What do you absolutely hate about beloved Windows 7?


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The basic theme is the thing that annoys me the most, I wish we were able to at least change its color or have some predefined color variations, but I'm pretty sure there will be awesome visual styles released by the community.

- The search bar in windows explorer. The 'filters' are not documented anywhere, and it doesnt let you customize the search (except for the set of filters that it shows). Also, you can only change the 'search space' in the result window. there should be a way to customize the search before hitting the search/enter button.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/...s/advquery.mspx

There is a deficiency in discoverability for many features. I dislike how the UI doesn't explicitly document keyboard shortcuts (Office 2007 was a godsend though).

What do I hate about it? I don't have it yet. I would like to see future versions offer more tinkering and manipulating the UI as a user wants to. no need for window blinds then.. :p

Buy a better computer.

Just to expand on the "improve performance" issue

The most annoying thing about Windows 7 is the fact that we are basically told to update our hardware

Most users say 4Gig (even 6) is really good for Windows 7 64Bit (???) So that means I have to buy more ram huh !

Hmm I'd say there will be a lot of new computers sold in the next year, I only wish I could afford to keep up!

Oh and for all the users running Windows 7 on 1 Gig of Ram on a 2ghz (single core) Um just stick to XP ;)

HomeGroup always bugging when I have my network location as Home, thus setting it to work. Action Center icon not disappearing sometimes when I made sure it only shows notifications. Checking the basic status of my network connection used to be easy with XP, right clicking and clicking STATUS in bold. Now I need to open Network and Sharing Center and then open the connection itself. Some of the light blue colors are relaxing to the eye but I prefer the beta colors instead, this seems a bit fruityish imo

Just to expand on the "improve performance" issue

The most annoying thing about Windows 7 is the fact that we are basically told to update our hardware

Most users say 4Gig (even 6) is really good for Windows 7 64Bit (???) So that means I have to buy more ram huh !

Hmm I'd say there will be a lot of new computers sold in the next year, I only wish I could afford to keep up!

Oh and for all the users running Windows 7 on 1 Gig of Ram on a 2ghz (single core) Um just stick to XP ;)

Sorry, but the same crap was said when Windows XP came onto the scene. "2Ghz (single core)" says absolutely nothing to me, for all I know, that could be one of the original Pentium 4's released in 2001 in which case you've had plenty of time to upgrade.

And to throw petrol onto the fire. If we are to advance in software, Operating Systems need to be more sophisticated, which means more code, which means more processing power and memory and the list goes on.

- The KDE ripped off taskbar blows - using small icons makes it look absolutely useless, start menu is still not size/content customiseable enough.

- The Windows Explorer has gone from a great file manager to a complete and utter useless mess. I had to install a 3rd party program just to be able to manipulate files properly (see below for one fo the many reasons).

- Too much bling bling, then again if you remove the bling bling you're looking at Windows 2000, where's the middle road?

And my special favorite; If you remove Windows Search, you can't even use any Find functionality in the Windows Explorer. That's just pure awesome design right there - I cannot emphasise the mind boggling developer vision that was required for that.

On that note, I've gotten Win7 to BSOD multiple times already on a machine where Linux hasn't crashed .. well, ever.

UAC is turned off. Windows still blocks you. You cannot run as a true admin on either Vista or Win7. hence my post of something I hate on Windows 7.

Yes you can. You have to go into the local security policy to allow administrators to always run in elevated privelege mode and you can always take ownership of files and folders to change the ACL applied to them.

I assume you have been trying to drill down into your user profile for some reason. I don't remember having any issues going into other system directories so far, but I may have missed something. Unless there is something wrong with your user profile, there really is no reason to get in there. Just go into the <insert username here> folder from the start menu or the libraries from the Windows Explorer default view and get access to the content there. The reason they locked that portion down a great deal is to prevent malware that installs to your local profile rather than C:\Program Files and through windows installer from being installed and run on startup (in xp, everyone had access to the all users start menu startup folder).

Even people with normal user rights in XP were able to install software that only installed to the local profile. This is a problem, Vista/7 fixed that problem. If you were an administrator who absolutely needed to get into someone's user profile, you would already know how to do it. Taking ownership and changing permissions is not new to Windows 7, and anyone with 10 minutes of real IT experience knows how to get around permissions issues.

My advice, unless you absolutely have to get into one of those "locked" folders (which is unlikely especially on a consumer machine), don't.

- The KDE ripped off taskbar blows - using small icons makes it look absolutely useless, start menu is still not size/content customiseable enough.

- The Windows Explorer has gone from a great file manager to a complete and utter useless mess. I had to install a 3rd party program just to be able to manipulate files properly (see below for one fo the many reasons).

- Too much bling bling, then again if you remove the bling bling you're looking at Windows 2000, where's the middle road?

And my special favorite; If you remove Windows Search, you can't even use any Find functionality in the Windows Explorer. That's just pure awesome design right there - I cannot emphasise the mind boggling developer vision that was required for that.

On that note, I've gotten Win7 to BSOD multiple times already on a machine where Linux hasn't crashed .. well, ever.

The taskbar size and look (the parts you claim have been ripped from KDE) make it easier for people with touchscreens to open applications by finger. The start menu can be resized by changing the amount of previously opened applications that are displayed on the default start menu view.

Without any specific reason as to why Explorer is an "complete and utter useless mess" it's really hard for anyone to either help you or even understand what you mean. Your one example is removing Windows Search breaks search bars, which is weak considering all Windows Explorer search funtions are managed by Windows Search, and it makes perfect sense that if you disable search without installing a third party search application, you can't search (doesn't exactly take a brain surgeon to figure that one out). You could have chnaged the default indexed folders instead to save on resource use if that was your issue with it in the first place.

Why is someone that uses KDE upset about "Bling-Bling"?

I have had Windows7 blue screen on me as well, it was an issue with a faulty driver, which I was able to recover from, rather easily. It's only happened once on the 15 or so machines I've run it on. I'm happy you've had so much success with linux, most of the flavors out there are great operating systems in their own right. Linux doesn't have nearly the same hardware requirements that Windows 7 has, and typically doesn't use as many resources either.

If Windows is BSODing consistently, might I advise troubleshooting the issue? It's probably for the exact same reason every time.

Explorer is my #1 gripe. There's just so much with it that's wrong.

  • when scrolling in tree view the tooltip that pops up over long folder/file names doesn't always render properly
  • when deleting folders in tree view it always scrolls back to the top of the drive listing and is annoying as hell
  • getting total file sizes of 15 or more files is an extra click that shouldn't have to be an extra click
  • control panel layout
  • the top left corners of any window with a border padding of 2 or less have visual garbage on them

  • the close button on the properties page of devices in device manager flashes when you hover over it
  • the resize bug for the services window

I'd list more, but there's a lot that feels "meh". The performance of 7 is great, but the UI bugs and inconsistencies really need more polish and not linger around for 10 years before they're addressed and fixed.

I know performance is top priority, but when people use something for a prolonged period of time, day in and day out, the UI issues are very annoying and shouldn't have as many glitches and bugs in it as it does.

That they removed Windows Photo Gallery and Calendar. I know people can download the Live versions, but few people are going to do that and htey're going to miss out on this awesome program.

Both of those can be pulled from Vista. They work just fine. The mail app is still in 7 as well.

I hate nothing! Windows 7 is love :wub:

Well, I don't know about "Windows 7 is love", but there is nothing I would change about Windows 7. For me, it's perfect as-is.

The New Taskbar Is pretty ugly

I also have a problem on my main i7 machine where if I click the icon net to the clock to display all my hidden icons, my tasbar freezes for about 5 seconds. Sometimes during that 5 seconds the list of icons appears in the top left of my screen and other times it freezes for 5 seconds and shows me nothing. That annoys me the most.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it, but anyone who calls it perfect is not taking the discussion seriously.

I wish Explorer was tabbed. I almost wonder if it's a patent concern preventing it from happening.

Still haven't found a way to easily tag video directly in Explorer. Ridiculous.

I also wish I had better control over privacy-related issues. I have limited control over what shows up in certain "recent" lists. Bitlocker is helpful, but I'd like more robust encryption options that aren't tied to some company that may not exist in a few years or may be bought out by a competitor. Still no secure erase option.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it, but anyone who calls it perfect is not taking the discussion seriously.

I wish Explorer was tabbed. I almost wonder if it's a patent concern preventing it from happening.

Still haven't found a way to easily tag video directly in Explorer. Ridiculous.

I also wish I had better control over privacy-related issues. I have limited control over what shows up in certain "recent" lists. Bitlocker is helpful, but I'd like more robust encryption options that aren't tied to some company that may not exist in a few years or may be bought out by a competitor. Still no secure erase option.

It's not perfect but there's certainly not anything I hate enough to post about (as the thread asks "...what do you absolutely hate..."). No BSOD's, nothing that has aggravated me yet aside from my WES giving my SSD a 5.9, but that's all cleared up now :), yay 7.2.

I also wish I had better control over privacy-related issues. I have limited control over what shows up in certain "recent" lists. Bitlocker is helpful, but I'd like more robust encryption options that aren't tied to some company that may not exist in a few years or may be bought out by a competitor. Still no secure erase option.

that aint happening , not anytime soon

maybe far in the future

Can't double-click a video file in explorer if WMP12 is already playing a video file...WMP12 continues to play the ALREADY playing file...I thought it could be just queuing it up to play after the current file's played through...but I can't see anything in the settings that confirms my thinking...

Oh and you CAN double-click the FIRST video file and it will start to play...:)

You can't customize taskbar grouping anymore. Turning off auto-combine so that labels always show on taskbar items is almost useless as nothing gets grouped anymore.

Example: In XP/Vista you could customize 3 or more open programs get grouped to one taskbar item.

- The KDE ripped off taskbar blows - using small icons makes it look absolutely useless, start menu is still not size/content customiseable enough.

- The Windows Explorer has gone from a great file manager to a complete and utter useless mess. I had to install a 3rd party program just to be able to manipulate files properly (see below for one fo the many reasons).

- Too much bling bling, then again if you remove the bling bling you're looking at Windows 2000, where's the middle road?

And my special favorite; If you remove Windows Search, you can't even use any Find functionality in the Windows Explorer. That's just pure awesome design right there - I cannot emphasise the mind boggling developer vision that was required for that.

On that note, I've gotten Win7 to BSOD multiple times already on a machine where Linux hasn't crashed .. well, ever.

Besides having large icons like the KDE taskbar they work completely differently... its really more similar to the OSX dock if anything...

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