Things You'd Wish Would Be Implemented In Windows 7

[franzon]

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[blehbleh]

Does anyone know why vector scaling with the magnifier for WPF apps was removed?

Under Vista, if you zoomed into any app using WPF, it would scale as a vector, and quite frankly looked awesome. Under 7, it raster scales it, and looks crappy.

Combined with the new magnifier mode, that could have been nice, and a damned good reason to push WPF.

No, it rasterizes before zoom in vista too. And yes, that pretty much ruins one of the coolest things that could have been achieved with WPF :(

It already does vector scaling inside the application with the ViewBox and VisualBrush, why not take it all the way to the OS with zooming and DWM thumbs.

Btw, anyone else thinks the new magnifier is really awkward? It uses some horrible sampling filter making everything really jaggy(if they can't make vector zoom at least use proper scaling!), it zooms by ADDING zoom-percentage instead of multiplying which makes the zoom slower the closer you get, it zooms with fixed steps so you never get the size you want unless you change it to use 25% steps which instead requires you to press zoom 100 times, it's not running all the time so you have to press zoom first to start it and then you can zoom, when it's running the magnifier-glass is in the way and when it's running text-boxes in all apllications start to flicker.

It can't even be compared to the zoom in OSX that actually is usable even if i don't have any problems with my eyes. It's just so convenient to zoom in to make a flashvideo fullscreen, show a text to someone who sits a couple of meters away and stuff like that. In windows when i try the same thing i press win++ and regret what i've done before the magnifier-tool even has finished loading.

[rakeshishere]

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[Dashel]

Hmm how about something more useful...

Better dual monitor support pl0x?

I would like to natively be able to have different/spanning wallpapers and a taskbar/Superbar that can extend over multiple displays. While Ultramon and DisplayFusion do this it's cumbersome having to have an extra app to do these menial tasks and currently they are incompatible with Aero Peek or the Superbar's icon docking anyway. Furthermore I would like the system tray/clock/Show Desktop button on the opposite corner as the Start Orb rather than in the same monitor and in the middle of the desktop :(

+1 Epic fail on dual monitor support.

I'd still like to see better UI scaling options as well. MMOs have done this for ages and its time that Windows followed suit.

I'd also like to see them adopt Apple's application model of self-contained single files.

An easier backup solution would be nice as well. The space handling right now is atrocious.

[Julius Caro]

I could swear that when you plug in a new removable drive, one of the options at the bottom is to use the drive as a back up device?

[HelgenX]

No viruses. (They're still there, you still need an anti-virus.)

[SinCityZ]

No viruses. (They're still there, you still need an anti-virus.)

Cause that is realistic, how about smarter users that know what they're doing? Such as what to click, what websites not to go to, what not to download, etc etc... since viruses are 99% the user's fault.

I haven't ran an antivirus in over 4 years, and you know how many infections my computer has had?

[Fraud OS 11]

Here's why it is gone (since Vista SP1): Too bad though I'd say.

[cropcircles]

I'd like to see the reboot process happen seperately and much faster so the entire system doesn't have to do a complete recycle startup. Similar to what you see in VMware when rebooting. When I work on computers installing programs I swear I almost fall asleep waiting for the PC's to reboot. I also understand why it has to occur.

[SuperKid]

About the bsod, they do help you but id prefer they changed it around now, maybe more user friendly or something.

[Eric Veteran]

An easy way to backup my data. Currently, I have to plug my external drive in and manually select files I need to copy over to my external drive, then I copy them and paste them to the drive. Unless there is another way (?) this is pretty tedious and annoying; it's annoying to the point that I don't backup as often as I should. I don't know how Time Machine works (?) but I've heard it's much better. I know this isn't fully down to the operating system, but I would like my backup process made much easier. Venders selling wireless hardrives would be a start, but something programmed into Windows which could somehow automatically backup my content, to my external drive, would be fantastic :) Unless it is already there and I have missed it? :p

Have you tried "Restore to previous version..."? :) It works much better than it did in Vista. Now I can change a file and immediately open or restore the old version whereas in Vista it wasn't tracked and available for restoration unless backup had run already. I think it backs up the previous versions permanently during the scheduled backups. Also, the action center should notify you if you don't have your backup drive connected when it's time for a pass.

[Quillz]

About the bsod, they do help you but id prefer they changed it around now, maybe more user friendly or something.

Actually, considering the stop error gives you all the information you need to prevent future stop errors, it's actually user-friendly when you look at it from that perspective.

Mac OS X's kernel panic looks pretty, but it's useless, as it tells you absolutely nothing. (Except to turn off your computer and start over.)

[morphen]

Native coffeemaker support. :p

Edited August 26, 2009 by morphen

[Sciatic]

I would like to see built in PDF support or a Office PDF application simply because Adobe is terrilbe especially with x64 support. I would like built in spell checker support for IE.

[nully]

The Start orb should be at the bottom of the screen when the Taskbar is placed at the side of the desktop.

[Ci7]

I would like to see built in PDF support or a Office PDF application simply because Adobe is terrilbe especially with x64 support. I would like built in spell checker support for IE.

to get sued for anti-trust or patent infringement by adobe

[NfoTech]

to get sued for anti-trust or patent infringement by adobe

I beg to differ. PDF Support For Office 2007

[Brandon Live Veteran]

See we want the same thing there Calum - easy backup!

Time Machine does just work brilliantly. You load the Time Machine control panel applet, either turn it on or off and specify which volume you want to use as the Time Machine backup device - either an internal disk or external. Then it takes an initial large backup, and subsequently does differential backups every hour. It's totally seamless (apart from, perhaps 5 times in a year of daily use of my Mac that a backup mysteriously failed - forcing it to re-run always worked fine) and I frankly never even noticed it running. And if you've not changed much or just being browsing the net for an hour or so, the differential backup is about 2.0MB so it's done in a matter of seconds.

It's really excellent and I hope that Microsoft can make their backups work as well eventually. I don't think you've missed it - I was using Windows Vista's built in backup solution at work but didn't find it to work quite as well and it's certainly not as idiot proof.

That sounds a lot like the setup for System Restore / Previous Versions on Windows.

I do wish that were better integrated with the regular Backup stuff though (for backing up to external drives / network shares / etc).

[NEVER85]

No viruses. (They're still there, you still need an anti-virus.)

No offense, but I've read your suggestions, and most of them are either ludicrous (manually install all codecs like in Linux, resume session which is exactly what Hibernate is) or impossible (disable BSOD's, no viruses).

[MeDieViL02]

The aero interface for explorer (the longhorn one), the vista one looks pretty cluttered in my opinion, dont really like it

[xtrabit racing]

I need Windows Media Player 11 Back!!!

[Soldiers33]

The Start orb should be at the bottom of the screen when the Taskbar is placed at the side of the desktop.

+1

I need Windows Media Player 11 Back!!!

i want my mp3 tag editor back

[zhangm Supervisor]

It is unlikely that native PDF support will ever materialize in any version of Windows.

First, Adobe would bitch and moan over it: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2662

Second, Microsoft is attempting (poorly) to launch its XPS format.

[Quillz]

I remember in Windows XP, you could rename "Control Panel" but not "Recycle Bin." In Windows 7, this has been reversed, as you can rename "Recycle Bin" but not "Control Panel." Thus, I would like to be able to rename any application shortcut, especially ones that are pinned on the taskbar.

Also, every element on the taskbar should be fully draggable, just like the notification area icons. Why must the Start orb always be in the extreme left corner? I prefer to dock my taskbar to the left side of the screen, and thus I'd prefer to be able to drag the Start orb elsewhere, maybe at the bottom of the screen.

Also, I wish that Microsoft would offer more advanced settings to the Add/Remove Programs manager. I use a third-party application called Revo Uninstaller that not only uninstalls another application, it also finds and deletes all related Registry and preference files. I wish advanced functionality like that would be built into a future version of Windows.

[-KJ]

I really hope the next version Microsoft allows some customizability... even the same amount as Windows XP would be great. It seems they are stripping more control away from us with each OS since then.