Windows 7 awkward feel, missing WinXP, need advice

Nick2 said:

I just can't understand what were they thinking when they ditched the XP's shell. Why?
Why don't they care about their customers?

Windows XP's shell sucks very bad compared to Windows 7. What Microsoft did was absolutely the best thing for customers, except some Luddites.

zzz2496 said:

See, my primary monitor is a 24" Dell (1920x1200 desktop resolution), the taskbar real estate is way shorter than in XP, just because I can't undock my quick launch toolbar off taskbar, and I have more than 30 open windows at any time and thus, I got SCROLL BAR on my taskbar. So far its WAY BETTER than XP, I rarely see a scrollbar on my taskbar (unless I open more than 10 applications that are not docked on the taskbar [NOT 10 windows !!!]).

Just in passing, I may not have 30 open windows at a time, but I've never seen a scroll bar on my "double-high" taskbar.

Now I don't have an XP-style QuickLaunch bar in my Win7 world, because to be honest I've actually gotten very used to the native Win7 taskbar. Once I learned I could just drop shortcuts onto it anywhere I wanted (instead of RMB -> pin to taskbar, which always go to the end of the line) so that I could actually arrange the icons in the exact order I was used to with my old WinXP QuickLaunch bar, I've learned to love the new approach... along with the Aero peek for open windows from the taskbar. It even has a peek at "live TV" (with truly moving images, just like in the real TV window) when I'm watching TV.

As you can see from this screenshot (taken on my 19" monitor Win7 machine with double-height taskbar and small icons, not my 24" monitor 1920x1200 monitor like yours... with an even larger width taskbar, but also double-height and also with small icons), all I've ever seen happen when more and more windows open is that the "open icon rectangles" get smaller and smaller, but at least the mini-icon at the left is still completely recognizable (along with the relative location of the item, which I know intuitively). I've never seen a scroll bar down there.



Personally, I'm 100% now accustomed to the new Win7 taskbar and do not yearn for the old WinXP QuickLaunch bar. Incidentally, on WinXP I also had double-height for my taskbar and had all the QuickLaunch icons on the top row, with the active task rectangles appearing on the bottom row. I actually now prefer the new Win7 style, now that I've gotten used to it..

Thorsen said:

Now advice.

Write down a list of everything that you want to act like XP. Focus on one thing at a time and see what you can change to get it to function like it had or as closely as possible or even acceptably.

then as your looking for these, write down everything that you can that is better. the first is obviously the 64x support. I am sure you will find plenty more.

As you cross of the negatives as they are fixed and build to the list of positives, you will find a happy medium. You cant get Win7 to do what XP did and there are so many things that Win7 does that XP couldn't I think you will be suprised by what you find.

Wise advice.

My own experience involved an early battle with two or three "legacy" programs dating back to first usage probably during Win95 days! These were probably 16-bit programs, or maybe used 16-bit installers. They were accepted and could install and run just fine under Win98 and later WinXP 32-bit. But they finally had met their match with Win7 64-bit, where even in compatibility mode they simply would not install (either period, or the results were less-than-perfect functionality... probably tied to authority/location of INI/CFG files, etc.).

My solution was to find alternative MODERN versions of programs that provided the same functionality, but were Win7-compatible. And these were not minor functions: SCSI tape backup software using my DDS6 DAT160 HP drive, and Address Book software (to replace Corel WordPerfect 7's Address Book), etc.. Well, after a bit of research in exploring the alternatives, I actually DID find perfectly acceptable (and actually more elegant) "modern" programs that did exactly what I wanted.

Sure... it might have taken a few days to get an export/import of some irreplaceable information to succeed, but eventually I was successful. In the case of my tape backups, well I just started from scratch with the new product and gradually overwrote all of my old tapes.

I also have WinXP still bootable (Win7 was installed on a separate partition), but to be honest I haven't booted to it in probably 3 months now. Install of Win7 was back in December.

Now that I've gotten completely comfortable with those few new products I had to convert to for Win7, I don't miss the old Win95-era programs at all. Don't even notice that they're gone (along with their software vendors, I might add... so I was on my own anyway, which is no longer the case with the new products).

I went form XP'PRO to Windows 7 Home Premium and it's been great. The only thing I miss is XP'S email. It was on my desktop; hit it no logging in, just bingo you had your mail. You could cut and past. If I remember correctly you could drop and drag most any thing into outgoing mail. I have been trying to get cartoons into email using hotmail and windstream. Haven't figured out how to get pictures I have in any program into outgoing mail. It's a shame that M/S don't have a download that one could get that would works as good as outlook express. No I don't my new car to look like my old car. I will learn how to use all the new buttons and switches and enjoy.