Make Windows 7 remember window positions and size!

[jemcgarvey]

I emailed Microsoft just to do my part like you guys said. I can't believe they don't care about this problem. I can't imagine them only using maximized windows themselves... how could the devs stand working on their own project with such basic functionality driving them up the wall!

Anyway, thanks so much for working on this an app. The world needs it.

 

[Charles Kane]

Why would MS care about this?

They have made a design choice. It's not an unreasonable design choice. I can think of a lot of reasons to go down this track.

There is no imperative for MS (or for us - the users) to get stuck in some time warp of how things "used to be" 10 years ago. There is no "law" which says an OS should be endlessly backward compatible, nor that every function will satisfy every intricate need.

The reality is that MS have finally given us a well wrought, sophisticated file manager, simple and complex at the same time. It WILL do what you need to do - but you may have to adapt a bit.

If not, using third party software is not a crime. God help us if MS made everything in their own image.

 

[helmutcheese]

They didn't make a choice, they simply forget to add it or broke it same way as this the Vista Folder Views/Layouts.

Well I would like to think that's the case as only an idiot would leave it out intentionally.

Many peeps don't get what we are moaning about that's because this function is so basic and so old you use it every damn day and take it for granted.

 

[InternetLord]

Why would MS care about this?

They have made a design choice. It's not an unreasonable design choice. I can think of a lot of reasons to go down this track.

There is no imperative for MS (or for us - the users) to get stuck in some time warp of how things "used to be" 10 years ago. There is no "law" which says an OS should be endlessly backward compatible, nor that every function will satisfy every intricate need.

The reality is that MS have finally given us a well wrought, sophisticated file manager, simple and complex at the same time. It WILL do what you need to do - but you may have to adapt a bit.

If not, using third party software is not a crime. God help us if MS made everything in their own image.

you must be on a bad acid trip bud. windows explorer has not changed very much since win 95 first came out. a "well wrought sophisticated file manager":roflmao: :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao: i laughed so damn hard i fell out of my chair.

 

[tweaker]

Do you have a site or something? Where are you going to release the first public version and where?
Also are you a skilled coder?
Hope you can answer these questions.

Also a small suggestion. If you do decide to add extra features to your app it would be very nice if you could release 2 versions. One with extra stuff and one that is very basic and is very very low on ressources and only remembers windows size and position and nothing more.
Cheers.

I think I'll just put the file up on some filesharing site(s), or possibly as an attachement here for the first public test version (depending on the size of package).

As for being skilled or not I'll let others judge that I do however make my living on coding so I guess I'm in the professional category, even if this particular project is a "hobby" project.

Those extra features would likely end up making extremly little difference in file/mem sizes
(as in maybe a couple of, or couple tens of kb) so I wouldn't worry. Should there for some reason be anything larger, I'll try to stick it in a dll which won't get loaded unless actually used.

 

[Charles Kane]

you must be on a bad acid trip bud. windows explorer has not changed very much since win 95 first came out. i laughed so damn hard i fell out of my chair.

1. How can I be on a bad acid trip yet find something "good" ?
2. The changes in Explorer from XP to 7 are dramatic - aren't you seeing the changes

off the top of my (acid-ridden) head here are a few
​

• Arrange by in Documents
• Libraries
• New Folder button
• Preview pane button and slider
• Favorites sidebar
• Hidden File etc Menu
• Breadcrumb/Drop Down Address bar
• Properties Pane
• Search

Don't you regard those as changes?

3. I'm glad I gave you some laughter. Seems you need it.

 

[InternetLord]

you must be on a bad acid trip bud. windows explorer has not changed very much since win 95 first came out. i laughed so damn hard i fell out of my chair.

1. How can I be on a bad acid trip yet find something "good" ?
2. The changes in Explorer from XP to 7 are dramatic - aren't you seeing the changes

off the top of my (acid-ridden) head here are a few
​

• Arrange by in Documents
• Libraries
• New Folder button
• Preview pane button and slider
• Favorites sidebar
• Hidden File etc Menu
• Breadcrumb/Drop Down Address bar
• Properties Pane
• Search

Don't you regard those as changes?

3. I'm glad I gave you some laughter. Seems you need it.

documents list view in main folder and sub-folders, list by name.
libraries are worthless.
new folder button nice but that bar for most folders is useless.
favorites just a best guess at what folders you browse most often.
breadcrumb used maybe one out of a hundred times i use explorer.
properties pane just something else to take away from the main folder view again.
search i will give you.

 

[Charles Kane]

I hope this isn't an argument but it does show how easy it is to criticise based on

• inaccurate assumptions
• personal taste or usage habits

Whilst I understand you think "Libraries are worthless" that doesn't mean that they are worthless.
I use them a bit - I like the flat folders in some circumstances - for some work related purposes I have images stored in various folders across different drives. Sometimes I like to be able to access all the images at once (either I've sorted badly, or my sorting can't consider all the possibilities - the flat view is very useful. If I was on a shared network (I work at home alone) that functionality would be even more important.

The new folder button is context aware (ie changes what it offers) - its not a big thing but I use it a lot so having the button there IS usful.

Favorites is NOT a "best guess". It is a user determined set of links to whatever you like. So I have my 10 or so most accessed folders in the favorites bar. This is a boon. It is the first thing I set up in 3rd party File Managers (I'm also using Total Commander at the mo) and for me it was a major shortcoming of Windows Explorer. Love it. Most of the time I'm one click from the folder I want to be in.

I use the breadcrumbs a bit too. Especially the drop downs - I've not seen that before and in some of my big image folders I might have 10-15 subfolders so this makes finding the relevant folder really easy, really quick.

Properties pane - good for me - it's really quite powerful, from it I can Tag (which I'm doing more and more), I can give an on the fly Star rating assign an author and more. It's a bit inconsistent - doesn't always give me my image dimensions - even with jpegs - but its a big improvement and takes very little real estate.

I wrote this up coz I thought it might help open up some of the possibilities of explorer. Maybe someone will find it useful rather than thinking that Explorer hasn't changed much since Win 95 or that the changes are worthless.

 

[helmutcheese]

Libraries are actually aimed at sharing.

You need the crappy indexing service running all the time to get them to work with all views (cannot show Album Option in RTM, could in RC's) without it running.

You also will end up with a folder full of Albums marked unspecified unless you actually index the Albums (I do it manually).

They even removed the nice Download icon in last few builds inc RTM and the icon on this site is not 100% the same and its a bit of work to get it to add it.

I do not even have this PC on any kind of netowrk and sharing is disabled through in registry.

 

[InternetLord]

the thing is that most of the added features to explorer were done by microsoft to be eye candy and not real improvements. microsoft fell victim to what a lot a companies fell victim to. which was create a great product dumb it down release it then sometime down the road release the undumbed down product as a new product(stretching there research dollars). just add a few pieces of eye candy and pray that most users won't catch on. why do you really think they pulled and reworked what was to be released as vista in the first place. now to be fair the added features may work well some users, however the features that were pulled should have been left. let people slowly get use to a different way of doing things instead of shoving it down their throats. the libraries i find useless, if they work for others great. the breadcrumbs i do use now and again, this was a a decent idea. having no choice about the navigation pane(either it is on or off across all folders) should not have happened. then we have the new ability of not being able to change icon spacing any longer. what brainiac came up with this should be shot. i open desktop shortcuts folder between the navigation pane that would not have been in this folder in xp and vista and larger spacing between the icons this folder is at least a third larger on my screen in 7 than it would have been in xp or vista. now that i have addressed the person who hijacked this thread views on added features to explorer i am steering this thread back to the issue it is really about. which was and is "make windows remember positions and sizes".​

 

[tweaker]

let people slowly get use to a different way of doing things instead of shoving it down their throats.​

it's not just different, in plenty cases it's the ultimate sin of developement, being different for the sake of being different and not for the sake of being improved. I personally don't see any motivation to get used to something where I get less work done (even I'd get used to it and master it), and more ulcers. It's one thing if you could say they didn't have time to do this or that, but they've had the things working for the past 15 years, and went out of their way to remove them.

Allthough there are plenty of little things where this applies, I'll stick to the topic and single out remembering folder size/position. There's absolutely no one who could claim they can work more efficiently by having windows NOT optionally remember size/pos. At best, users which don't rely on this feature, will be unaffected and indifferent about it. But no one will be affected positively by the removal of this optional feature, therefore it's inexcusable to remove it. I want to emphasize "remove it", because it wasn't that they just didn't have time to add this feature.

Another nice exmaple of this is the taskbar always-on-top option. The registry option even worked in earlier 7 builds but then they removed it. And to end this rant with a quote from MS, to show the irony of removing options which allowed more users to configure windows in way that was most efficient to them:

"A central Windows 7 tenet is that the 'User Is in Control'; that is, we empower users to take ownership of their desktop looks and functionality"




(PS: I think the app is almost ready for some public testing, if possible I'd just like to make an installer too, which isn't something I normally do, so I don't know how long that'll take.)

 

[InternetLord]

let people slowly get use to a different way of doing things instead of shoving it down their throats.​

it's not just different, in plenty cases it's the ultimate sin of developement, being different for the sake of being different and not for the sake of being improved. I personally don't see any motivation to get used to something where I get less work done (even I'd get used to it and master it), and more ulcers. It's one thing if you could say they didn't have time to do this or that, but they've had the things working for the past 15 years, and went out of their way to remove them.

Allthough there are plenty of little things where this applies, I'll stick to the topic and single out remembering folder size/position. There's absolutely no one who could claim they can work more efficiently by having windows NOT optionally remember size/pos. At best, users which don't rely on this feature, will be unaffected and indifferent about it. But no one will be affected positively by the removal of this optional feature, therefore it's inexcusable to remove it. I want to emphasize "remove it", because it wasn't that they just didn't have time to add this feature.

Another nice exmaple of this is the taskbar always-on-top option. The registry option even worked in earlier 7 builds but then they removed it. And to end this rant with a quote from MS, to show the irony of removing options which allowed more users to configure windows in way that was most efficient to them:

"A central Windows 7 tenet is that the 'User Is in Control'; that is, we empower users to take ownership of their desktop looks and functionality"




(PS: I think the app is almost ready for some public testing, if possible I'd just like to make an installer too, which isn't something I normally do, so I don't know how long that'll take.)

what i have highlighted has not been true for a very long time. microsour has been dumbing down the os since xp. microsour may make the claim but they do not follow it.

 

[torrentg]

I feel like this latest Win 7 allows me to do the most and most efficiently too, than ever before.

They have gone to lengths to make it easy for non-advanced users too though. (I.E. - Homegroup.)

 

[chrysalis]

Sadly MS ignored all the beta testers complaints in removing this feature. I have absolutely no understanding why MS pretends in public to listen but in actuality, they arrogantly ignore.

Windows Explorer as a whole is a disaster for actually getting work done.

yes I am curious how it was treated in beta.

so people did complain but microsoft simply did not respond to the feedback? even giving a reason why they removed it?

 

[helmutcheese]

Correct we (official Beta Testers) told them many many times, same for many glitches/bugs you now see that n00bs deny are there.

Win 7 is no better than Vista SP2, it was aimed at peeps who couldn't run Vista (and ones who could) as it was supposed to be lighter on resources with less processes out the box running.

I can tell you officially from many reviews that Win 7 has 2 more processes then Vista running out the box.

It is going to take a lot of fixes from clever peeps here (the same as Vista got) and a SP from MS to fix it.

Removing IE Icon/Windows Mail etc was all a total joke esp as at the end they did not do the crap the EU wanted them to and there was no Browser Ballot Box.

 

[torrentg]

No glitches or bugs ever on my two ancient systems since betas last year (starting at 7000.) Does that make me a n00b?

One of them a P4 1.5 Ghz non-hyperthreading with 768 mb RDRam and 6200A-LE card.

 

[helmutcheese]

No it makes you one of the peeps in denial or simply you do not use your PC as fully as others because there is many bugs/missing functions we take for granted (in older Windows) in Win 7.

I will post a good link with bugs+fixes+awaiting fixes. (I need boot to Win 7 to get it from my FAV's so will not be right now).

Infact some of the replies in this very thread show how ignorant some peeps are, I don't think they use there PC for anything other than surfing Pr0n !

 

[jemcgarvey]

"A central Windows 7 tenet is that the 'User Is in Control'; that is, we empower users to take ownership of their desktop looks and functionality"




(PS: I think the app is almost ready for some public testing, if possible I'd just like to make an installer too, which isn't something I normally do, so I don't know how long that'll take.)

what i have highlighted has not been true for a very long time. microsour has been dumbing down the os since xp. microsour may make the claim but they do not follow it.

Hence the metric tonne of sarcasm in his post...

By the way, I've noticed that view settings are even worse than size as far as remembering. I feel 'date created' is of second import only to 'name' when sorting, but when WE is restarted, it has removed this tab completely from every folder, and I have to do the peepee dance right click+'date created', sort by date, scroll, sort by date, just to get it to [sort by date] (I use my WE in the right half of the screen).

I guess that's entirely off topic, but even so, does anyone know if it's in the same category (being fixed or not) as our issue?

 

[InternetLord]

Correct we (official Beta Testers) told them many many times, same for many glitches/bugs you now see that n00bs deny are there.

Win 7 is no better than Vista SP2, it was aimed at peeps who couldn't run Vista (and ones who could) as it was supposed to be lighter on resources with less processes out the box running.

I can tell you officially from many reviews that Win 7 has 2 more processes then Vista running out the box.

It is going to take a lot of fixes from clever peeps here (the same as Vista got) and a SP from MS to fix it.

Removing IE Icon/Windows Mail etc was all a total joke esp as at the end they did not do the crap the EU wanted them to and there was no Browser Ballot Box.

i have been running 7 since the first beta, and rather it has 2 more processes running out of the box it is far faster than vista or xp. regardless of you claims it is more stable, solid, secure, and reliable than vista or xp. sure any os is going to have some problems. look at everything it has to do. again stick to the topic: "make windows 7 remember positions and size".

 

[musiclover7]

I agree with Both sides. There are some things I just love about the new OS, and yet, I cannot see the reason for leaving certain things out, such as the ability to remember the size/location/view of folders... I am glad there are ways to install this functionality, but agree with previous posts. I cannot see any reason to remove, or discontinue this functionality.. There are other examples of this within the OS, and it seems this comprises most peoples complaints. They are used to doing things in a certain way, and complain when they can no longer work in that fashion following the upgrade. Folks do not like it when they are forced to change.. Even if the new way is "faster/better", they do not appreciate it when a company makes that decision for them, and in many ways, it will appear to not be the case. In other words, when someone is used to doing something one way, they can be quite fast at their own method. When forced to use another, it will not at first appear to be near as fast, and their will almost always be hostility in response to the change..

Microsoft should anticipate this sort of reaction, and I agree, do their best not to remove functionality that is widely used.. Maybe instead of removing the classic menu, slick it up a bit and keep it.. make it more customize-able..

At this point, there are so many Windows users and each has their own tastes/ways of doing things.. It would be good if there were more options with a new release, including the old. They have to accept that some folks are going to resent them if they get rid of their way of doing things.. Simple solution, do not get rid of it.. Add, do not take away.. Just my 2 cents..