Things You'd Wish Would Be Implemented In Windows 7

By HelgenX
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

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Grand Master

Xerxes

Posted
Posted
Get rid of the registry. No other operating system has this file.

*face palm*

I'm sorry but that is the dumbest reason I've heard...explain to me how MS would replace it and also explain how you would fix the myriad of (now broken) Windows apps that will no longer work?

Grand Master

M_Lyons10

Posted
Posted

1) A better Task Manager. I know that this has improved some with recent versions of Windows, but it is still difficult for someone to discern what a particular process is... Perhaps there could be a separate section for startup processes added by applications other than Windows?

2) Cut down on unnecessary processes (Though this has improved a great deal since Vista).

3) An improved Connection dialog, etc. for Wireless networks. This is one area of Windows 7 where I actually prefer the Windows Vista tool.

4) This may require some explaining, but I would love to be able to create icon groups on the desktop so that I can more easily get to common files and such while keeping minimal files on the desktop. For example you could click on an icon and it could open something similar to "Fences" where a group of files / programs could display. The explanation may require some work, but I've wanted this for a while. I like a clean desktop, and now that the gadgets take up desktop space and not just sidebar space, I would expect a lot of people would want to keep their desktop icons to a minimum.

Mentor

Orien

Posted
Posted
1) A better Task Manager. I know that this has improved some with recent versions of Windows, but it is still difficult for someone to discern what a particular process is... Perhaps there could be a separate section for startup processes added by applications other than Windows?

Ah, that's one. It'd be nice to be able to see the specific services under svchost.exe without needing extra software.

Grand Master

M_Lyons10

Posted
Posted
32 will eventually disappear. i dont see why it has to be done in win 7 right now. it doesnt support 16bits anymore so eventually 32 bit will be gone as well. in the mean time, a lot of people still have older hardware that doesnt have 64 bit drivers for it and the maker of those hardwares are too lazy to support them.

i havent used windows 7 yet. not much into beta or RC releases but what i would like to see is the ability for multiple desktop. i used to used Redhat at University and loved the idea of having 4 desktop and able to switch between them with a click. that's something i truly miss in windows. the ability to have a multiple copy and paste. i know it there in Office but i mean when try to copy files in windows explorer. i should be able to copy different sets all at once from folder and then paste each of those individually in different location. i would find something like this very useful when organizing photos into different folder as an example.

You can use desktops to get multiple desktops. It was developed by Sysinternals, which is now part of Microsoft, and is free:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/cc817881.aspx

Hope that helps. I like it. :)

Community Regular

d4diesel

Posted
Posted
You can use desktops to get multiple desktops. It was developed by Sysinternals, which is now part of Microsoft, and is free:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/cc817881.aspx

Hope that helps. I like it. :)

thanks. i didnt know about it before. will be trying it out. However, it does seem to have quite a lot of limitations to it:

Windows doesn't provide a way to move a window from one desktop object to another, and because a separate Explorer process must run on each desktop to provide a taskbar and start menu, most tray applications are only visible on the first desktop. Further, there is no way to delete a desktop object, so Desktops does not provide a way to close a desktop, because that would result in orphaned windows and processes. The recommended way to exit Desktops is therefore to logoff.

hopefully, MS would improve on it with time.

Grand Master

M_Lyons10

Posted
Posted
thanks. i didnt know about it before. will be trying it out. However, it does seem to have quite a lot of limitations to it:

hopefully, MS would improve on it with time.

Yes, I agree that there are quite a few limitations. I keep hoping for a new release that resolves some of those limitations, so hopefully sometime soon. It's a decent little program though, it just takes some getting used to, as it requires a little bit of forethought. I don't know of anything else better that is as easy on system resources too...

Grand Master

hdood

Posted
Posted
Almost every other operating system does not need a restart for driver installation, why does Windows still need it after 7 versions?

It depends on the type of drivers. Kernel mode drivers require restarts on pretty much all OSes, including Linux.

Saying that all of that was technically impossible is technically incorrect, because this only really occurs on Windows. I'm definitely not a stationary Linux user at all, but I have dabbled with it, and driver installation was on the fly without restarting, I honestly don't see any reason why that's impossible or why it should be.

But you are wrong. Linux most certainly does require restarts to install drivers, and it has BSODs (kernel panics). The latter is completely impossible to get rid of. It is a safety feature where the OS intentionally shuts down because code that is running with full and unrestricted access to your machine did something wrong. If it wasn't stopped, you could end up with data corruption, or even physically damaged hardware.

Well, it's to late now for Win7, but for Win8 I'd like to see them go to a micro kernel OS (like the *nix) and have the desktop be separate, the removal of Trident, etc.

First of all, there is no OS called "*nix". The various Unix-based and Unix-inspired (like Linux) OSes are very different and cannot be discussed as one entity. Furthermore, none of them have microkernels! Especially not Linux! In fact, Windows is the one that has a microkernel-like design, except that it runs most things in kernel mode rather than as separate user mode processes, for performance reasons.

I guess you didn't actually mean microkernel though, since you mention the desktop, which is an unrelated thing. The desktop environment in Windows is handled by Explorer, a plain old program. Window management (which is done by User) runs in kernel mode, again for performance reasons, but I don't see how this matters except in the sense that you can't replace it with something else (which you probably wouldn't be able to do anyway, since it's undocumented and would still be a protected OS file). Same with the low-level graphics API (GDI).

1)I wish Windows focused on reducing the number of silly and unnecessary reboots. I know that it has been considerably less compared to XP but may be they can focus on the issue a bit more.

A lot of installer reboots have nothing to do with Windows requirements though. They just reboot because they feel like it. The only place I see where there could be fewer reboots is when it comes to updates. The issue though, is how you update files that are in use. Windows has an extremely modular design with focus on shared components (libraries, servers). You can't replace these if they are in use, you'd have to wait until they unloaded. Some of them never unload until you reboot, because they are always in use. There's also the issue of inter-dependencies. What if you have two components that depend on each other, and only update one of them because the other couldn't be unloaded? You now have a version conflict (at least until the next time the system is rebooted), which can be dangerous.

The control panel I agree with. It's the most complicated part of Windows, and not easy to understand at all.

3)Remove all legacy crap since next version will surely be 64bit only and I'm sure XP Mode like feature would be even more improved

The problem here is that Windows is not designed that way. It is, for the most part, not version-based. There is no clear separation between "legacy crap" and brand new stuff. An application designed for Windows 7 in 2009 still uses APIs originally designed in the 1980s. They've just been slightly updated over the years. You can't remove 99% of "legacy crap" without also breaking all modern software, and that means Windows 8 wouldn't have an "XP Mode" -- it would have a "Windows 7 and below" mode.

Get rid of the registry. No other operating system has this file.

What do you want to replace the registry with? Remember that it has to support access control down to the key level. Chances are you're actually complaining about the complex nature of the Windows configuration data, rather than the storage medium. Well, that wouldn't change even if you got rid of the registry and replaced it with 10,000 text files. They'd still contain the exact same thing, so all you've accomplished is reducing performance.

Yes, I agree that there are quite a few limitations. I keep hoping for a new release that resolves some of those limitations, so hopefully sometime soon. It's a decent little program though, it just takes some getting used to, as it requires a little bit of forethought. I don't know of anything else better that is as easy on system resources too...

It can't be improved, and there can't be a new version. It already does everything it can. All the restrictions are down to fundamental Windows designs, and there is nothing the program can do about it. The most annoying thing is that the compositing window manager (DWM) only supports one desktop, so you can't have Aero on any of the others. It's just not designed to be used for virtual desktops.

Grand Master

hdood

Posted
Posted
Customisation - Let me choose where I want things and how they look, we all need different things.

Tabs for explorer - I know third party apps can add this but its just not as good.

Thats it for me, get those things sorted and I'm buying!

And dual listers so you can have both the source and destination side-by-side in the same window!

Mentor

Orien

Posted
Posted
But you are wrong. Linux most certainly does require restarts to install drivers, and it has BSODs (kernel panics). The latter is completely impossible to get rid of. It is a safety feature where the OS intentionally shuts down because code that is running with full and unrestricted access to your machine did something wrong. If it wasn't stopped, you could end up with data corruption, or even physically damaged hardware.

Absolutely. I work with a lot of *nix servers and they definitely still need reboots. Windows with their 7 release has gotten quite good with not needing to be rebooted all that often - much more so than XP.

Veteran

Leddy

Posted
Posted
Almost every other operating system does not need a restart for driver installation, why does Windows still need it after 7 versions?

Actually, Windows hasn't required a mandatory restart since Vista for most driver installations. Stuff like display drivers and audio drivers work immediately. It's just that the setup program chooses to set the restart flag; a carry over from previous convention.

Enthusiast

random_

Posted
Posted
UI that didn't scream "We did it to show off our cool 3D effects!".

The old file explorer (From 2k-XP era).

Telnet command :-)

Telnet has always been there, same as in Vista.

Enable it in Control Panel>Programs and Features> Turn Windows features on or off.

Grand Master

ToneKnee

Posted
Posted
No more restarting upon driver installation

I don't need to do this for a lot of things, like graphics drivers, I know some nVidia users need to do this with some of their graphics cards.

Adding hard drives with permissions from previous installations to not have to have so many security precautions via password

I don't understand what you are going on about here...

The network "diagnosis" to actually diagnose rather than restart the network adapter. (You can do this yourself.)

Most network problems are caused by the network card, thus, restarting the network card fixes nearly 90% of problems, if it's a problem outside of the network card i.e. not a Windows problem or a problem with the router, then there is nothing Windows can do about it.

Same as above, though, it'd just do it's job without saying what it's doing and just do it's job.

People like to see what it's doing. A bit like a power light when you switch your computer on, a lot of people would think it's not doing anything if the light doesn't show.

Disable BSOD's permanently

And replace it with what exactly? BSOD is there for a reason, it shows error codes to possible problems with the system in question.

Have all codecs and drivers manually like linux

This would destroy the Out of the box experience, there is nothing wrong with the codecs in Windows, actually, it has the biggest advantage over Linux with the ability to play back most DRM based material (Do not get this confused with Windows having DRM, it simply doesn't have DRM other than playing back DRM based files).

And the drivers are not the problem here. The Linux kernel can be faster by removing drivers, that's because the drivers are within the kernel. Windows uses a different approach to drivers and removing all the drivers would hurt the Out of the box experience. You'd only save hard drive space (which is dirt cheap) and not speed up Windows, at all.

Continue previous sessions

Windows 7, Vista and XP already have this feature, it's called 'Hibernate'.

I got some more, but can't think of them all now.

Post yours.

Sorry, but you've posted a lot of things actually wrong with Linux, and I'm a big supporter of Linux. What you suggest would break how Windows runs and a lot of people complain about the install size and DVD size of Windows and say that Linux can fit much more onto a DVD and so on, you forget that a lot of the hard drive space used and the DVD space used is down to the massive sized driver database that comes as default. Enough to satisfy 80%+ computers on the market; something which Linux is struggling on.

Grand Master

hdood

Posted
Posted
I don't understand what you are going on about here...

He probably means that if you move a hard drive/volume from one OS to another, the SIDs of the users on the first OS won't match the SIDs on the second OS, meaning the permissions will be all screwed up and you'll get prompts/errors because none of your users are listed in the ACLs.

Not a problem unique to Windows.

Grand Master

ToneKnee

Posted
Posted
1) A better Task Manager. I know that this has improved some with recent versions of Windows, but it is still difficult for someone to discern what a particular process is... Perhaps there could be a separate section for startup processes added by applications other than Windows?

I don't see anything wrong with the Task Manager, sorry.

2) Cut down on unnecessary processes (Though this has improved a great deal since Vista).

Windows 7 Introduced a feature called 'Process triggering' which triggers processes to start and shut down when they are needed and not needed. Have you seen all the services/daemons started by a normal Linux setup like Ubuntu?

3) An improved Connection dialog, etc. for Wireless networks. This is one area of Windows 7 where I actually prefer the Windows Vista tool.

The connection box was simplified because there was no need for it to be complicated. If you want to get to some advanced settings, there are longer ways to do it which don't bother me. I want to plug in my network adaptor, get quoted for a password, enter it and just use my network, not all this crap with going into dialogues, changing settings just to get something basic to work, it's called the User Experience, something Linux is quite lacking.

4) This may require some explaining, but I would love to be able to create icon groups on the desktop so that I can more easily get to common files and such while keeping minimal files on the desktop. For example you could click on an icon and it could open something similar to "Fences" where a group of files / programs could display. The explanation may require some work, but I've wanted this for a while. I like a clean desktop, and now that the gadgets take up desktop space and not just sidebar space, I would expect a lot of people would want to keep their desktop icons to a minimum.

I believe you are talking about the KDE's implementation of Icon Grouping? It's a nice way, but I wouldn't want to use this feature as my desktop is completely clean and I can simply hit the 'Start' button my keyboard and type whatever program I need to start, plus I have jumplists to help with directory browsing.

To be honest, these two posts I've quoted so far point out the problems Linux actually has and somehow make them a problem with Windows.

He probably means that if you move a hard drive/volume from one OS to another, the SIDs of the users on the first OS won't match the SIDs on the second OS, meaning the permissions will be all screwed up and you'll get prompts/errors because none of your users are listed in the ACLs.

Not a problem unique to Windows.

I think I know what he means now, but there is a registry file called 'Take Ownership' if people Google it which enables people to right click on any program or directory and take permission of the directory and all it's sub folders.

I don't know why he is complaining about a security feature though. If someone robbed my computer and just took out the hard drive and could simply access my files just by plugging it in, I'd be quite annoyed.

Grand Master

Yusuf M. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

This might not be possible, but I think it's worth mentioning. It'd be nice to have a single folder for the save files of PC games. Whether it be your little sister's Barbie game or your hardcore first-person shooter game, having it all in one location would make things easier. Imagine not having to start all over after you format and reinstall Windows. Imagine having to search for the game's save file because your friend accidentally deleted his.

I realize it's a little much and it doesn't apply to every game out there; however, I feel that it's doable and that it would make gaming in Windows all the more easier. That's my only "wish" for now.

Mentor

Orien

Posted
Posted
This might not be possible, but I think it's worth mentioning. It'd be nice to have a single folder for the save files of PC games. Whether it be your little sister's Barbie game or your hardcore first-person shooter game, having it all in one location would make things easier. Imagine not having to start all over after you format and reinstall Windows. Imagine having to search for the game's save file because your friend accidentally deleted his.

I realize it's a little much and it doesn't apply to every game out there; however, I feel that it's doable and that it would make gaming in Windows all the more easier. That's my only "wish" for now.

It'd be nice, but for all game publishers to agree on something like that seems implausible to me.

Grand Master

Miuku.

Posted
Posted
What you suggest would break how Windows runs and a lot of people complain about the install size and DVD size of Windows and say that Linux can fit much more onto a DVD and so on, you forget that a lot of the hard drive space used and the DVD space used is down to the massive sized driver database that comes as default.

Not to turn this into a fight over details but actually, literally speaking, Linux currently supports more hardware than Vista or Win7 (out of the box) - although they're mainly historical items that not many people still use but the support is there :-)

Experienced

ilovetech

Posted
Posted (edited)
1) A better Task Manager. I know that this has improved some with recent versions of Windows, but it is still difficult for someone to discern what a particular process is... Perhaps there could be a separate section for startup processes added by applications other than Windows?

yes i think process explorer of sysinternals must be default task manager.

& then people complained about registry, i think it is the most powerful yet most vulnerable feature of windows. i don't think there could be better alternate to it.

Edited by ilovetech
Grand Master

hdood

Posted
Posted

Process Explorer isn't the default, because it is too complex.

As to why it doesn't try to sort stuff or give more verbose textual information, it's partly because of the potential for abuse. Malware will do anything it can to appear legitimate. Remember how in older versions it would give you an error if you tried to terminate certain system processes? It doesn't even do that anymore, because malware managed to abuse it to become unkillable.

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted
Ah, that's one. It'd be nice to be able to see the specific services under svchost.exe without needing extra software.

both vista and 7 can do this natively, right click the svchost you're interested in and select show services.

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