Do you miss the Win XP networking icons that show activity?

When I posted it, it was panned, lol.

Network Activity Indicator for Windows 7

Good to see someone who likes it

A Guy

I don't miss it. Because to me, it is pointless. I'm always connected to the internet, there is always data moving within the network. Its not valuable information to me. I am always connected. I only care when I'm not connected and the icon tells me that.

This is from someone who breaths networks. I build and manage large corporate networks.

I cannot find it at the moment, but there was an article describing how the network icon kept computers from going to sleep cause it would constantly ping network adapters so it could flash its tiny little useless icon. Edit, wasn't an article but a comment.

From Sean [MSFT]

The reason we removed the blinking in Windows Vista was for battery life -- in order to blink the lights accurately, the indicator would poll the network drivers once a second, which as a side effect, would prevent often prevent network devices from going into low power states. Coupled with the fact that with the advent of broadband, and apps that constantly used the network, the blinking was not really telling the user much anymore (it was designed for use with dialup networks)...