making windows 7 like xp

There's not really that much to understand, people are creatures of habit. Moving on. Oh, right, tell your mate that there is no need to switch, continue using XP until Windows 8 Comes out. Windows 8 is supposed to go back to looking exactly like XP.

Firseal said:

Actually, I've had Windows 7 for a month now. I've gotten to know many of its features, and frankly do not appreciate them. I came to this forum looking for answers on if there actually are ways to make Windows 7 work like XP, such as pruning unnecessary features or functions which I am otherwise saddled with. I ask this not as someone afraid of the new or clinging to the old. I simply do not like the file system management and interactions therewith, or many of the other basic alterations such as the changes to the task bar.

I get that many of these things are to either aid me or be pleasing to the aestetic, but by and large they are a hinderance rather than a help (and I have long considered aestetic importance a distant second to functionality). Any advice on how to modify the system so that it can function as a more simplified OS with the virtue of the greater depth of security would be appreciated.

Hello Firseal - Sorry to read that this thread has developed such a sour tone. I'm with you re: changing Win7 to meet your preferences and needs. Lots of little things were better in other versions of Windows (and MS Office, too).

No, I'm not afraid of change but sometimes earlier designs just worked and were a solid design - why fix what isn't broken?

Perhaps the forum needs a new section devoted to changing Win7 to look and behave like portions of earlier Windows.

Regards,
GEWB

Owner and user of Windows:
2.0
3.0
3.1
3.11
Bob (I hate to admit to that one)
95a and b
98 and SE
NT 3.51
2000
XP Pro and Home
Vista Business
7 Pro and Home

I just want help - I do not like the system, and have a preference which, if the system works as it should (offering anyone what they want from it), then it should be able to give folks the option of not using features which are not effective or even superfluerous to their needs.

I had hoped that, if I stated that clearly on a forum that proports to offer help and customation for the OS, I might get aid. More, as 'going back to XP' is not an option on this new computer, it is the most hollow of possible answers. Much as I have explored the option and attempted the issue.

I merely ask the forum to put aside their preferences and ask if they have any useful advice to give in how to get the results I desire. I have not said anything against Windows 7 other than the fact that for me personally it is not useful as presented, and ask that the customization technical folks offer what aid that they can offer.

Any useful discussion that can be offered, I await eagerly.

@GEWB: Excellent idea. Alterations to the basic system can only go so far with individuals working on it, and any OS which is used for a long period of time is perforce altered to fit the needs of those who use it.

Any section which helps those who know that a previous setting or system choice was possible (or for whom certain new features prove a hinderance) can look for aid would be of aid to everyone, even those who wish to use precisely the system as is (because I think anyone who has used Windows for a long time has had some setting altered and had the devil of a time finding that one little box they clicked unclicked).

I don't necessarily need it to be like XP. However, to make it similar to XP would be to alter it from its present form, and in those alterations would be many of the changes that I may or may not want for my system.

In other words, there are features I actively like, features I actively dislike, and features I care nothing of in either direction. To make Windows 7 like Windows XP would require customization which would, in its processes, remove much of what I dislike without damaging what I do or hindering the ones I care nothing about. I don't necessarily expect to turn on my Windows 7 computer someday and have it look like my XP computer in another room. I do, however, want to remove several features introduced in it, which I find bothersome. Under the banner of 'Make this like that" will cover most of those.

Or, in shorter form, its not getting all the way that I truly need, since that is essentially an impossibility anyway. Its the process of going in that direction, and making the milestones.

The helpful thing isn't to say its impossible to make this that, or that this. I know that. Its how to make this less like this and more like something else that I am not driven batty by. Therefore, any customizations offered would be helpful. Any steps in that direction useful. Telling me to settle, either for the one or the other, is less so. Everyone customizes. I just have a... ecclectic goal I am going for.

Appologies, logicearth. I should have offered more clarity on those points.

I would like to find a way to modify Windows Explorer so that it does not show any catagory aside from My Computer in the left pane (Removing the Favorites, Libraries, Homegroups, and Networks from Windows Explorer). I would like to completely disable Libraries and any other such program functions so long as doing so did not comprimise system stability. I would like a secondary window for all programs under Start Menu. There is some sort of odd bug that makes my icons overlap when I attempt to autosort my desktop, and thus I would wonder if there is some sort of autocell feature such as available in early versions of the OS, rather than having to manually adjust the icons with the creation of every new icon or the adjustment of any of the sizes thereof. I would like to find a way to completely remove the Smart Address Bar in IE8 without losing autocomplete functionality, or failing that extend the Histories catagory so that it is automatically extended and not be limited to 20 entries (removing titles from the addresses would also help, as I work through the webaddress itself primarily, rather than what the page is calling itself, but that is purely aestetic and doesn't actually impair my ability to work with the system). I would like to know some way to make older periphiral hardware functionality possible/compatable, but we all know that one is a pipe dream.

Just off the top of my head. Probably forgetting one or two. Anyone know how to do any of that?

Why are you all being so hard on Firseal? I don't happen to think I should happily lap up whatever Microsoft spoon-feeds me. I hated Vista and believed what people said about Seven; that it was Vista as it should have been. Well, I think it's Vista with a coat of paint, but that's not the point. The point is, I have genuinely tried to like it, and it just isn't working.

I don't want to be forced to put everything in libraries. I don't want to be treated as if I'm a little kid who can't be trusted with knowledge of how the OS works. I don't want to be dodging and weaving around obstacles to get to what I want to do. XP just worked. Why can't I put Seven into a mode that "just works?"

For instance, the little icon on top of the explorer window that jumps you up one level; where is it? Gone. All you've got is the back arrow, which isn't the same thing.

It is now very easy to drag and drop something into a folder instead of into the window the folder is in. You have to make sure you drop it all the way on the right side, not just in any blank space like you used to. Oh, yeah, all you have to do is do a search for what you just dropped into a folder but you're not sure which folder it was... Well, no, because Search doesn't work anything like it used to. I still haven't figured out how to make it search EVERYWHERE.

There are lots of maddening things like that; why the hell should I be forced to get used to them? XP has the capability to make it look like Win2k. This time there is no such choice.

I am angry because much of this has come about as a result of an attempt to address failings in the Windows GUI that have been there for decades; I and many others have long ago found workarounds and don't have any problem with them. Ditto all the security holes built into previous versions; I just removed the IE, the WMP, the Address Book, all the other built-in trojans and never had any problems in that area, either.

So, how about just answering Firseal's questions, because I am asking the same ones.