility. There is absolutely, positively no reason or way they will ever, ever get changed.

Maybe someday they'll go away, but updating the icons for them would be an utter waste of time. Nobody ever sees these, EVER.

[abcdefg]

These are mostly dummy files there for compatibility. Nobody ever sees these, EVER.

Are non-resizable dialogs also for compatibility?

I love this quote:

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/...14/8730046.aspx

"Non-resizable dialogs already sucked 10 years ago. Monopoly corporations doesn't invent new features because they can get away with selling 10 years old crap.

Why do we have to bear them?

[Rudy]

And do you ever see those icons? Those aren't even apps you can just run, usually just things that are invisible in the background. I don't care if they replace those icons. Focusing on delivering all icons you see when using windows in a good resolution is more important I think.

oh come on, MS not fixing the icons won't make Win7 better or more stable. Programmers DON'T make the icons (for a good reason ;))

[Linkinfamous]

Obviously the icon in the attributes dialog needs a revamp...but those ancient legacy apps: who cares?

[JOHW]

This is way more important.

Windows Security Alert (mainly for the firewall asking about a program trying to access the internet)

the icon is low res and appears pixellated in the superbar

[Elliot B.]

This comes up with every release of Windows.

They most likely have their reasons - or quite simply can't be bothered to change them. I'd personally rather they spent an extra hour optimizing some other code than designing/changing icons that you never see.

I'm pretty sure they'd have dedicated people for jobs like changing icons, and changing a few won't take up much time at all. It's true though, they must have their reasons for not doing it (Y)

[pasty2k2]

Windows 7 isn't even in Beta stage yet. It's not until the second beta/release candidate time-ish that you will see major aesthetic changes, its all under the hood at the moment. I know it looks a lot different already with the Superbar, but thats a whole new UI as opposed to just updating icons.

I agree some of those things will never be updated, winhlp32.exe for example. But how often is someone going to need grpconv.exe? I bet its not as often as someone will need a file from the DirectX 9.0c catalog. Vista is missing so many of these, you need to update manually every time you reinstall Windows and want to play a game. Its not a problem, but Joe User is only going to take the game back to the shop because it doesn't work. The only places I can think of that would need grpconv.exe are businesses with legacy bespoke apps, that need it, and work fine. For those people, MS should provide these legacy files in an "Optional extras" area of the disk, or for download off the MS site. Cater for the majority.

Besides that, my almost OCD-like nature gets really ****ed off seeing those old icons too! Wish they would put them somewhere I wouldn't look! ;)

[smurfiness]

Oh please!

Nevermind the indignant "Oh please!" He's right, if you're actually a software developer, you should know better.

I'm pretty sure they'd have dedicated people for jobs like changing icons, and changing a few won't take up much time at all. It's true though, they must have their reasons for not doing it (Y)

Something interesting I read on a backwards compatibility blog (possibly Raymond Chen's) is that a lot of naive programmers (even big big companies have those) hard-code things like the locations of icon resources into their applications. It's entirely possible that there are critical LOB applications out there that will actually break if you put a 16m colour icon in one of these files, because the developers though it was a good idea to (for example) link to winhlp32.exe at runtime and extract its icon for use in their own application.

[PENGUINwithM4A1]

Im getting quite sick of having regurgitated windows {98/NT/XP} and be charge ?100 for the privilege. The majority of the core system is mainly XP and Vista ..

[smurfiness]

Im getting quite sick of having regurgitated windows {98/NT/XP} and be charge ?100 for the privilege. The majority of the core system is mainly XP and Vista ..

So don't buy it then.

[qdave]

i found it actually quite cool. its like easter eggs :p

[Jase]

Oh no!!! This is so bad!.. Why?

They are just icons... They do nothing but represent a file.. and for the record, It's good to see that they are still there.. You can look back on Windows 7 Final and see some history just by looking at an icon.

[sharp65]

Having a few dozen legacy icons doesn't equate to it being the same version with a new skin for the past 10 years. I wonder if people actually research things.

[39 Thieves]

Every time I see one of these stupid threads, I honestly wish I could punch someone in the throat via tcp/ip. Seriously.

Who. Cares?

It's an Operating System. It matters in as much as what you can DO WITH IT. If you really have nothing better to do than go through and analyze the icons in rarely-seen and mostly-hidden portions of an OS...what does that really say about you?

[Mikee99]

Windows 7 is not yet complete. Betas do not contain all the artwork that will land in the release. Also, the Windows 7 beta builds have a "Send Feedback" link at the top right of the window. Click that link, and tell Microsoft about the "problem".

[smurfiness]

Windows 7 is not yet complete. Betas do not contain all the artwork that will land in the release. Also, the Windows 7 beta builds have a "Send Feedback" link at the top right of the window. Click that link, and tell Microsoft about the "problem".

... and once you do, I'm certain they'll stop the kernel team and redirect them all to working on the icons for you. :yes:

[Preppy Veteran]

^-- While that'd be the wrong team, the point there - that you should pick your battles to focus upon, both as a user and as a developer - is rock solid.

[giga Veteran]

Every time I see one of these stupid threads, I honestly wish I could punch someone in the throat via tcp/ip. Seriously.

Haha, wow. It's just software.

[morphen]

Who cares:p speed and stability is whats important. Who cares if some service exe-file has an old icon, or a never/seldom used dialog has an old icon.

Every time I see one of these stupid threads, I honestly wish I could punch someone in the throat via tcp/ip. Seriously.

I'll join you, if we bundle our networking cards to use the same ip, we'll get double the strength ;)

[39 Thieves]

Haha, wow. It's just software.

I know man, but seriously, how many times have you seen the exact same thread on here? It matters just as much now, as when people were complaining about it when XP was in beta, and that was...hell, what, nearly a decade ago?

[lunarworks]

Changing the icon of, for instance, winhlp32 is useless... that format isn't supported anymore. Another example is grpconv - what's the point of updating a icon for a tool used to convert Windows 3.x program groups?

WHY is that even IN Windows 7? Seriously. I know Microsoft is obsessive compulsive about backwards compatibility, but they should really take stuff like that out.

[HawkMan]

The only icon out of those screenshots you posted that should be changed is the one in the Advanced Attributes dialog.

Changing the icon of, for instance, winhlp32 is useless... that format isn't supported anymore. Another example is grpconv - what's the point of updating a icon for a tool used to convert Windows 3.x program groups?

Well some people just don't understad the concept of deprecated, others understand it, but ignore it so they can use it to make fun of it, only for themselves to be the joke for other who understand what deprecated means. but then there's allways some b rated tech news site who will pick it up and in their cluelessnesswrite osme story about old reources in a new OS and ho they are never updated... :rolleyes: