Some Things Microsoft Can't Fix in Windows 7: Catch 22
Posted on 11th Mar 2009 at 10:31 by Richard Swinburne with 37 comments
Having used the Windows 7 beta for our first look article, I was reading about a few of the tweaks last week on MSDN Blogs. Most are all good, logical choices, however I found one in particular unappealing:
Another nice little tweak is to make "needy windows" -- windows demanding your attention, such as an IM program with new messages -- more visible. Many users complained that the taskbar button flashing was too subtle and they were missing events. [my emphasis] Microsoft has changed the flashing to a "bolder orange color" and the flash pattern to a more jarring saw tooth wave, as well as increasing the flash rate -- all of which should help get your attention when a window needs it.
The obsessive compulsive in me hates the flashing taskbar - I notice it instantly and must click it to go away. I already find it too intrusive and easily visible, yet, people are complaining they don't notice it?? My instant reaction was "ARE THEY BLIND?! IT'S ALREADY A BRIGHT ORANGE!!"
Then I realised I was just the same as everyone else and we reached a point long ago where for every feature Microsoft changes, there will be a lot more people that hate that change.
So unless Microsoftbecomes *nix makes everything customisable, rather than taking a one-size fits all approach, we'll still end up with a super-size OS with double the memory footprint! Thanks! Personally, I'd favour an approach where you can install only what you need, how you want it to be. Unfortunately, because there's a) the corporate mentality and bureaucracy still in place b) only so many hours in the day and c) a deadline to hit, this seems unlikely.
Still, kudos to Microsoft for getting people's opinions and listening. It also exonerates their own design team as it enables them to say "well, customers wanted it this way".
Another pertinent question raised is: are people willing to learn about new features? Or will Win7 just be another WinXP, where lots of people spend the first year bleating "I like it how it was" all over again, regardless of the performance differences over previous versions? Inevitably, the first comments in the MSDN blog are "I like the old way for the XP start bar!", which means Microsoft has to make an inevitably futile attempt to balance the "I don't install that much and lose things easily" versus "I multi-task like I've got more arms than a Hindu God and need a million things to my fingertips" - again, Catch 22.
Win7 has some positive feedback already but new features like libraries... will people use them, or learn to use them properly?
Take this comment for example, by Mr. Mike Williams:
"Windows 7 makes gadgets far easier to manage, view and access by building them directly into the desktop. "
It's not easier to view because now my gadgets are either covered by a maximized (or right half-window sized) application, or have to sit on top of other apps and get in the way.
My screen is 1,920 pixels wide, which gives me room for two side by side portrait pages and a sidebar. Having sidebar space for me to look up my calendar, weather, sticky notes, run a media player etc is a huge win ... but now it's gone in W7.
While he may make a valid point to his own work style - many (like myself) originally criticised the sidebar feature for not being movable and taking up a fixed amount of screen space (as well as 50MB of memory). Not everyone uses a pair of portrait windows on a 1,920 screen, it depends what I'm doing: writing, Photoshop, web, video.., and in Win7 being able to flick the mouse at the bottom right hand corner to glass-up all the windows in order to see the desktop and gadgets underneath is just better. Unanimously so for everyone in the office. Although, clearly not to others.
At the other end of the scale there's this:
The old start menu was first debuted in Windows 95 almost 13 years ago. The original Windows Codename "Chicago" which is the basis for Windows 95 goes all the way back to 1993. That would make this concept now 15 years old. Don't you think its time for a change after this long of the old model?
Get rid of it entirely? I can see that going down well? Maybe he was in the initial Vista design meeting...
It's just time for users to grow and adapt to necessary changes in Windows.
No matter how stubborn and hard nosed you want Microsoft to be - to deal with the legacy of Windows - it has to (or feels it has to) appear to pander to customers while also maintaining its own interests and passing all the opinions it gathers through the bureaucracy filter before being tentatively dealt with by developers. There's simply no right answer and despite good press for Win7, I doubt Microsoft will ever find a winning formula.
Another nice little tweak is to make "needy windows" -- windows demanding your attention, such as an IM program with new messages -- more visible. Many users complained that the taskbar button flashing was too subtle and they were missing events. [my emphasis] Microsoft has changed the flashing to a "bolder orange color" and the flash pattern to a more jarring saw tooth wave, as well as increasing the flash rate -- all of which should help get your attention when a window needs it.
The obsessive compulsive in me hates the flashing taskbar - I notice it instantly and must click it to go away. I already find it too intrusive and easily visible, yet, people are complaining they don't notice it?? My instant reaction was "ARE THEY BLIND?! IT'S ALREADY A BRIGHT ORANGE!!"
Then I realised I was just the same as everyone else and we reached a point long ago where for every feature Microsoft changes, there will be a lot more people that hate that change.
So unless Microsoft
Still, kudos to Microsoft for getting people's opinions and listening. It also exonerates their own design team as it enables them to say "well, customers wanted it this way".
Another pertinent question raised is: are people willing to learn about new features? Or will Win7 just be another WinXP, where lots of people spend the first year bleating "I like it how it was" all over again, regardless of the performance differences over previous versions? Inevitably, the first comments in the MSDN blog are "I like the old way for the XP start bar!", which means Microsoft has to make an inevitably futile attempt to balance the "I don't install that much and lose things easily" versus "I multi-task like I've got more arms than a Hindu God and need a million things to my fingertips" - again, Catch 22.
Win7 has some positive feedback already but new features like libraries... will people use them, or learn to use them properly?
Take this comment for example, by Mr. Mike Williams:
"Windows 7 makes gadgets far easier to manage, view and access by building them directly into the desktop. "
It's not easier to view because now my gadgets are either covered by a maximized (or right half-window sized) application, or have to sit on top of other apps and get in the way.
My screen is 1,920 pixels wide, which gives me room for two side by side portrait pages and a sidebar. Having sidebar space for me to look up my calendar, weather, sticky notes, run a media player etc is a huge win ... but now it's gone in W7.
While he may make a valid point to his own work style - many (like myself) originally criticised the sidebar feature for not being movable and taking up a fixed amount of screen space (as well as 50MB of memory). Not everyone uses a pair of portrait windows on a 1,920 screen, it depends what I'm doing: writing, Photoshop, web, video.., and in Win7 being able to flick the mouse at the bottom right hand corner to glass-up all the windows in order to see the desktop and gadgets underneath is just better. Unanimously so for everyone in the office. Although, clearly not to others.
At the other end of the scale there's this:
The old start menu was first debuted in Windows 95 almost 13 years ago. The original Windows Codename "Chicago" which is the basis for Windows 95 goes all the way back to 1993. That would make this concept now 15 years old. Don't you think its time for a change after this long of the old model?
Get rid of it entirely? I can see that going down well? Maybe he was in the initial Vista design meeting...
It's just time for users to grow and adapt to necessary changes in Windows.
No matter how stubborn and hard nosed you want Microsoft to be - to deal with the legacy of Windows - it has to (or feels it has to) appear to pander to customers while also maintaining its own interests and passing all the opinions it gathers through the bureaucracy filter before being tentatively dealt with by developers. There's simply no right answer and despite good press for Win7, I doubt Microsoft will ever find a winning formula.
37 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyAnyone know how to git rid of it or put it back to the hourglass like xp?
Have Win7 installed at the moment. Its more responsive than Vista but on a downside all it feels like is an optimised Vista... and Vista sucks.
W7 makes a lot of great changes to the interface, and is a good balance between ease of use, slickness, and performance.
I fall into the category of people who actually liked the Sidebar in Vista and found it handy. The simple answer would have been to include an option to dock gadgets to a side bar or to have them loose on the desktop on a per gadget basis.
Not really, Apple consumers are conditioned and massaged into change by great marketing.
Pff you don't even need to do that. Just do that search in the Start menu. Win key and you are away.. no mouse needed to open that panel :)
@Blademrk, that exactly Windows Vista behavior. Maybe you can copy sidebar file from Vista and port it down to Win7... I mean I was able to port out W7 calculator under Vista! :)
:)
I agree, also you have to look at the market. There's A LOT more machines running Windows out there than there is Apple. With Windows controlling the majority of the OS market, they have a lot more people to please.
Also there is a lot of business orientated people that DO NOT WANT change.
I've worked in IT for 2 years at my college. I'm beginning to think people are afraid of change.
It's true in almost any work environment involving the use of a PC. That's why it's so difficult to implement even a simple password policy, because people don't want to change.
As an example, I'm known for my Excel skills at work and people from all over the building come asking for help. Now, people have Office 2007, and I couldn't help our IT director figure out frivolous things such as move a series into a graph's 2nd Y axis and wasted minutes of the president's son trying to "paste special" and to change macro security options. Come on! As if their time wasn't expensive enough, now we need to pay extra for Office 2007 licenses to waste their time?! We just want to get our work done and even Office97 would have been more time-efficient (and effective, and cheaper)!
If that darn ribbon was optional, maybe I wouldn't hate it as much as I do! :(
Did you try Office help document? Probably not because I learned from experience that a lot of people lose their ability to read when a messages appear or access the help doc.
With JUST the help document I was able to learn Office 2007 Excel in 2 days and discovered a huge amount of new stuff which now simplify my life.
@nicae
hmm, honestly, if by now you learned how to use the ribbon, you would see how seemingly it makes alot of office stuff easy to use.
Eh, I'm taking an Office 2007 class because I wanted an easy credit, the professor even asked me what I was doing in there on the first day, lol. And to be honest, I learned 2003 back in high school, 2007 is so much easier to use and intuitive compared to 2003. I'm glad I took this class because it's a nice refresher and an easy way to learn the mystical ribbon. I don't waste my free time by trying to teach myself after class, and I get credit for the class. ;)
I suggest you get use to the ribbon, it's not going away. ;)
Another suggestion if 2007 is confusing, buy a book on it. Computer software and hardware is always changing, there's no reason to be ashamed about learning from a book. And besides, you might become more efficient at your job. Who knows!
I agree, Office 2007 is so insanely more logical than any previous version. My girlfriend would come up to me and ask "where's blaaa in Word 2007?" and I'd say "looking at the names of the tabs in the ribbon, where would you expect it to be?" and without fail her first guess was always correct. People are so use to expecting Office to be illogical and difficult they don't even attempt to just use common sense with version 2007, which is really all you need to use it.
That's the beauty of Windows, there's lots and lots and lots of programs out there that can completely rework how the interface is. Microsoft only has to create a base template, obviously it can't cater to everyone, which is why there's 3rd party programs like WinCustomize that allow you to change the look and feel from top to bottom, including boot screens if you fancy it.
The only major things I'd like to see is being able to move the Windows icon in the taskbar.. that and being able to rip out windows from a group (like 3 firefox windows in the firefox icon group) and make it into it's own new firefox group on the taskbar for easier switching.
So go learn how to use Office07, or stay behind with Office 2003.
I don't get why people want new things, but want it to work the same way. What's the point of it being new if it works the exact same? And then when they do that, people complain that there's nothing new. Well yea.. if you keep something the same, you're not going to really get anything new out of it.. since it's the same.
I think you folks missed my point. I'm already aware the ribbon must be an improvement as I only hear positive things about it. The problem is that it isn't optional to quickly change back to previous layouts when necessary.
Why do I want to do that? Well, like I described, I was at the office at 8:00 PM, in a director's office, and we were frustratingly trying to make a simple change to a graph. We didn't mange to, btw.
"So go learn Office07 or stay behind with Office2003" doesn't work out. My PC has a 2003 license and it won't change anytime soon (unnecessary waste of corporate money), and the new PCs (such as the director's) must come with 2007 due to Microsoft license bullying.
Also, my Excel usage is very specific. I have all functions personalized into nifty buttons and have included several macro'd buttons as well. If I go help someone like usual, I can't because of the ribbon. Were it optional, I could disable the ribbon, perform the actions, and enable it again because (in the long run) it's good.
That's the only reason why I hate the ribbon. No need to hate me! ;)
you can solve this messenger thing by installing the older msn messenger 8.5 or somewhere around there. Apparently the new "staying at the taskbar" is only for the newest and totally hopeless version.
For a 2009 OS, I don't think win7 is very powerful. Theres no "multiple desctops", or anything resembling the MacOS's utillisation of the function-keys, f12 to "show desctop", pressing f11 or whatnot to get a collection of gadgets, like calendar, calculator, clock etc on a shaded screen. that is probably where ms-gadges come from in the first place. All inn all it is just a tweaked windows XP with glass-skin, wich modders have had for 9 years or so. And where is the DreamScene? This is the Ultimate version, so have they removed it? DreamScene was useless, but extremely blingy and everyone was mesmerized by it :)
What windows 7 _does_ right is handling of the windows themself, dragging windows to maximize, snapping them with a drag or doubleclick, both up and down snapping... I can't go back now !
Throwing features away because they're "old" is a trendy too far.
Windows 7 is Vista, not XP..
Also.. look up keyboard shortcuts for Windows7, you'll find there's a boatload of them.
Mind you, it's also a Beta, so they didn't add everything
I am able to work better and faster with Office 2007, and I found out A LOT of features that I did not know that existed in previous version of Word/Excel which simplified my life greatly and able to offer a more professional looking work.
I guess it comes down to the point where we all think differently.
I have to agree with Goodbytes on this, I'm finding it much easier and faster to use Office 07 than previous versions.
I also have not seen anything that I couldn't do in 2007 that I can in 2003, as far as I can tell, there's no loss of functionality.
what does really Vista have that XP don't? i see them as the same, from a non-technical view atleast. I will look up the shortcuts to win7. Might be some useful ones.
Direct X 10
Better wireless compatability and networking (even though the options are positioned worse)
Better hardware support for more recent kit
Here are some few things:
- Instant search
- Instant search bar on every window + Start menu
- Organized Folder structure for users and programmers (so more 20 'Local App', for example)).
- Easy access folder and custimizable on every folders
- New Save/Open dialog box, with folder like vire and address bar (just type in (or paste) the path and you are there.. no more 20 mouse clicks because the dialog boxed started at the other side of your HDD (you know what I mean).
- Aero, uses GPU instead of CPU... meaning more responsive
- More responsive OS thanks to it's greatly improved memory management (That is why it takes more RAM), meaning you work faster. No wait of the OS time. When when your account is loading you can still use the computer and navigate... no waiting until everything loads up.
- Faster setup time. No optimization needs to be done... so need to disable servcies to have a faster system and such as Vista has a better memory management.
- 20-25min Install time (XP make take a full day especially if you don't have XP SP2 disk...
soooooo many update) Great for IT
- Fast system detection for Windows update, great for IT.
- Win key + type teh first letters of your program and Enter to run it. No more Start bar navigation
- Win key + # to launch the application on the quick launch bar
- Better organized Control Panel
- Easy access Wireless Network Connections
- SuperFetch, run application easily 2 to 6 times faster than it did on XP.
- Alt+Tab... no more icons and yuou have to guess... you actually see the application LIVE (no pictures)
- Staskbar thumnail, LIVE preview of the application, minimized or not.
- Flip 3D (Win+Tab) for a larger view alt tab
- Improved Power management profile
- Support the latest technology without any issues (great for IT)
- Way more secure.
- Go back in time on a file, folder, driver or even the whole computer.
- System image backup to USB flash stick, Network, external HDD on firewire, USB and eSATA, CD's, and DVD's.
- System backup system to restore your computer in case of anything, with the same mediums as above
- Side scrolling on mouse supported on the OS.
- Game folder for easy access of games.
- Windows Experience Index... can see what needs to be upgraded and compare performance at a quick glance without any technical details for the average user. Also, helps them see if the computer will meat their needs at a glance without looking at details.
- Drivers crash does not cause BSOD's... it just restarts automatically. This saves yourself from data lose of unsaved work.
- Increase stability for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
- Proper 64-bit OS with complete 32-bit compatibility (basically 2 OS in one.. so applications cannot miss anything... you literary have a fusion of 32 and 64-bit OS into one... just no 32-bit driver support, but does support XP 64-bit drivers)
- Real solid Firewall with outbound and inbound control packed with networking profiles (So you can do stuff like "Don't access internet when I am at school") and per network card.
- Real translation for compatibility mode, not the empty crap from XP.
- Full easy to understand and navigate help documentation with even diagram and a real smart search system I find.
Do you want me the continue? 'cause I have more...
I disagree with that statement.
I've used both, took classes for both. The ribbon works if you know how to use it.
Also, what features have been thrown out exactly?
DX10 never did any good, and wireless (everyting) is much worse on Vista, again from the newbies point of view. But of course Vista and W7 is a lot more capable if you give them hardware to work with.
GoodBytes:
Wow that is some list. Lots of stuff i never noticed.
- System image backup to USB flash stick, Network, external HDD on firewire, USB and eSATA, CD's, and DVD's. This is something i havent seen, but sounds useful, does it preserve program files on other partitions aswell? If so i can make a full 100GB backup of my entire system and be up and running in the time it takes to transfer those files. And yes the memory is handeled better, with photoshop being a prime example, wich used to take ages to launch, but now i have seen it start up as fast as my browser in days i have used it a lot.
I still stand by my word though, for the untrained eye it just looks glossier, and working with normal stuff is excactly the same, but thats not a bad thing, it's not Mac after all, so no awkwardeness. The difference between Xp and Vista is really not that big usage-vise, and the same thing can be said with Vista vs 7, but Xp vs 7 ok that is a little bit of change and people will have to get used to the new taskbar.
Its not that they're more open to change, it is that they are used to a company telling them what is good for them.
Wireless is BETTER from a newbies point of view - the icon is there, click it, connect to network. You cant possibly get ANY EASIER.
DX10 offers a whole wealth of graphical extra's and a far better foundation than DX9, it's just most of the market is still using DX9 cards.
Sorry but i can't agree with this even if I might be wrong... I have never seen so many people having trouble with wireless setups as with vista, and I'm talking when you have to manually add encryption codes etc. The menus are a total mess and just finding the "local area connection" icon is a hassle, even for me.
And no, I can't agree with the dx10 one either. It might have been good for developers, but for us gamers it just cut the fps in half for no real benefit. In Stalker there was one neat water-effect, but i didn't use it because of the terrible fps in dx10.
Each version of windows, since Windows 2000, the wireless connection gets better and better. There is no mess at all. in WIndows 7 you click and connect. There is a password you put it in. and if connection is successful the password is remembered. Simple!
In XP, the big mess is that you don't have a nice interface to manage the password.. it's hidden within other panels, and for stupid reason you need to type the password 2 times?! How ridiculous is that! What happen if you have a really long password on your wireless... it's just plain stupid!
You cannot say what you said on Direct X10 and even DX11.
1- Your video card sucks. The SAME THING was with Direct X9. And the same will happen with Direct X11 in Windows 7.
2- The games today that uses Direct X10 are soooooooo not optimize. They developers just put that in, just for fun and experiment. Nothing is serious in it, nothing optimized, as the DX10 market is small (also it's for marketing reasons).
The day you will a game 100% made in Direct X10... done with a passion, then it run pretty damn well, and the effects will be much better over Direct X9. You have to be patient. It took how much time to have Direct X9... yea about the last 4-5 years (which is not much considering that Vista was out 3 years ago, and that Direct X9 was out in December 2002 (so you can even say 2003)) we were starting to see real Direct X9 games. The rest was Direct 8, or Direct X9 with gimmicky effects (like now with Direct X10).
That wasn't DX10 - that was Stalker. There was a reason why we gave the first release 4/10.
ftfy
1. I try to allways have the best, or one of the best, graphics cards available.
2. Ok so i meant what i said to all the games up and till now. I guess there will come something by that actually works soon. DX11 sounds promising with support for dx9 cards and more optimizing.
I'll have to try stalker again now that I mention it, it could work :S