Getting back to the original question, here's my list (embellished with some explanations of my thinking). 1. There's been a lot of ballyhooing about UAC, but this isn't so much about UAC so much as it is about user implementation. Most of the griping about UAC comes from computer experts whining that it's sticking its nose in their business when they know **** well what they're doing. And all this wouldn't be an issue if a user created account could be above UAC. The built-in Administrator account is like this; UAC is on but it doesn't bother the built-in Admin. However, just being a member of the Administrators group doesn't bequeath such privileges. This methodology is counter-intuitive. The current setup of Admins in Vista is more like what I'd see the Power Users group be like: able to do most anything, but be prompted for permission anytime it does something with system-wide consequences. Then regular users could also have UAC prompts when doing system changes, but would need to input a password of an account of higher permission level. And then Limited Users would be outright denied these actions. UAC is designed to protect careless users from destroying their PCs, but the first account made by the system is still a member of the Administrators group. The user should be asked what kind of user to make, complete with simplified explanations of what each level (Admin, Power User, Regular User, Limited User) entails. Of course, all this would be moot if the built-in Admin account had a blank password (then a lower level account could just whack return when prompted and do whatever it wanted), thus if the only account a user makes upon install isn't and Admin or Power User the installation should prompt for a password for the "System" account (or whatever wording would be least confusing for non-technical users). This, I think, would go a long way to making everybody happy. 2. Moving on, I have some GUI gripes. First up would be that not all the control applets are integrated into Explorer. Main gripe here would be what used to be Display Properties. It's now been reorganized into the Personalization section (which isn't bad). Each option that used to be a tab in the old properties window now has it's own little section. Only when you click on them it pops up the old style window, but now with just one tab on it. The old way control applets worked wasn't bad, and the new way is indeed slick, but this hybrid is just plain bad. This should be fixed to make everything consistent. 3. Another GUI gripe comes from the new Explorer. There's so many good changes here that it's sad that there's one glaring flaw: you can't hide the Favorites panel. You can hide the Folders panel but not the Favorites panel. Why? I can see myself using it a lot, but having it hide when not needed would allow for more space for the folder view. And while I'm asking for things, how about implementing some tabs in Explorer? IE has them now, why not share the organizational love to local file work too? 4. Keeping up on file management, this is one of my long standing gripes about Windows: how it deals with file moves and copies. Now, Microsoft has fixed part of the equation with Vista. When moving files about, you are given a lot more info and control over file overwrites. I don't know (because I haven't tested it yet ) if any single failure brings the whole operation down or not, so I won't comment on that. However, the third part of this pie is still broke. If you initiate two or more file operations that use the same drives they run concurrent, dragging down transfer speeds. What should be done here is operation queuing; if an operation either originates or terminates on a drive that is currently being used in another operation, it should wait until the other is done (and of course telling the user that it's waiting so as to not look like it locked up). I'd like this to apply to programs too, but I'm certain that'd probably just cause major havoc with some programs, so I'll just settle for the user-initiated stuff. 5. And one more file related thing. Why is it that the size column still doesn't show folder sizes? The tooltip does (or attempts to, as folders with a lot of files can't be tallied up fast enough for the tooltip). The super-nice shell extension Folder Size adds a column that does this; it accomplishes this feat by keeping a small database of folder sizes inside a service. On my PC with a decent amount of drives and folders, it only takes up about 18MB or RAM. Windows itself could do this inside the Explorer process (since it's also the system shell and runs all the time). And before anyone says to just use the extension, no, that won't work; while Folder Size is a nice piece of software, it doesn't work in Vista or any 64-bit Windows versions. But, really, I don't see why there isn't an option to cache such information in Explorer itself considering all the other stuff Vista wants to cache into RAM. 6. The new Start Panel. I'll admit, at first I didn't like the new panel in XP. But after I customized it with the menus I found most useful, I grew to love it. So, instead of extending a good idea, Microsoft just redid it completely. OK, I can let that slide. If the new one was superior to the old one in every way. But sadly that just isn't the case. The search/run box is absolutely awesome, but it's really the only change that's for the better. The Log Off/Shut Down button setup in XP worked perfectly fine, but is replaced with a total mess in Vista. There's again two main buttons, but instead of one of them leading to a user friendly window asking if you want to Shut Down, Restart, or Sleep your PC, you have to push a little arrow button to get ... an old-school popup menu. Oh, and that power button looking one doesn't actually shut down the PC; it Sleeps instead. Not exactly what I expect from the look of the icon; you can change this, but still the default behavior isn't what you'd think. Continuing on with this poor panel, the most recent program list and the system options columns are pretty much the same, only the system side loses the icons with the text and instead changes the user icon to whatever is hovered over. Slick, but I'd prefer the most collapsed look some XP skins have of just icons on this side. The left side is about the same, until you click the All Programs button. In XP this poped up the plethora of menu windows that have been part of the Start Menu since the 95 days. In Vista, though, the programs list instead shows up in the recent programs side. And, well, it just seems so bloody claustrophobic. Plus it practically guarantees involving scrollbars, something I've noticed Vista tries to avoid at all costs. It also doesn't autoscroll near the edges, so you have to manually scroll up and down. And what if you have some really nested file structures (because you're an orgizational freak like me)? You have this vertical nested visual mess that just feels even more cramped. Sure having menus running all the way across the screen isn't very elegant, but it sure doesn't feel as confining. I guess if the panel in which all this was done was wider, it'd work out better. As is, if just feels totally awkward to me.
