One feature or tech you want in Windows 8

[vladmphoto]

Okay Windows 7 isn't even available in retail yet and already people are making threads like this. Why don't you give it like a year for Windows 7 to establish before you start thinking about the next version. This is why things end up half-assed in this world because people keep rushing things.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

I want an easy backup button. Just one click to export all your user customizable settings: themes, wallpapers, gadgets, favourites, my documents, passwords for websites and what not :D

[kimsland]

Okay Windows 7 isn't even available in retail yet and already people are making threads like this. Why don't you give it like a year for Windows 7 to establish before you start thinking about the next version. This is why things end up half-assed in this world because people keep rushing things.

I think the best feature I'd like is the actual MS Windows 7 Setup CD

Basically all OEMs give out Restore discs (actually usually partitions) I think it would help many if they were given the actual MS Windows disc itself

Oh I quoted the above because. 1. I agree and 2. Well it's just fun discussion. I can't really comment for about a year on Windows 7, we should know by then if its a flop or not. It does sound good, but then again so did Vista ;)

[macf13nd]

I want an easy backup button. Just one click to export all your user customizable settings: themes, wallpapers, gadgets, favourites, my documents, passwords for websites and what not :D

good one!

[Kyang]

Okay Windows 7 isn't even available in retail yet and already people are making threads like this. Why don't you give it like a year for Windows 7 to establish before you start thinking about the next version. This is why things end up half-assed in this world because people keep rushing things.

I see it like this. The sooner MS sees what people want, the sooner they can incorporate things into their plans, meaning they won't have to rush. :p . Whether or not they will ever see the items on this thread or even care is another matter entirely. :rofl: .

I don't know much in the way of the deeper technical aspects, so as a relatively casual user, I have only a few UI suggestions that others might see as shallow, but regardless, stand out to me according to how I use my computer. These are based on my light usage of an older build of Windows 7, so if anything is changed, or is actually possible, feel free to let me know.

-Pin anything onto the taskbar.

-A more consistent control panel and preference settings that aren't made up of a mix of different windows, property boxes and the like.

-Avoiding the new tiny tree based folder browser that pops up when choosing a wallpaper folder. I can't remember where exactly it appears aside from that, but to me that little box represents a big step back from the nice big easy to browse window that Vista gave me. Previously I could even just click on pinned shortcuts inside the navigation window, and it was much simpler than having to drill down a tree to find folder.

-Ability to see animated gifs in the photo-viewer, be it in the included viewer or the WLPG.

-Customizing the command bar or whatever it's called at the top of explorer windows. I would like to be able to choose what items I want shown there.

-Please stop hiding information from me in the details pane when I select 16 items or more... Having to click, "Show more details" all the time is a little tedious.

-Some kind of slider or exposed control for setting the hover delay required to activate various Aero features like the fly-outs or Aero peek. I would like this especially for when Aero peek is triggered by Flip/Alt-tab. I love how the two are now linked, but I dislike the tiny delay required before Aero peek activates.

-Ability to select more than one item at a time on jump lists when clearing out unwanted, deleted, or temporary recent items (Like those from removable drives.). Right now it's an item by item affair, and the only alternative is clearing all recent items out at once, which isn't what I want to do.

-Option to show how many windows are open for each taskbar item, right on the taskbar, instead of hover over each icon to see the flyout.

[i_was_here]

Okay Windows 7 isn't even available in retail yet and already people are making threads like this. Why don't you give it like a year for Windows 7 to establish before you start thinking about the next version. This is why things end up half-assed in this world because people keep rushing things.

Unless Microsoft does another service pack similar to XP's SP2, I don't think Windows 7 will get any new features.

[Zlain]

QTTabBar does the job. And pretty nicely too! Its addictive: once you're onto it, you feel other computers to be ages behind time.

I've tested it in Windows? XP Pro SP2, and it works like a charm. I believe an updated version supports Vista? too. Not yet certified for Windows? 7 yet, but should work, since the explorer theming is similar to Vista?...

Omkar

("If it isn't there; you can be pretty damn sure there's an app out there which can do it!", the Windows? Philosophy)

Link doesn:(t work :( I used to use that but it stopped working in XP SP3.

[torrentthief]

Tabbed browsing in Windows Explorer for the win.

would be great if they added this in Win7 SP1!

I often have 3 windows explorer windows open when looking for things and copying files between directories, would save alot of room on my taskbar:)

[Colin-uk Veteran]

threads merged & cleaned

[CrazyK]

I believe all of mine a quite simple

An option for a more detailed sync/backup

Tabs for Explorer

Individual folder settings when it comes to things like "show hidden files"

Add and remove features from folder tool bars.

The option to make Explorer more detailed so I don't have to use 3rd party management apps to store music, software, videos etc..

[Drazick]

Get read of the installations.

Make each program independent in its folder, no more DLL's.

Just like the old DOS days.

Say goodbye to installers, Registry Conflicts etc...

Wouldn't mind make it lighter, smaller and faster.

WinFS (Or any new FS for that matter) would be great as well.

P.S.

Please bring back the regular Vista Photo Gallery.

[soumyasch]

What would be gained by a tabbed explorer? How many times do you have to look at more than one Explorer window at a time (except when copying files)? And when copying files, just snap one window to the left and the other to the right.

Instead some revision tracking system for registries would be a better use of the resources, IMO. For each app, just track the keys used. When migrating the app to a new system, just export the tracked keys. Or when uninstalling, just delete those keys.

And the only thing from WinFS that I want is the schema repository. Applications will publish the schema of the objects and any other application, which does not natively recognize the objects, can look at the schema to make sense of it. . And of course, applications that take advantage of this.

[ToneKnee]

Get read of the installations.

Make each program independent in its folder, no more DLL's.

Just like the old DOS days.

Say goodbye to installers, Registry Conflicts etc...

Wouldn't mind make it lighter, smaller and faster.

WinFS (Or any new FS for that matter) would be great as well.

P.S.

Please bring back the regular Vista Photo Gallery.

Repeat after me.

There is no such thing as WinFS.

WinFS was never going to be a new File System.

WinFS was just an extension for NTFS.

[Mike]

Proper autorun implementation (Y)

[noroom]

Repeat after me.

There is no such thing as WinFS.

WinFS was never going to be a new File System.

WinFS was just an extension for NTFS.

Source? The wikipedia article barely even mentions NTFS.

[Sam]

Unix certification, for the lulz.

[Imran Hussain]

Source? The wikipedia article barely even mentions NTFS.

Since WinFS is built on top of and dependent on NTFS, we can?t replace it. One way to think of this is that WinFS is a subsystem on top of NTFS; you can have your WinFS store on the same drive as normal NTFS files.

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2005/09/26/474045.aspx (The official WinFS blog)

[Glowstick]

Source? The wikipedia article barely even mentions NTFS.

WinFS is goddamn SQL Server being used as global object store. Its frickin' MDF and LDF files as well as BLOB data were stuffed in x:\System Volume Information on a NTFS volume. That's it, nothing more. Just because it includes the ability to alias files to object store items doesn't make it a file system!

Or rather "didn't", because it's D-E-A-D!

[Beastage]

I still want WinFS, sounds good.

[Toxicfume Veteran]

1. To use EFI instead of the aging BIOS.

2. A nice, intuitive backup system (a la Time Machine?)

3. ZFS would be nice, a lot cleaner system than NTFS. (I'm not saying NTFS is outright bad).

[ToneKnee]

Source? The wikipedia article barely even mentions NTFS.

If you don't understand that it was an extension for NTFS (a slow one at that, that was one of the reason why it was cancelled), here is a picture from the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WinFSArch.svg

[Glowstick]

3. ZFS would be nice, a lot cleaner system than NTFS. (I'm not saying NTFS is outright bad).

ZFS doesn't have device evac yet. Until that's in, it'll be a hot iron for clueless home users.

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Universal Spell checker. So browsers, Office, and other applications and tap into the installed spell checker and use it.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

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.

This is a very confusing request.

*nix systems are generally monolithic kernels (i.e. BSD, Linux, SCO, etc). The only sort of exception is OS X which is an unusual mishmash of a microkernel and a monolithic kernel (it runs one on top of the other).

Windows (NT) on the other hand started out as a microkernel architecture, and largely still is (though pedants will say it isn't a "pure" microkernel).

[Toxicfume Veteran]

ZFS doesn't have device evac yet...

Would you elaborate or give a link to some more info?