Have mercy on the Less experienced!

Fseal I agree.

As for the customer always being right. Well, that is not always true. And if the budget doesn't call for it, then you don't give them what they can't afford.

But that doesn't make Vista horrible by whatever perceived notion there may be.

Just because it's new and someone wants it, doesn't mean they can afford it or have it.
We might all be using Mac instead by many peoples perception of that OS. You have to know your product, which a lot of people think they do, but don't. I am not saying I know everything, I don't. And I am not suggesting that no one else knows or doesn't know anything. I am sure there are a lot of people here that know more than I do. But I know enough to know what will make things work, and I know how to tell a customer what they can get for what they can afford.

I'm sorry, I'm a pretty straight shooter when it comes to this stuff. Am I wrong sometimes, absolutely, and I can admit it. But I am not going to just side with someone cause I want their business either. I want my customers to trust that I am giving them best they can afford to have. And if that gets me fired, then so be it. I don't want to work there.

And if Vista/7 isn't it, then they get XP, or whatever.

As for the changes in Vista, well, once you get use to them, Most of them, not all, are better than they are in XP.

Fseal: An intelligent, and well thought out response. (although I don't think you will change peoples mind about Vista.) One would hope that the driver problems in Vista will be ironed out in 7. Why were the "Jaring changes" made in the first place. We can never go back to a lot of the XP names because of Vista. Then the people who "Cut Their Teeth" on Vista will scream. Things like that name change you mentioned don't seem to have a reason for the change. It doesn’t help one bit and hinders a lot. and that's just a minor one! It's the main reason I started this thread. Changes were made, and in my personal opinion, nobody really cared about, or thought what the people who had to USE the OS would think; or what kind of havoc it would cause when the things they used all the time disappeared. (If you can't find it, it's still gone!) I am all for change if it helps the overall product, but I think someone just thought it would look better. Earlier in this thread, the up arrow in the browser was mentioned. Millions of people USED that arrow. I still think it needs to be brought back, but during the discussion there actually was a reasoned excuse for removing it. To bad the people who rely on that arrow had no way to know what that reason was. Even then, what kind of trouble would it be to bring it back, and help out the people who used it. Why make things hard for no reason. Please..... Developers..... Keep the users in mind when you do something and have mercy on us all.

alot of the changes made were for the better. There are explanations out on the net.
Alot of the changes are (once you re-learne) more productive. Some unfortunately aren't. My main rant is about people complaining about it's stability when Vista actually is the most stable and secure MS OS to date.

Some of the underlying changes (in my opinion) were to throw off all the old virus/malware attacks. Some of the more well designed still manage to exist, and that brings up UAC. Not the best implementation I know, and the controversy on that rampages through many a thread and debate. But it is still useful and informative, and I always knew there would come a time that it would be circumvented. But I am getting into something else deep. So I digress.

Maybe I do come off as harsh at times, and I don't always explain myself in the best way, but it is really passion about people making accusastions where none should exist, for reasons they don't fully understand.

All that does is feed the anti-MS semitism. Vista may not be perfect but it is far better than XP. And 7 is even better (could have probably been a service pack, but who knows). And when many who don’t know that Vista is actually better than they experience due to all the reasons I mentioned before, then they are being sold short.

It may come across as fanboyism, it’s not, I have plenty of complaints about MS. But I like the OS, and it should get a fair chance to be as good as it can be.

There are a lot of reasons for the way Vista is/was, and most of them came from complaints about how things were done in XP. Well, some of those things just didn’t pan out properly for whatever reason. But it doesn't take away from the fact that Vista is actually a very stable OS. Anyway.

Yeah the missing up one level arrow button is a great example of how vista/w7 is lightyears ahead of XP UI wise, but the mere change has people freaked out.

The up directory button was removed because that very functionality was put into the navigable address bar. Not only can you go up one level but two or three or even off onto a branch if you want. It requires exactly the same mouse movement and button click, but you can do 10 times more with the navigable address bar than the up arrow button.

But... the question is, does any "normal" daily windows user care? It's so hard to please the simple/casual user and the enthusiast user at the same time.

I wonder if "Microsoft Bob" might not make a comeback at some point. I.e. an "XP Mode" UI. They did that for XP (Win2k mode UI) because of virtually nothing more than the color changes in the UI :/

I wonder if that was from early feedback or a higher level of paranoia inside MS about the (by todays standards) relatively subtle changes to the UI?

Where did the Up Arrow go? Windows 7 sucks.

hehehe I don't think something minor like an up arrow or renaming add/remove programs is going to be a major deterant to Win 7. These things are examples, and very minor. Sweeping changes with no ryme or reason though, bother me It's true you can't please everyone. I have mixed feelings about bread crumbs. Thats one function I feel I will like if I get used to it.
The FTP item I mentioned is a major hit for me though. It's easy! Finding out how to do it isn't. Why should people have to research how to do something they had been doing for years. Was there realy an improvment or reason to hide that menu option?

cbleman said:

Things are missing in Vista and Win 7 that were in XP.... Make it work - Make it easy - Keep the re-learning curve down. - Unless it's a fix, why make things hard?

Also missing in action since XP ..
The ability to customize the R Click context menus for specific file types.
The ability to make a new task bar and park it on any edge of your screen(s)
Vista and W7 has forgot there’s a difference in the display of (and the purpose for) Icons and Thumbnails.
Mail and Windows Movie Maker has been removed .. Not sure I like the M$ replacements.
Defrag still doesn’t work.

But it’s pretty, has some nice Gadgets and Toys built in ... What more do you want ??
I’m thinking it looks more like my Gson’s Toy box ... As compared to my Tool box.
I can’t figure out what M$’s Plan is ... Besides making money.

septprince said:

This is the reasons why microsoft releases beta versions, so that we could observe the transitions and can test it know it.

come on most of know that with the advent of xp microsoft has been slowly setting the os up to only work the way they want it to. they have made it harder to customize 7, they have removed "restore previous folders at logon, you disable the navigation pane in one folder and win 7 makes it universal across all folder, i personally did not need nor do not need the added steps to get my systray icon to display the way i want the, cannot hide the action flag, cannot hide the speaker icon, do not need libraries or homegroup on my desktop, regardless of the claims no real improvement with ie8 over ie7, etc...

as far as i am concerned win 7 is nothing more than vista sp2. the only thing in it that makes it standout is the touch screen features. i have preordered the home premium version only because it is only $50 preordered. i have stated in this forum and others that as far as i am concerned win 7 is worth no more than $60, and this is only because of the touch screen features.

garbanzo said:

explorer is an extremely limited file manager. if you want something that is actually useful, get a 3rd party app like Directory Opus. 90% of its GUI is customizable, and it will give you full control over how you operate. plus, it offers hundreds more features than explorer.

it's not cheap, but like they say, you get what you pay for...

agreed, i have been waiting since win 98 for windows explorer to grow up. i am very big on windows over macs, however the first time i used their finder i was truly jealous. now yesterday i found path finder Path Finder 5 by Cocoatech for osx. i wish someone would do something like this for windows. i use to be able to open my movies folder expand it to full screen set it for thumbnail view and see thumbnails of my movies all the way across my screen without the navigation pane on the left-side. try to do that in vista or 7 and it is going to happen. in 7 if you hide the navigation pane in one folder 7 makes it universal across all folders.

microsoft needs to learn that when we pay for their os regardless of what the click through eula says we own that copy and we do and will tweak it the way we want.

I spent $75 on lunch today. I got something of value.

A couple of the most recent posts here reflect a lack of familiarity with the operating system.

FUD for thought.

Tepid said:

As I said before, it is XP DeJa Vu all over again.

Every single one of the complaints on stability, looks and functionality were all expressed about XP when it first arrived. With all the same resistance to it. Now people can't/refuse to give it up. Almost all of them were fixed with hardware upgrades, namely RAM (for the most part) and Video. And 3rd Party Vendors slowly getting on board with proper drivers, and software. The same holds true with Vista.

Back then, People refused to give up 98SE and Win 2000 for all the same reasons express about Vista and soon, 7.

Back then, "Why can't I run XP on my 386/486 with 64M of ram and all my software?"
When it was found later that 512M was unheard of and the sweet spot.
Oh and today, in XP with newer setups and latest software, 1G is pretty much minimum for RAM if you want XP to run smoothly. So, it is not only the OS that should be taken into account when it comes to functionality/stability, you have to look at all of it as a whole.

What are you running (software wise), how good is the hardware/drivers. Am I providing enough resources? Is this the right OS for me?

Just cause you and other have had problems, doesn't make it the sole fault of the OS.
And refusing to look at all of it as a whole, you are just pointing fingers in the air and saying there's the dark cloud causing all my problems, even if is a 100 miles away, that's what I'm blaming for my problems, regardless of the real reason/s.

try again. what people complained about xp was not its stability, rather that it had a extremely high learning curve versus 98 and the fact that the ui looked more like something a child through together. vista pre sp1 was a nightmare. post sp1 it ran great.