What would you fix after Windows 7?

[xpclient]

So MSFN is a forum which I consider is intelligent enough (unlike Neowin for example)   where I can ask this.

 

Can we make a list of all things completely wrong with Windows 10? As in component wise: e.g. Start Menu (which is fixed by third parties). Assuming the "right" way it is done is in Windows 7 or XP. Because Microsoft and its hardware partners are eventually going to force Windows 10 on Windows 7 users.

 

What else would you fix by replacing it with an alternative?

Edited April 14, 2015 by xpclient

[xpclient]

Control Panel vs PC Settings mess is one thing that comes to mind and everything that's split between the Metro UI and classic UI and severely dumbed down. e.g. Calculator since old one is actually removed.

[JorgeA]

Windows Update. They've dumbed it down to the point where (unless the user is comfortable with the Group Policy Editor) not only do you not get a choice as to whether the updates will be installed, you don't even get to see what they're about unless you agree to download them. And you no longer get a working link to a KB article.

 

Not sure that this can be fixed by third parties, though.

 

Opaque window borders (lack of Aero Glass).

 

Crude, flat desktop icons (e.g., the Recycle Bin) and window controls (minimize/restore/close).

 

Stop steering the user into signing into his own PC with a Microsoft Account. Again, though, I doubt that this could be fixed by third parties.

 

I'd be interested in a quick and automated way to sweep away all Metro crapps and not have them taking up mental space or cluttering up my Start Menu.

 

Bring back Windows Explorer navigation arrows that are visible, as opposed to the thin, barely discernible arrows they've put in the Win10 File Explorer. What usability advantage could the new hard-to-see arrows possibly have???

 

A simple program to disable the Skype SuperNode for users who don't want their PCs used by strangers around the world.

 

An easy tweak to bring back an Internet Explorer scrollbar that stays visible at all times and also stands out visually from the web contents next to it. Having to rediscover the d*mn scrollbar every time I want to move around the page in small increments has turned surfing the Web into a tedious chore.

 

Fixing these issues would be a good start.

 

--JorgeA

 

 

[NoelC]

Can we make a list of all things completely wrong with Windows 10? As in component wise: e.g. Start Menu (which is fixed by third parties). Assuming the "right" way it is done is in Windows 7 or XP.

 

Ooh, a topic right up my alley.  Way to go!!

 

My focus is in making Windows 10 a "To Work" system, and I'll be publishing a book on same to follow my Win 7 and 8 books.  Here are some of the things that come to mind:

 

• It absolutely MUST be possible to have a fully functional system using a local account.

   

• I would want to be able to run ALL features of Windows 10 with UAC disabled.  The impact of constantly being second-guessed is greater than people realize, especially for people doing development work on Windows.

   

• It needs a desktop theme that promotes better usability.  Aero Glass with a custom theme atlas gets us close, but frankly even the skin of the common controls needs work (who can really see a gray, flat scroll thumb on a gray background?), so I might ultimately want to move up full re-theming.  Of course, Metro/Modern Apps don't/won't respond to such a theme, so they will never seem better than their current state of disintegration.

   

• Similar to the above, Microsoft's desktop applications need to conform to the theme.

   

• Registry tweaks to change window metrics to reduce the size of title bars, plus the Aero Glass tweak that makes borders return.

   

• Classic Shell, Classic Mode start menu with fly out hierarchical menus.  NO live tiles in sight, ever.  Classic Shell has ALWAYS been a better implementation than anything Microsoft produced, going all the way back.

   

• Classic Shell's Classic Explorer component and Folder Options X to give File Explorer windows a much higher vertical density of items and to improve the UI in general.  And the Classic Internet Explorer component to augment IE with status bar, title in the title bar, etc.

   

• The ability to hide or show EACH AND EVERY entry at the root of the Navigation Pane in File Explorer.  If you don't want to see Quick Access, it can be hidden. Same thing with all the abstractions that live just under This PC.  Maybe a user only wants to see drives and Network connections.

   

• Tweaks to Classic Shell and the registry to speed up the presentation of submenus and Taskbar Live Preview images to be virtually instantaneous upon hover.  This alone makes a system feel MUCH more responsive.

   

• I always overwrite the default hosts file with one that combines the MVPS hosts file with some additional entries I have created.  This alone makes the system FAR more secure and eliminates ads.

   

• More restrictive and conservative default Internet Explorer security settings.  Don't allow any ActiveX by default (an idea long overdue).

   

• Vista Shortcut Manager removes that stupid little arrow from desktop icon shortcuts.

   

• ShellFolderFix pre-positions new File Explorer windows in the place where I left them last.

   

• I have to resort to scheduling WBADMIN commands in order to have recurring System Image backups.  I should think a proper backup UI should be resurrected.

   

• There needs to be MUCH more attention paid to trimming a system down to do just what's needed.  Most of the managers, brokers, hosts, services, etc. that continue to run all the time need to be set to exit if they're not used.  It should be possible to have a quiescent system with a blank desktop run in less than half a gigabyte with only 20 or 25 processes running.

   

• Related to the item above, there needs to be a panel where major features of Windows are enabled/disabled - regardless of whether they make Microsoft money.  For example, one big switch that turns off and eliminates OneDrive.  Another that easily disables Indexing.  A switch for each Metro/Modern App (ask Jorge A about them downloading stuff in the background to fill their live tiles just by being pinned to the Start Menu).

   

• A setting that has Windows ALWAYS display actual file dates/times, NEVER "3 minutes ago".

   

• Per-monitor ClearType font tuning that actually works.

   

• Windows Update facility that provides every bit of the control the previous one did.  And it should be configurable all from one place, not spread in Group Policy, Settings, Control Panel...  Make it possible to install some updates (e.g., those from Windows Defender) automatically while making all others (e.g., system updates or driver updates) separately controllable.  It's not hard to imagine wanting different settings for each.

   

• A sophisticated, integrated performance tuning panel, complete with system monitoring (e.g., temperatures, power consumption).  LOTS of documentation and help tuning a system to be optimal.

   

• I always add a 3rd party search tool, grepWin, for searching for things in files/folders.  It's better even than the old XP Search facility (before the stupid dog).

   

• WizMouse to complete the implementation of "send scroll events to whatever window the mouse is hovering over", as Microsoft never got it 100% right.

   

• A better system-provided facility for monitoring what's running and what it's doing, including logging so that trends can be detected (e.g., for situations like "Was that xyzzy.exe process running last week?  Could it be malware?").

   

• Full, multi-instance capable desktop implementations of things like Calculator.  I always install Calculator Plus, for example, since it's more capable in the ways that I need than the Win 10 Calculator App.

   

• For that matter, make all Metro/Modern Apps capable of being run in multiple instances.  As it is now, they're completely useless to me, but maybe one day someone will make one that's good.

   

• The system needs something graphical and well-integrated / easy to use to manage disk space.  It's something that always seems to run out, and a central facility for both determining why and helping clean up (e.g., an expansion on the Disk Cleanup tool) would be damned handy.

 

That's a short list for now.  I'll post more as I think of them.

 

-Noel

[xpclient]

So I am not alone in thinking that everything is wrong and too many things need to be fixed.

 

Basically everything should be changed to make it more powerful and functional instead of adopting dumbed-down, stupid and slow Metro garbage. It sounds like fighting a losing battle because we won't be able to change some dumbed down parts of the OS anyway. Nice suggestions in case we're forced onto this abominable OS some day. Staying with Windows 7 as long as possible seems a wise move for power users wanting all the extra customization they want.

Edited April 5, 2015 by xpclient

[JorgeA]

Yeah, that's basically the idea -- too many things need to be fixed 

 

Might be an intriguing opportunity for the Classic Shell folks if they ever want to put together and sell a "Fix Broken Windows" package. Instant market of potentially hundreds of millions of users.

 

Not everything can get fixed, but possibly enough to make Win10 tolerable.

 

--JorgeA

[Jody Thornton]

Hey Noel, I'm with you on dates/times on files in Explorer.  I think that started on Vista, because I have files that show as "Today".

(I use Explorer++ as a file management replacement.  It works enough like how I had XP's Explorer set up)

 

Also I agree about defeating UAC and Indexing easily enough. (I have a good search tool, which reminds me of the old Windows 95 style search.  Hey it worked!)

 

I also hate the caption buttons on the last couple 10 TP builds.  Even going back to the Windows 8x style would be an improvement.

Edited April 18, 2015 by JodyT

[NoelC]

That date/time thing is especially poignant...

 

It used to be possible, with the control panel UI in Win 8.1 and older, to reconfigure the display of the date/time with a tweak so that it would always list actual day, date, and hours, minutes, seconds no matter how recent the file.  Basically you would manually set the format to "ddd, MMMM d, yyyy". 

 

But with the Metroized replacement it's become impossible to actually specify that exact format without going directly into the registry.  I think there's still a way to get to the old dialog still, though, but I imagine that'll go away soon.

 

-Noel

Edited April 18, 2015 by NoelC

[OldSchool38]

I've returned to XP recently to avoid any 'surprises' a Win 7 update might have in store-but if I had power over Microsoft, I would get rid of online activation!  I don't like being forced to ask their permission to use a legit copy of their OS that I paid good money for!

Edited April 18, 2015 by OldSchool38

[R4D3]

I would Prefer, that MS goes Back to Windows 3.11 - and add:

 

- New Hardware Support (DX12, OpenGl,...)

- Runtimes and Framework

- msstyles Themes from XP

- Aero Glass from 7

- DOS Core thats inside Windows 10

- Full Sandboxed Useraccounts

- a good Firewall like Kerio 2.15

 

That would be a perfect **** small secure and fast OS !

 

I really dont understand why they keep backward compability, for stupid things like DLLHELL (winsxs), or just for some 32 Bit Programs - but not in General...  - if you wanna have a backward compability - it has to be compatible for EVERYTHING - or just drop it - and start something new...

[NoelC]

R4D3, it sounds like you are asking for something you may not realize the consequences to...

 

"Drop it and start something new" is the way Apple treats its users.  Do you REALLY want to have to buy all new versions of your applications every time a new version of the OS comes out?  For Apple and the software vendors it's great; people have to pay over and over again just to be able to continue to use their computers.

 

One of the prime reasons Microsoft has succeeded in taking over the computing world is that their application environment has remained more or less stable for decades.  What they're doing now is the antithesis of this.  Taken to its conclusion, Microsoft will eliminate the desktop entirely, and you'll have to get all new Apps from their store.  Sounds great from a "Microsoft makes money" shareholder perspective.  Maybe not so great from the "I just want to get my computer work done" user perspective.

 

Thing is, Microsoft doesn't actually do good enough work to support such a change.  The "something new" you're asking that they start actually has to WORK.

 

-Noel

Edited April 20, 2015 by NoelC

[vinifera]

remove .net completely

convert .net parts back into "win32" code

stop jerking people around with various restrictions

tweak fucking SxS as its useless garbage collector

 

provide user more attractive OS UI, skin and desktop wise

- where is all the DX live Aurora from Longhorn days ?

- why not provide parallax desktop like Java Looking Glass 3D OS ?

- why not add something unique to the OS and simpler dialogs easy to access

 

return the Pivot from Longhorn 3718

make REAL virtual desktops, not just revamped crap from NT 4 days under new name

Edited April 22, 2015 by vinifera

[JorgeA]

return the Pivot from Longhorn 3718

 

I tried to look that up on the Web, but without success.

 

What was the "Pivot" in Longhorn?

 

--JorgeA

[MHz]

make REAL virtual desktops, not just revamped crap from NT 4 days under new name

You have me curious. What complies as a REAL virtual desktop? I can think of a few things possible with virtualization though I would like to know your actual view on this subject.

[vinifera]

 JorgeA

Pivot was used in My Pictures & Documents folders, as in XP they were unfinished as project
ANY pictures that you had on ANY partition, were virtually linked and shown in My Pictures folder
thus with Pivot turned ON, you didn't had to search for pictures all over PC and partitions and whatever folders,

but ALL of them were "stiffed" (again virtually linked) into 1 folder, consider it as aggregated album

 

MHz

OSX Leopard shows real virtual desktop, where all any object on it including icons are independent
while win "8" and "10", use something that was made ever since NT 4, a fake virtual desktop, you can drag your

apps there, but icons are always that from main desktop/surface "1"

so its not real virtual desktop, if i put .doc file on my main desktop, it will appear on any "other made"

its BS

Edited April 23, 2015 by vinifera