My Issues with Windows 7

[pdxireland]

"Btw, with Captivate, there is an issue where you need to register your audio dll to get it working."



Actually I use another program to make the audio clips & import them.

fmg

 

[BunBun]

I am too lazy right now to bother with quotes...

In respons to Tepid's post.

Differen't OS physically yes. However different OS'es for the same purpose/target audience and on same architecture by the same company. There is no flaw in the logic of comparing the two.

Using memory differen't yes. And many will argue more efficiently (and I agree). However that does not change the fact that there is far too much loading on startup that many people don't use. I would fathom that at least 60% of the loaded kernel I never or will ever use.

mole hills to some are mountains to others. If you are happy with the UI great! All the power to you. I along with many others are not (or more so I am unhappy with the lack of options to customize it).

RAM will always need to increase. Why? Seriously. Why? I can load the latest linux kernels on extremely old computers with very little RAM. The only reason RAM should increase on a very substantial level is multi-tasking or multi-user enviroments (at least on the OS level). Yes to some degree RAM use will increase but at the rate windows 7 came from XP IMO is redicoulous esspecially considering the list of things Vista/Win 7 has over XP is 70% (pulled out of my head but out of a list of like 50 things there was maybe 10 I cared for) made up of bloat IMO. And bloat in this instance is features and little pretty things that I will never use or care to use or take up space on my screen wasting my desktop realestate and memory.

And yes Bill Gates famous quotes are funny... to think because of that 640k mem quote I spent so many hours customizing autoexec.bat and config.sys files and creating bat files with menu's to switch between differen't configurations all so I could play Doom.

 

[zzz2496]

... to think because of that 640k mem quote I spent so many hours customizing autoexec.bat and config.sys files and creating bat files with menu's to switch between differen't configurations all so I could play Doom.

OMG !!! I did that too !!!!
I even got one with menus that looks like "Edit" app (I forgot how I programmed it, was in middle school when I did that)...

Tepid, some of us have "issues" with Windows 7. Some of SF members act/speak/post on those "issues" is what bothers me, as if "Windows 7 is just the absolute best, nothing compares to it"-kinda attitude. I'm not saying Windows 7 is bad or its broken or anything, it's good, just not perfect... some of you can accept the "issues" some aren't, and those who can accept the change, was acting as if "I'm ready to defend Windows 7's pride to the death"-kinda attitude... *Sigh...*

zzz2496

Edit: Some of us are "control freak", we like to have control over anything we can have control of (especially our own computers)...

 

[RST101]

Excuse me, has anyone seen the cheese and crackers? :sarc:

Oh! Were they yours? Erm sorry about that but i give em the dog, I thought you had finished with them.

Can we have closure to this thread, it's like listening to the misses and I come here to escape that..

 

[Tepid]

Tepid, some of us have "issues" with Windows 7. Some of SF members act/speak/post on those "issues" is what bothers me, as if "Windows 7 is just the absolute best, nothing compares to it"-kinda attitude. I'm not saying Windows 7 is bad or its broken or anything, it's good, just not perfect... some of you can accept the "issues" some aren't, and those who can accept the change, was acting as if "I'm ready to defend Windows 7's pride to the death"-kinda attitude... *Sigh...*

with that said, I will only say that I know there are faults in Win 7. It only just came out.
In all honesty what should be done is contact MS about your issues and express them. If enough people do, they will add them to a service pack or update, maybe.

But with it's few faults come many strengths that get over looked and if they are not pointed out then people will not know about them. If they are not explained then people will not understand them.

Many issues are old and incompatible hardware, or drivers and software that were not written properly or not 7 ready. Or end user related. Yes, there are some issues with 7 on some hardware. Choose the right hardware and you won't have problems. Yes, that is easier said than done.

XP runs so well cause dev's have had years to develop around it. And as bunbun says,, they didn't have any problems with XP when it first released, many did, and guess what, you hit the lottery apparently. But, that doens't change the fact that over all it is a very solid OS with a great many number of benefits over XP. And should be praised for them. I am not saying there are not issues, of course there are, it's a PC, it comes with the territory.

Windows is what it is and 7 is solid enough to deserve the praise it does get. It could be worse or ME like. Which many many people called vista and it definitely was not. Then this whole thread would be moot.

As Yoda would say, "You must unlearn what you have learned", and begin anew.

Could 7 use less resources,, maybe, who knows. There is a lot to Windows. Maybe most of it is unusable, but honestly, if you have the right hardware, and you aren't having problems, then the rest is a matter of opinion I guess. And maybe that is what is really being debated most here.

For all the flack that vista got and didn't deserve, that some of it is following 7, needs to be explained and debated. I am not faulting anyone for their opinion, I have my own.

************************
Also,, those calling for a thread to be closed. I'm sorry you don't like what you are reading here,, and I apologize to the gun to your head to open the thread and stay subscribed and read it. Honestly? It's uncalled for here. no one is slamming anyone, it's debate on certain things. Maybe I am not getting my point across so I try a different way and repeat it, as do others. If you don't want to read it. Then don't. Have a Nice Day./

 

[pasquanel]

I've been on board since 3.1 I thought 95 was great! Then 98...wow and 98 SE wow even better!! Then ME ouch!! Not so good!! Then came XP turned out to be very solid but time begets familiarity and on to Vista! To me this was a none event it worked fine, it accepted all my hardware but it was so painfully huge!! Now Win 7 -64 bit has taken a little getting used to but this in MHO is the very best yet! More built in features than I could number and so far rock solid!

Perspective is valable here...
I also started with 3.1 Windows. I was started with DOS. I judge an OS on many factors but most important would be stability.
The 3 best releases from Redmond to me in that regard would be Windows for Workgroups...Win2K ... and now Win7.

I don't know how I skipped win 2k very solid you are correct!!

 

[BunBun]

@Tepid

Great post. At this point I think we both understand the others views and any further discussion would be just rehashing what has already been said.

I have my system now running Windows 7 x64 RTM build 7600 and the only glaring issue I have atm is the lack of option to set the notification bar to expand to the left. Nor have I found a hack for it yet...

 

[Barman58]

One thing to remember about the UI design for win7 is that it is built to support multi-touch. Because of this, the icons and spacings have increased to make this possible, this is. as I understand. it the reason for the change in the system tray behaviour and other things.

Yes I agree that it would be nice for everything from previous Windows versions to be available as an option for those that use it, but I realise and accept that this is not practical. Microsoft did extensive testing of what was actually used across the whole user base and have retained the functionality that will be used by the majority of users.

If all the possible things used by every possible user would use is retained then you would need a 200GB drive for the OS alone, and as, bloat was one of the many things slated with Vista I can understand why Microsoft had to make the decisions they did.

If a missing functionality or it's implementation is a major issue for a user they have three options

1. Swallow their dislike and learn to use the new system
2. Find a 3rd party solution to the issue
3. Return to, or stay with, their previous operating system
   

Windows 7 is not perfect, no system that is designed to meet the needs of so many people, with different needs could ever be, but comparing it with XP or Vista at the same stage of development I personally believe that it deserves the praise it has received.

 

[RST101]

One thing to remember about the UI design for win7 is that it is built to support multi-touch. Because of this, the icons and spacings have increased to make this possible, this is. as I understand. it the reason for the change in the system tray behaviour and other things.

Yes I agree that it would be nice for everything from previous Windows versions to be available as an option for those that use it, but I realise and accept that this is not practical. Microsoft did extensive testing of what was actually used across the whole user base and have retained the functionality that will be used by the majority of users.

If all the possible things used by every possible user would use is retained then you would need a 200GB drive for the OS alone, and as, bloat was one of the many things slated with Vista I can understand why Microsoft had to make the decisions they did.

If a missing functionality or it's implementation is a major issue for a user they have three options

1. Swallow their dislike and learn to use the new system
2. Find a 3rd party solution to the issue
3. Return to, or stay with, their previous operating system
   

Windows 7 is not perfect, no system that is designed to meet the needs of so many people, with different needs could ever be, but comparing it with XP or Vista at the same stage of development I personally believe that it deserves the praise it has received.

Couldn't have put it better myself

+1

 

[wysiwyg]

And as bunbun says,, they didn't have any problems with XP when it first released,

I had XP from launch date and it was a horror, M$ had to issue an SP after 6 months, it was so terrible, I got a brand new computer to be ready for it, and after a few months I felt like chucking it through the window.
It must have been at least a year before it worked with any degree of success, and its only now after about 8 or nine years of updating and upgrading that it works anything like.

All the talk about Boot times, is meaningless, is it going to kill you to wait a few more seconds, mine does it in about 60 secs, thats fast enough for me, so long as my applications work quickly that all thats needed.

Even though I'm getting on a bit, I can still appreciate the advances made in OS's, and I try to follow them from 98se to Windows 7,

I can honestly say Windows 7 for me has fulfilled all its promises, of course you will get updates every system does,
I went through all the stages from 7 beta to launch, it was a good experience.

At the end of the day it still depends on the individual, we all have different tastes and ideas, as you'll see from my specs I still use Vista for some things, as far as I'm concerned it was is a good system, and didn't deserved all the bad press it got.

Anyway thats my two-penneth.

 

[1Bowtie]

One thing to remember about the UI design for win7 is that it is built to support multi-touch. Because of this, the icons and spacings have increased to make this possible, this is. as I understand. it the reason for the change in the system tray behaviour and other things.

Yes I agree that it would be nice for everything from previous Windows versions to be available as an option for those that use it, but I realise and accept that this is not practical. Microsoft did extensive testing of what was actually used across the whole user base and have retained the functionality that will be used by the majority of users.

If all the possible things used by every possible user would use is retained then you would need a 200GB drive for the OS alone, and as, bloat was one of the many things slated with Vista I can understand why Microsoft had to make the decisions they did.

If a missing functionality or it's implementation is a major issue for a user they have three options

1. Swallow their dislike and learn to use the new system
2. Find a 3rd party solution to the issue
3. Return to, or stay with, their previous operating system
   

Windows 7 is not perfect, no system that is designed to meet the needs of so many people, with different needs could ever be, but comparing it with XP or Vista at the same stage of development I personally believe that it deserves the praise it has received.

+1 After 9 pages you i hope put it to rest

 

[BunBun]

Again to lazy to quote.

Boot times its important to myself then others. Some may not mind that there computer takes a minute to boot up where as anything substantially longer then 30 seconds and I am going to prefer sleep over shutting down which restarting is preferable to sleeping. So yes I prefer sub 30 second start up times so that I dont have to rely on sleep. Yes I know I can get this down with a SSD drive (and I do intend on buying one soon) but I shouldn't have to in order to get acceptable boot times considering how much faster HDD's are now and I would rather of SSD's improve my boot times beyond that of what XP was instead of giving me the same user experience.

I guess overall my point is in order to maintain the same level of user experience in terms of speed and productivity constant hardware upgrades is necessary and I already upgrade my computer way more then the general user base so being that I am already experience this then how is everyone else? Better hardware should increase the user experience not maintain it.

I don't agree with dropping the ability to make it look like classic windows. Well I agree and I don't. There has to be a line drawn somewhere but they drew the line way to near.

Also if that is true about the multi touch thing then once again I am having my desktop experience dictated by a bunch of stupid media/entertainment crap. No one doing anything for productivity purposes uses a touchpad. Now I know exactly what i am going straight to microsoft with.

1. An option to customize the OS with one click without multi touch provisions in spacing.
2. More customizability in dialog/notification boxes and status bars as well as many other general UI elements (see classic shell)
3. More options to how the notification area is displayed, specifically an option to restore the way they were shown to the left vs a new window and a way to specifiy there order.

Anyone know of any good tweaking guides for Windows 7 to help cut down on its bulk of useless features? I have already gone through task scheduler and the turn off windows features thing.

 

[Tepid]

One thing to remember about the UI design for win7 is that it is built to support multi-touch. Because of this, the icons and spacings have increased to make this possible, this is. as I understand. it the reason for the change in the system tray behaviour and other things.

Yes I agree that it would be nice for everything from previous Windows versions to be available as an option for those that use it, but I realise and accept that this is not practical. Microsoft did extensive testing of what was actually used across the whole user base and have retained the functionality that will be used by the majority of users.

If all the possible things used by every possible user would use is retained then you would need a 200GB drive for the OS alone, and as, bloat was one of the many things slated with Vista I can understand why Microsoft had to make the decisions they did.

If a missing functionality or it's implementation is a major issue for a user they have three options

1. Swallow their dislike and learn to use the new system
2. Find a 3rd party solution to the issue
3. Return to, or stay with, their previous operating system

Windows 7 is not perfect, no system that is designed to meet the needs of so many people, with different needs could ever be, but comparing it with XP or Vista at the same stage of development I personally believe that it deserves the praise it has received.

+1 After 9 pages you i hope put it to rest

I second this.

 

[zzz2496]

One thing to remember about the UI design for win7 is that it is built to support multi-touch. Because of this, the icons and spacings have increased to make this possible, this is. as I understand. it the reason for the change in the system tray behaviour and other things.

Yes I agree that it would be nice for everything from previous Windows versions to be available as an option for those that use it, but I realise and accept that this is not practical. Microsoft did extensive testing of what was actually used across the whole user base and have retained the functionality that will be used by the majority of users.

If all the possible things used by every possible user would use is retained then you would need a 200GB drive for the OS alone, and as, bloat was one of the many things slated with Vista I can understand why Microsoft had to make the decisions they did.

If a missing functionality or it's implementation is a major issue for a user they have three options

1. Swallow their dislike and learn to use the new system
2. Find a 3rd party solution to the issue
3. Return to, or stay with, their previous operating system

Windows 7 is not perfect, no system that is designed to meet the needs of so many people, with different needs could ever be, but comparing it with XP or Vista at the same stage of development I personally believe that it deserves the praise it has received.

+1 After 9 pages you i hope put it to rest

I second this.

+99999 from me

 

[wysiwyg]

I think BunBun should change his name to Don Quixote, his fallacious arguements are like tilting at windmils to destroy imaginary dragons.

 

[zzz2496]

I think BunBun should change his name to Don Quixote, his fallacious arguements are like tilting at windmils to destroy imaginary dragons.

Though I agree with Barman58, I respect different views, BunBun has his own issues with Windows 7, I do too but I don't make a fuss out of my issues, nor I make a fuss with BunBun's issues, we can't just flame people because they have different views than us, unless they impolitely flame you in the face...

zzz2496

 

[pasquanel]

Again to lazy to quote.

Anyone know of any good tweaking guides for Windows 7 to help cut down on its bulk of useless features? I have already gone through task scheduler and the turn off windows features thing.

Try Black Vipers site if it ca be tweaked he's done it.Black Viper's Web Site

 

[BunBun]

Again to lazy to quote.

Anyone know of any good tweaking guides for Windows 7 to help cut down on its bulk of useless features? I have already gone through task scheduler and the turn off windows features thing.

Try Black Vipers site if it ca be tweaked he's done it.Black Viper's Web Site

Right, fogot about that one. Thanks.

I got my boot memory usage down to about 820mb. Not to shabby. Fastest restart i've recorded is 74s but that was before I got memory down to 820mb as well.

I had it down to 710mb one boot but realized I had a dependency disabled that disabled a bunch of services including audio lol.

 

[sandman]

I built a system for my brother-in-law and he is one that always has to have things tweaked his way, were i do some adjusting but not like he does, one thing we always do is enable the hidden Admin account from the start and us it instead of the one that is created when you install the operating system. I have tested and used from the first beta's of Vista and also the Windows 7 beta's and like them both but the 7 is the best by far in my opinion. Enjoy and happy tweaking.

 

[Wishmaster]

Ive found for the most part, disabling services etc does nothing more than break how things were intended to run ... as they are all tied together in way way or another. With a very few exceptions.

Unless your struggling with hardware that barely capable, best to leave it alone.

Some programs want a Pagefile. So disabling can cause issues regardless of how much RAM. Even with 8GB+ a small one 512MB or so is a good idea.

Too much tweaking also tend to hurt more than help.

Perhaps Im wrong, i dunno ... but ive never done all this stuff and have had no issues at all. Win 7 has always been stable, fast , and smooth for me.

Quite simply, Win7 with a Quad and plenty of RAM will be good to you leaving things as they are.
Not to mention, provided you have sufgfecient RAm for Win7 (4GB or more) trying to reduce the amount of RAM used is completely defeating the
purpose and counter productive.

One of the things that makes 7 faster and smoother is its ability to manage and use memory effectively. stopping it from doing so is hurting more than helping.

Why have 4GB + of RAM and tell the OS ... Dont use it.