Top Features Absent From Windows 7

Night Hawk · Jan 31, 2011

This should raise some eye brows!

Top Features Absent From Windows 7

Serdar Yegulalp 01/29/2011

From dropping SteadyState to the lack of touch support, universal software updates, or third-party hardware support there's still a great deal missing from the Microsoft operating system. Some, inexplicably, didn't carry over from XP or Vista and others still haven't materialized despite widespread, ongoing demand. Why would Microsoft skimp on offering features that seem in their best interest to provide natively? One possibility is that they don't feel that way -- because they're waiting for someone else to develop their own approach to the same problem. So while the latest OS may be considered a success for Redmond, there remain shortcomings. Here's a look at several notable omissions and a few suggestions for alternatives.

6 page report

Stratos · Jan 31, 2011

Agreed on SteadyState for Windows 7, the rest are meh at best. The issue with Appsnap where 3rd party apps can be updated through 1 native program is a nice idea but it relies heavily on the participation of 3rd parties to keep that database as updated as much as possible.

It will work only if the software that shows up in such a program are only official releases from the manufacturer. For example finding genuine AMD/ATI Catalyst drivers on the app is fine, as long as it also doesn't include hacked/modified drivers from OMEGADRIVERS which may confuse some people that may not know the difference.

mickey megabyte · Jan 31, 2011

where is the six page report?

i only see a few screenshots with the same text repeated. and page six is pretty much empty.

sigh - i want my money back!

Bill2 · Jan 31, 2011

I wonder how many people would actually use steadystate if it was on offer. Most folks I know create backup images regularly and restore from them. For the IT admins, steadystate-like calm can be achieved by locking down the computer with gpedit policies, MS has a full reference sheet on one of its pages for those.

Appsnap is a difficult idea given the large variety of apps people use. But yes although the whole world knows by now that the "base system device" is the card reader, its intriguing why MS didnt bother to tie up with the manufacturers for those drivers considering it spent a fortune adding an enormous no. of drivers to the OS.

tw33k · Jan 31, 2011

I use Steady State on a couple of XP boxes at work. Very handy

Bill2 · Jan 31, 2011

tw33k said:
I use Steady State on a couple of XP boxes at work. Very handy

So do you return to steady state at the end of the day or is it like once in several days? Just trying to understand what the advantage is over simply restoring from an image.

tw33k · Jan 31, 2011

Not sure how it's related to restoring an image

I've set it up to restrict what users can and can't do. Easier than GPEdit

Bill2 · Jan 31, 2011

tw33k said:
Not sure how it's related to restoring an image I've set it up to restrict what users can and can't do. Easier than GPEdit

The idea was that after the users have finished creating havoc, one restores from a previously made image to clean slate. But I see what you're saying.

Zen00 · Jan 31, 2011

That report was the suckyist piece of junk writing I've ever seen! There was no content, half of his "missing" features were third-party software/driver updaters that Microsoft doesn't even own, let alone has ever included in Windows. Even his information is wrong, you don't have to supply your own drivers for the device manager, just right click on them and click the update button, if the system recognizes them it will automatically download the drivers for it. Sheesh.

Night Hawk · Jan 31, 2011

mickey megabyte said:
where is the six page report?

i only see a few screenshots with the same text repeated. and page six is pretty much empty.

sigh - i want my money back!

< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next >

:roflmao: Iwas undecided if this would be better here or in the Chillout Room. The site isn't one of my usual sources.

As far as SteadyState I've simply been using the 7 backup feature and restored several images each successful over the last year.

jimbo45 · Feb 1, 2011

Hi there
If you need "Steady State" type of stuff IMO the obvious way to do it is with Virtual Machines where you can allow everything to work in "simulation" mode but you don't actually update any of the relevant disks.

These days current hardware is MORE than capable of suppoting large numbers of Virtual Machines.

Other than that the report really is a waste of time -- Applications already can be made fairly seamlessly if people would stick to the standard published interfaces but people often cheat especially when developing gaming software since they want to squeeze the largest possible piece of performance out of the hardware - which means bypassing the OS and writing to the hardware's firmware directly.

Cheers
jimbo

Dinesh · Feb 1, 2011

The last 3 features dont make sense...

Night Hawk · Feb 1, 2011

You got that one correct!

"Update Drivers"? Give me a break! Any support site is all you need.

The Dell updater is for Dell not my HP?, Gateway?, or.... And the3rd AppSnap is easily replaced with the Secunia Personal Software Inspector.

Lordbob75 · Feb 1, 2011

Zen00 said:
That report was the suckyist piece of junk writing I've ever seen! There was no content, half of his "missing" features were third-party software/driver updaters that Microsoft doesn't even own, let alone has ever included in Windows. Even his information is wrong, you don't have to supply your own drivers for the device manager, just right click on them and click the update button, if the system recognizes them it will automatically download the drivers for it. Sheesh.

This. That whole report was just garbage put together to try to get attention.

You should remove the link so no one else has to suffer through that.

~Lordbob

smarteyeball · Feb 1, 2011

Zen00 said:
That report was the suckyist piece of junk writing I've ever seen!

It's definitely up there in the rubbish 'article' stakes.

Night Hawk · Feb 1, 2011

As I was saying before it's not one of the usual news sources for me. A far better look while not the best source for a review on 7's features is seen at Windows 7's Best Underhyped Features

lehnerus2000 · Feb 1, 2011

If you have the "latest and greatest"

jimbo45 said:
Hi there
If you need "Steady State" type of stuff IMO the obvious way to do it is with Virtual Machines where you can allow everything to work in "simulation" mode but you don't actually update any of the relevant disks.

These days current hardware is MORE than capable of suppoting large numbers of Virtual Machines.

That's alright if you have "latest and greatest" hardware.

The IT Admin used SteadyState on the PCs at my last job.
The machines had 4 GB HDDs and 256 MB of RAM!
No chance of running an XP VM on those PCs.
I don't know how they were able to run XP and Office.

Re-imaging takes time.
At my TAFE they use some stupid torrent system (for class files and system images).
It took literally an hour to re-image 20 PCs!
People whine about Windows taking longer than 30 seconds to boot, so you can imagine how loud the the howling was that day.

Cr00zng · Feb 1, 2011

smarteyeball said:
It's definitely up there in the rubbish 'article' stakes.

Consider the media that have posted it, InformationWeek. They tend to be anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux, or anything not Microsoft....

The only thing I missed in Windows 7 is the blinking network icon in the task bar. I am not sure what MS was thinking by disabling the animation...

Night Hawk · Feb 1, 2011

You have to right click on the taskbar or Start button for properties and go into the notification area to show the network icon. It still looks close to what was seen in XP, Vista shapwise. It's now simply hidden from view by default.

mickey megabyte · Feb 2, 2011

Night Hawk, i think that Cr00zng meant that the xp network system tray icon-thingy used to animate to let you know when there was some activity.

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