1. A search engine that’s as useful as diet water
The search functionality is stupidly convoluted. No longer are you easily able to search system folders or hidden files and directories, you have to tag these elements first for indexing (which grinds your PC to a halt) and click through several incoherant prompts before it actually starts searching for what you want. In short, the stupid Windows 7 search engine would have difficulty finding whiskers on a cat. Plus it’s stupid. Did I mention it’s totally stupid? For a usable search that works just like it did in XP (in other words, properly), you will have to resort to downloading a third party utility like FileSearchEx.
2. Just wait a moment so I can totally waste your valuable time
If you install anything, no matter how minor, chances are that Windows 7 will configure some crap on startup and then again on shutdown. When I switch my PC on or off, I don’t want to have to wait 5 minutes for Windows 7 to show a percentage bar telling me how long till it’s finished taking a dump. My time is my own to waste, I don’t need Microsoft wasting it for me. And why does it need to configure any application on startup or shutdown in the first place? XP was never like this.
3. Scrolling start menu with multiple clicks
It’s not often that you find something that both sucks and blows but the start menu on Windows 7 is a prime candidate. I get angry just thinking about that damn stinking start menu. With Windows XP, you simply move the mouse and click once to open an app. It’s simple, efficient and ergonomic. The stinking Windows 7 version forces you to scroll vertically, and also horizontally if the app name is too long, through some damn hideous menu showing everything clumped together with no sense of hierarchy and requires several clicks to navigate to the app you’re after. Alternatively, you can start typing like a muppet to find the program you want, as if you didn’t already know where it was, and then click on the miniscule icon. Nice one Microsoft, have us all chopping and changing between mouse and keyboard like a demented chef trying to cook a stew and wash the dishes at the same time.
4. Get that USB outta here
Plug in a USB drive and Windows 7 Explorer pops up showing the contents. Navigate to another folder on your hard disk using the same Explorer window and then remove the USB drive. Of course, the most logical thing for Windows 7 to do is close the whole damn Explorer regardless of whatever I might be doing. It’s so fuckin’ obvious, I’m amazed nobody else saw fit to build their sub-optimal OS this way too. And why the fuck does Windows 7 constantly bleat about wanting to scan and fix my USB drives when there’s nothing wrong with them?
5. Ludicrous Spec
Microsoft claims that Windows 7 is fast, speedy and efficient. And yes, it is providing you’re willing to upgrade all your hardware to Ludicrous Spec levels containing the very latest expensive dual core processor that would have been fine running a server farm a few years ago. Add to that, a minimum of 4GB pumped up RAM and a hard disk with the storage capacity of the the Hoover Dam and you might, just might, find Windows 7 performance acceptable. For the vast majority of us who live in the Real World though, installing something that’s twice as slow as XP, runs no quicker than a 10 year old operating system and offers minimal business benefits whilst recommending users buy hugely powerful hardware is reason enough to snort in derision whenever some gullible muppet crows about how much faster Windows 7 is. Virtually all major corporates across the world have stayed on XP and the reason certainly ain’t because it’s slower than Windows 7. There is absolutely no need for Ludicrous Spec levels of kit to run a fast, secure and efficient operating system when Linux manages just fine on far lesser hardware.
6. Stop. Right. There
One of the best things about Windows XP is that power features and functionality are largely hidden away from users but still easily accessible when you need them. Not so with Windows 7. You wanna install a program? Better ask first to check that’s really what you want to do and then check again where you want to install it. Need to administer some user accounts or settings? Nope, can’t do that without checking first and ensuring you have the necessary privileges. And even if you do, I’m still gonna have a think about it before your ass gets anywhere near those power features. My point is that Windows 7 makes is far too cumbersome and difficult to access the tweaks and admin functionality, even when you are an admin. It’s plain ridiculous that an OS would be built this way when XP managed it perfectly well using policies without user impediments.
7. My view is the best
Despite Windows 7 having unreasonably bloated hardware requirements that calls for a minimum of 4GB of RAM to properly work, this memory is obviously not put to good use. Why else would each folder not remember any of the settings I apply even after checking the “apply to all folders” setting across all templates? It’s a constant source of annoyance to create a new folder or access a directory on a USB and have it default to the crappy Icon view when I have got everything else set to List view. Why Microsoft, why?
8. From CD to DVD
Once upon a time, operating systems came on floppy disks. This then became CD’s for ease of use and we now have the bloated behemoth that is Windows 7 that arrives on a DVD. How is that we’ve gone from a perfectly usable OS under 5MB to one that needs 4GB? Well I guess all those gigabytes of extra space are surely being put to good use to install a speedy, fast, efficient and secure operating system. Heaven forbid that it’s actually filled with bloated graphical rubbish or useless features than 90% of punters will never need or use.
9. Windows 7: Rip-off Edition
Question: Just how many versions of Windows 7 does it take to build a decent operating system? Answer: None, they’re all shit although that hasn’t stopped Microsoft milking this particular udder dry with no less than six different versions, each slightly tweaked from the other builds but wholeheartedly still the same sub-optimal and thoroughly bloated Windows 7 experience. For goodness sake why do you need 6 versions, especially when they’re all very similar? The reason is so Microsoft can charge you double the normal amount for a version to be sold in rich countries whilst emerging economies get the same product badged differently at less than half the price.
10. DRM for the masses
Windows 7 has its fair share of rubbish features and there is none more unwanted and unnecessary than DRM, a feeble attempt by bullying mega rich media companies to scam and rob even more money from customers by stopping you from copying your own bought-and-paid-for CD’s and playing them on your own device. Microsoft has thoughtfully integrated DRM throughout Windows 7 so it oozes out of every bloated sweat pore and is ready and waiting for shithead media companies to exploit.
11. Nothing to see here
Got a list of jpegs or images you want to quickly see all at once without launching a full blown app? Tough, there’s no out-of-the-box thumbnail view in Windows 7 Explorer unless you fiddle around with folder settings to never display icons. Instead, marvel at the clunky preview pane that forces you to pick through each image one by one until frustration gets the better of your sanity and you kick a hole in the screen. Oh, and don’t forget to clean up the gazillion thumbnail files left littering your hard disk because Microsoft has thoughtfully removed the option to not cache thumbnails.
12. A Control Panel without control
The Control Panel in XP was simple and intuitive. The Control Panel in Windows 7 is complicated and counter-intuitive. For anyone used to quickly and efficiently configuring their XP PC through well-signposted Control Panel icons, be prepared for a hideous mish-mash of non-related functions clumped together in Windows 7 Control Panel, all thoughtfully arranged so it requires far more clicks than is necessary.
13. Resume at your leisure
A prime candidate for Most Irritating “Feature” of Windows 7 is the waste-of-time Resume that’s about as useful as an STD in a brothel. This much vaunted functionality is supposed to make resuming your Windows 7 PC a matter of seconds by saving the current session state of your PC ready for when you next switch it on. The reality is that it’s just as slow, if not slower, than doing a cold boot. In fact, it’s even slower than the old Hibernate feature which is the first thing I remove when creating an XP build. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Microsoft would add Resume to Windows 7 then do everything possible to ensure it’s no quicker than a cold boot. Answers on a postcard please to Microsoft Hates You, Redmond, Washington.
14. Copying is slower than writing by hand
Want to simply copy files and directories in Windows 7 through the Explorer? Sure thing, but just wait a few minutes whilst I pop up this stupid bloody dialogue box telling you that I need to calculate the size of the files and the time remaining. And then wait some more whilst the same dialogue box hangs when copying files to and from a USB drive or other external device causing the whole operation to fail. Plus, don’t forget the slower copying speeds if by some miracle it actually works and decides to finish, but do make sure you have a packed lunch and a sleeping bag. I’ve wirelessly copied the same 300MB file to the same server using the same router for both XP and Windows 7 and XP was over a minute quicker. Proof positive that even when it comes to the most simplest action such as copying a file, Microsoft excels at delivering a screw up.
15. My policy is you can’t do jack
The Disk Defragmenter program has been buggered beyond the laws of sodomy. The initial analysis is now slower than a cucumber doing Calculus and there is no visual representation of the hard disk to see where all the files are being stored. If you actually bother to hang around for the analysis to complete and start the defragger, the process does several passes on the disk that are slower than a village idiot teaching a cucumber to do Calculus. And why the fuck the button is labelled “Analyze disk” is anyone’s guess, last time I checked, the correct spelling was Analyse.
16. No need to visit the opticians
Drag a file in Explorer and enjoy the huge icon that materialises in front of you merrily obscuring all and sundry so you can’t actually see what action to take. Why the fuck this icon has to be so large is anyone’s guess, mine is that Microsoft decided Windows 7 wasn’t irritating enough already and decided Aero would finish the hatchet job.
17. You there in the corner doing nothing
The wireless icon doesn’t blink to show network activity, it just stays static so you have no idea if anything is happening connectivity wise. Microsoft claim the reason for it being static is that users found it too distracting which I don’t buy at all. More likely that Microsoft made it static so they could sneak in updates and uploads without the user realising. Oh, and lets not forget that usefulness is waaaay down the list of priorities for Windows 7.
18. Clickety click
Everything in Windows 7 seems to take more clicks than is necessary. Case in point, viewing the wifi adapter settings. In XP, simply right click and choose Properties. In Windows 7, right click and choose Open Network and Sharing Centre. Then click Change Adaptor Settings, right click the wireless connection and choose Properties. Click the Configure button and finally, you get the wireless adapter settings. Four fucking clicks to replace one! Want to repair your wireless connection in XP? Right click the wifi icon and choose Repair. Simples. In Windows 7, marvel at the clunky right click to open the network sharing centre and then another click to start the troubleshooter followed by more clicks through several screens as Windows 7 fucks around wasting your time. It’s a complete croc of clickety crap.
19. How big is my bin?
In Windows XP, you can use a slider to set the size of the recycle bin which shows you the space allocated or enter a value manually and even provide different sizes for different drives. Not so with Windows 7 where the recycle options number a grand total of one which amounts to entering the size manually. Example number 68 of how less usable Windows 7 is compared to XP.
20. Up we don’t go
The useful Up Folder button in XP Explorer has been removed and replaced with stupid Forward and Back arrows. What the hell those arrows mean in a complex folder hierarchy is anyone’s guess; the Up Folder button was plain and simple, always in the same place, and did exactly what it said on the tin. However, Uncle Microsoft knows what’s ideal for everyone so best to stick the path in the address bar (truncated of course for maximum annoyance) with clickable folders, remove the more useful single button and replace it with two abstract ones. Where do you want to go today? Not where you want to, Microsoft has bloody well made sure of that!
Grumpy Bear Blog 
16; despite putting every language setting I can find to English, and despite the fact that I’ve never once created a powerpoint presentation in Dutch, every time I open powerpoint it now thinks this will be the day – and the spellcheck is in Dutch. (I’m in Amsterdam, so our systems are bilingual… but this fresh hell is only since Windows7 was installed).
Try this. Open PowerPoint, click on the Tools menu and choose Language. Set that to English and click the Default button.
If that doesn’t work then from the start menu, choose Microsoft Office and then Microsoft Office Language Settings. Click the User Interface and Help tab and then select English from there.
Thanks
that works – until I restart. Then I’m hurled back into Dutch. It doesn’t happen in word so I think it’s something wrong with the implementation…. but I’d rather blame windows 7
Also, it seems to me their are a lot of marketing gimmicks. Rather than providing and easier or innovative interface, they deliberately cripple features, only to add them later or with “premium” versions. Its really disgusting and antitrust. Their backdoor updates is very worrisome too. They always profess “security” but they actually make the computer very insecure because they and their NSA colleagues are so nosy. In addition to all the NSA stuff, I expect there are going to be some scandals in the future with regard to theft of intellectual property from users.
Wow I have windows 7 and it SUX It keeps crashing whenever I play roblox -_- I want my windows 8 back at least that’s better then this sh##
Same
i agree
Windows 8 is slower than windows 7.If you dont know how to configure your PC after installation that’s the problem.You need drivers for the hardware eg.graphics card drive.Maybe your PC is a piece of crap thats why your PC crashes.I have a Windows 7 PC that is 10 years old with 4 Gigs of ram, CPU intergrated graphics and 2 core 4 thread CPU and it runs very fast without lag
This is because MS apps now use your KEYBOARD LAYOUT to determine the language. And keyboard layout is determined by location. You need to add an English keyboard and switch to it every time you want to type in english… else, you’re typing in Dutch because uncle Microsoft says so.
I’m a couple of months ex post facto, but this article helped me wake up today. I go to work at 6 AM sometimes, and after being up late watching the NBA Finals I’m a little tired. This got my blood boiling, since I’m the one who gets to configure new Windows 7 machines for my company. We have Windows 2003 servers, so I can’t do some of the things I would like through group policy.
I just google’d “Windows 7 sucks” and got some good material. 🙂
Why does dumbing things down make them more difficult? I want my freaking UP button!
Just wait until the new Windows 8 operating system is out later this year, it plunges the functionality to Village Idiot levels of dumbing down.
It’s called Smart Phone idiots. They have never seen a computer or touch one unless it’s to type a history report for school.
Now they use tablets to do that and talk to their friends on Skype or Twitter so they don’t care about functionality and that’s JUST what MS and all theese other companies are catering too.
It makes easy money ever since the George Debau Bush tax cuts enriched corporations.
What about the old simple intuitive file structure system in XP – and every version of Windows I ever used until now?
Windows 7 has thoughtfully replaced it with a system so complex I can’t figure out the structuring system after six fooking months of using it.
File structure used to be easy to understand, and if it wasn’t entirely logical, I could still figure out where I put my stuff. Now MS has made it almost impossible to find out where my folders are.
If I’d wanted this level of opaque, Father-Knows-Best how to store your work, I would have bought a Mac.
OMG how I agree with you on this one. It is so !$@#! frustrating to try and find things on the hard drive now.
The best app ever invented has saved my sanity with this though: SlickRun. Thank GOD for SlickRun. It allows me to bypass all the hunting and pecking and clicking that Win 7 forces me to do, or at least I only have to find the path ONCE and then SlickRun will find it for me after that. And it’s FREE:
http://www.bayden.com/slickrun/
Why can’t MS make decent software? God only knows.
Amen Grumpy Bear! Windows 7 is an abomination! I can’t stand it! I am glad someone else see’s it the way I do! We wont even mention Vista, that was beyond abomination. They were highly successful with XP why can’t they do it again? Warped brains? Filthy Corporate Greed? They get there jolly’s from our frustration??????
Yep, I agree. I’ve recently upgraded to Win7 and I don’t see how it’s the best Microsoft OS ever. Sure, it’s flashy-flashy, but I don’t find it very usable. It even starts slower than Vista and Vista sucked. My computer came with Vista and it’s from 2008, so it’s not like it’s from the XP era. XP was more usable in my opinion.
Not to mention the joys of trying to change the windows startup sound- have a look into that one if you fancy laughing at a serious screw up.
Then there’s the windows themes- don’t even get me started on those.
File permissions are another screw up.
The whole thing seems to be designed to leave us locked out of functions and options just in case we broke something- being on windows 7 is like being ten years old and in my grandma’s house all over again.
I was pretty adept at XP, I’ve had Windows 7 on my home computer for over two years and I still don’t know how to do the most basic tasks. Complete POS, why does “progress” involve making things more convoluted? HORRIBLE!
I love windows XP. Windows 7 takes the personal out of PC. I don’t trust Windows 7, I believe it governs your every move and uploads your personal info, that’s why so many people talk like…”get with the times, or get out of the stone age”, cause they want to start breaching your personal life.
I don’t drink coffee but how come nobody cares about that? Shouldn’t they be sayin somethin like, “most people drink coffee so that means you should drink coffee”, but they don’t. When it comes to using Windows suddenly it’s very important that I become just like everyone else by using windows 7. Windows XP will always be my primary OS because it never lets me down.
I just recently tried Windows 7 again and I went back to XP. If windows 7 is so great why do I hate it so much? I’ll tell you why, cause like the article says XP is simple and intuitive, not complicated and counter-intuitive and frustratings with all the extra clicks you must perform just to complete simple tasks that would take 1/3rd the number of clicks in XP. I’d rather pay $140 again to renew my XP license to continue support for a rock solid OS. It’s not wise to fix something that isn’t broken, when you do, you get Windows 7.
Microsoft aims to migrate some 70% of corporates from XP to Windows 7 by mid 2013.
Shyeah, right, good luck with that! We just finished our second year long pilot with Windows 7 and it was promptly binned as not fit for purpose. Purpose being “usable”.
I never really thought of it like that but good point! When the latest soda drink comes out or juice drink why aren’t they all like “Most of XYZ types drink this! and if you don’t you must not like good drinks!” “This is the drink of the future sir coke zero!”
Another thing I hate about windows 7 is the slow loading. I have a folder with over 300 high resolution wallpapers, it literally takes 3 minutes for that green bar to finish loading all the thumbnails for me to finally see which one to right click and set as desktop wallpaper, in XP it literally only takes 1 second! for all thumbnails to load. That’s just one of many reasons I hate windows 7.
Have you enabled thumbnail caching? I agree though, the way they’ve done the whole thumbnail thing is just plain stupid.
No actually I didn’t enable thumbnail caching. That’s the kind of reason why I hate Windows 7 though. I also never did that on Windows XP cause I never had to, it just works great by default. Windows 7 is way too time consuming. I created a backup image of my XP and Windows 7 to switch back and forth for when I’m forced to use windows 7 for directx11 games which isn’t even that great. I think Direct X11 is nothing more than DirectX 9c at it’s best since I can list several games that run on XP that look and run better than new DX11 only games.
I also noticed when it comes to adding my bluetooth keyboard that I have to keep refreshing when I switch back and forth from XP to 7, and everytime I add a new wiresless keyboard on 7, I have to wait 2-3 minutes for the driver icon by the clock to finish up before I can start controlling the pc, on windows XP it does it in literally 3 seconds. Windows XP is a great operating system. I never had any complaints about it from the start. Everytime I try use Windows 7 I find some new issue to make me miss my XP even more.
Windows 7 at least better than vista,and much better than the windows 8.
I’ve been trying to use Windows 8 since the release preview and it’s complete rubbish. All the constant switching between the Metro interface and classic desktop is very confusing and the corners all seem to do different things without any meaningful prompts or intuition.
That idiot Ballmer says he has bet everything on Windows 8, reason alone for it to be an epic fail.
Dual core hardware with 4GB of ram is NOT ludicrous hardware. My smart phone has that. You really wrote this in April of 2012? I’m not sure what you mean by “thumbnail viewer,” but it is easier to see a folder of images in windows 7 than in XP by a long shot. Resume IS the new hibernate. If you don’t like hibernate (because your hard drive is very slow) and don’t want to purchase an SSD, make sure that you only allow standby in your power settings. This is a very strange list!!!?
Windows 7 rocks. Is grumpy bear deleting every post that disagrees with him? This is a very strange list of anti-windows-7 comments with no naysayers. Windows 7 isn’t the same as XP. That doesn’t make it bad. There are many Pros that outweigh the CONs (IMHO), but yes . . . change breaks things . . . and not everything will be the same.
Even skimming this list of comments, I see a profile that needs to be rebuilt and a couple workflow issues, and a bunch of whining about how it’s not the same and how people don’t like the new way. Let’s honestly ask ourselves if you REALLY want Microsoft to stop moving forward and innovating? That basically happened in the mobile arena Apple took their pace. If you don’t like Windows 7, how would you like EVERYTHING to change. In 3 years, instead of implementing Windows 9, you could be ripping out AD/Group Policy and Server 2008/2012 and instead be putting in Apple servers and use their user directory?
Windows 8 is REALLY rough, and I don’t see how in the world we would ever implement that in the corporate environement, and I really hate metro, but have a bit of patience and we’ll see what happens.
Lets take your points one by one.
XP runs just fine on 1GB of RAM so 4GB for something that doesn’t run as fast is ludicrous. Fair enough if with 4GB of RAM WIndows 7 ran 4 times faster but it doesn’t. You need a minimum of 2GB RAM with Windows 7 to make it run as good as XP with 1GB.
Thumbnail viewer is the ability to simply right click in any folder in XP Explorer and choose Thumbnails to see a mini picture of any images. If there is a 1 click equavalent in Win 7 that doesn’t send me in the wrong direction or tell me to bugger around with something else first just to preview a frickin’ picture, I’ve yet to find it. And I don’t mean the full blown image preview rubbish.
I’m sure Windows 7 rocks for some people but not for most. It’s just Vista with a new taskbar and marginally less bloat but with the same Aero crap foisted upon us with Vista. It’s also why most corporates have still not migrated and will do so kicking and screaming before the 2014 deadline.
I don’t delete any post, whether it concurs or disagrees. In fact, I really liked your post because it encouraged debate 🙂
Yes, Windows 7 isn’t the same as XP but here’s the thing; it shouldn’t be any *worse* than XP or any less accessible or any more bloated. Unfortunately, it just is. As for the pro’s that out weight the con’s, I can’t think of a single one. No really, there isn’t anything that immediately leaps to mind as a shining example of usability or feature enrichment in Windows 7.
I like Microsoft, I really do. Their development tools tend to be wonderfully innovative and really allow end users to be productive with relatively little effort. However, they’ve lost their way since that idiot Ballmer was put in charge.
Having installed Windows 8 and had a play, I think it’s more of a significant release than Windows 7 but for now, all corporates will be migrating to Windows 7 in the first instance. Windows 8 is too much of a mish mash of environments and some of the stupidity is still there for everyone to see. For example, why does it insist on booting into Metro, even if you aren’t using Metro and have no intention of using Metro? And what’s with the inconsistency and having to shove the cursor into corners without any guidance?
Answers on a postcard to XP Ru13Z 4 Ev3R 🙂
If your OS requires an SSD to be snappy then you’ve got serious problems and are probably one of the stupid people who think that moving a mouse around and typing a name into a search box makes you a geek or smart, I hate your kind, get the f off of my planet.
I’ve found that this kind of person is usually a console gamer, go back to your damn console with a couple of buttons and a cup holder. (If you don’t get this reference then you’re a damned idiot.)
Nevermind 4gb of ram, even on a 64bit kernel with 64bit apps running ontop.
The problem with windows 7 is that microsoft has lost its ethical standpoint, when bill gates was ceo it had some level of ethical blueprint in-order to take orders from, that was the golden age.
Now its running like a runaway train without anyone with ethics at the helm, its being run and governed by uncle sam, microsoft is a huge nation sized corporation and has absolutely no forward thinking or anyone to say to the buisness type folks what to do, bill gates has stepped down for a long time now.
Its purely a stockmarket/revenue raising machine now and the programmers are fed up, why do you think it won’t remember any settings anymore upon reboot? Nobody wants to write that god awful code which makes up windows, the development kits that microsoft release now are just god awful horrible things.
You ask any developer around, who has to write code for w7 or w8, they will tell you its an apsolute nightmare.
Microsoft is headed directly towards the walled iOS world at full speed and there is nothing that will stop it, and with uncle sam at the helm dictating what it does its going to drag all of us along with it by crippling everything that we’ve spent 15 years coming to enjoy, freedom on the PC platform.
Our only savior will be GNU/Linux.
Our only saviour is GNU/Linux. Low hardware requirements at a low price. Why on earth would I PAY for something worse than something free? I hate windows 7 and I WANT MY IT DEPARTMENT TO LEAVE IT FOR DEAD.
Well said. I know to many it comes as a “Get off my lawn” post but I see valid points behind the barrel of your gun and it’s not the cartridge.
When Windows 7 was out there has hardly been any new software and what’s out is mostly old XP era software unless you do Steam and even then it’s mostly old software.
I’m not sure if my Windows 7 actually sucks – it crashes and hangs too often for me to be able to say…
LMAO 🙂
Seems to me Windows 2000 was the highest mark of MS no-nonsense productive OS design. XP already introduced some annoying things. Fortunately, these were just minor gripes.
Tried Windows 7 briefly. I was actually intending to adjust and accept it, If only for DirectX 10. But saw myself down-grading to XP the next day. Came across Windows 7 again this week and it was not as laggy as in our first encounter, but now it just refused to run the first two WIN32 programs I tried on it.
The main thing though are the questionable User Interface experiments aimed at non-technical people, supporting fancy skins which in the core are just black text on a full white background, which does not please my eyes.
When thinking about future (inevitable?) software upgrades at the office: they would cost considerable time and money whilst not gaining productivity like before, it would probably be decreasing productivity.
On the other hand most big software vendors now understand they need continuous income (subscription), which does not match with the idea of functional non-perishable software on hardware that is also hard to kill because it has no moving parts.
For the time being XP and its x64 brother will serve in our office, while others fight this out.
This is rather interesting in the light of this topic:
http://xpwasmyidea.blogspot.nl/
Hear Hear.
I Hate Windows 7.
8 is even worse.
it sucks and it blows .
GAH!
*Kicks a hole in his win7 laptop*.
Also, Most of the POWER has been taken away from the user and turned into this CRAP they call “AERO”.
Well I say it it is ***********
The Control Panel interface in XP could at least be set to a vertical detailed list view sorted alphabetically. In WIN-DOZE 7 NO LINEAR LIST FOR YOU! It’s “small” “icons” at best and it’s freaking SORTED HORIZONTALLY. WHAT @#$% YEAR IS THIS 2012 OR 1972.
Software used to be about Engineering and Quality. Now it’s all about marketing and $$$ and “cute” fancy-a$$ crap.
CHANGE FOR NO REASON.
I hear you, that damn control panel has been irritating me from day 1 with a lack of a proper list view. But not only that, they’ve relabelled some of the options so it’s 50% more stupid. For example, “Add & Remove Programs” has been replaced with “Programs & Features” whilst the “Adjust your computer’s settings” groupings are about as useful as a carpet fitter’s ladder.
Mandela Effect? Perhaps that’s why they don’t’ *remember* the old days when thousands of software titles existed and programming actually meant something.
Search for Mandela Effect and see if what you once knew may not be true anymore regardless of your level of detail to attention.
I don’t want to read all the entries but I am sure I would agree with them if I did.
My complaint is not with the Contro Panel but with something much simpler: I tried to attach a few fotos to an email and I have no idea if the recipent can view/open them. I never before had this difficulty with previous versions of Windows I have used (5, 7. 98, 2000 and XP).
I read a lot about the coming Shift into a higher dimension. When it happens, I hope the powers that be will take Windows 7 with them.
Payment for the time wasted on Win 7 quirks would be nice, too!
Unfortunately, the shift now will be to try and foist the dreadful Windows 8 rubbish on everyone.
The amazing thing to me is that Microsoft doesn’t seem competent to make or interested in making obvious improvements, correcting multi-version bugs (never retaining a folder setting, having no way to apply folder settings to multiple folders which perhaps doesn’t matter as it will lose them all as soon as the folder window is closed, adding a script that deletes desktop icons and not even bothering to make an option not to do that, blah, blah). I am using Win 7 after having used XP for years, and MS seems to have put a lot of effort into creating a less-functional interface. I assume Windows 8 will be more along the same lines. [I have used MS Money for years (no longer supported), and they never seemed to correct bugs 10 years after they first appeared despite yearly “updates”.] It does seem that the file system is stable, but then maybe they copied that from VMS 20 years ago. There is so much crappy software around these days; the only stuff I find that seems to be well done is that done by a single person.
Grumpy Bear, your comments make me smile …
I decided that it was time for a new and even better “64 bit Windows 7” laptop. After 7 years of good service, the old and rather good “32-bit Windows XP” laptop would be able to enjoy retirement: only to be bothered to run some really old but perfct DOS programmes … obviously via something called NTFS4DOS, because MicroSoft never understood the concept of compatibility.
As a kid with his Christmas presents, I opened the box and started unpacking …
But after wasting several days of trying to do on the new over-spec-ed (e.g. i7 processor with more cores than our house has bed rooms) laptop, what the old trusty laptop did in less than half the time, I have decided that until I find time to UPGRADE from Windows 7 to Windows XP, the over-spec-ed laptop will be only good as internet tablet …
Seasons grumblings,
Joe
P.S. While composing this email, the trusty old laptop re-rendered 30 minutes of video at 3 times the “real time”.
Seaons grumblings to you too my friend, may your XP laptop bring you much joy, slick functionality and speedy efficiency in the New Year whilst Windows 7 festers in its own bloated crappulence.
I am not sure if this is a joke blog but regardless Windows XP with SP3 installed was a smooth ride with only a few hiccups if you had a crap PC that you didn’t take care of.
Any OS will be crap in that case even more then what they programmed.
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I have swore so many times in just one day at Windows 7 I just cannot believe it is so highly touted by everyone. It takes forever to shutdown, at times the taskbar doesnt respond to unpin and pin operations, the superbar SUCKS basically containing the negatives of OSXs dock AND the negatives of a taskbar, the window decorations waste screen space, the resource usage is pointless, windows explorer is so much more complicated than it needs to be, etc.
I dont wish to be a total whiner. I really am trying (still!) to give it a shot, and it does have the huge windows software ecosystem going for it. I just cannot see how anyone rates the “windows experience” over a modern linux install nowadays, and linux DEFINITELY has its own problems (lack of software, developers developing to flaunt dick size, etc). I believe Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of Microsofts OS design, and XP was a solid version itself.
I think XP is the best OS Microsoft ever designed and the proof is in the fact that it’s still widely used.
Ever tried to arrange a series of photos in a file…used to be able to drag and drop . Now…..sorry…we do not ALLOW you to do this…who do you think you are?
WTF?!?!
I guess I will give up the computer if this sort of crap continues from MS. I am a senior and have not that much time left for ego-driven kludge.
This sytem should have kept the good features of preceding systems and enhanced the intuitiveness but they have done the opposite and produced a MESS!
Same comments apply to LIVEMAIL…what a joke on me.
Thought I needed to update the computer to keep up to date so upgraded it and updated to 7 at the sametime. What a mistake on the Window package. I actually had to set up my old computer as a work station to work on large projects to run CAD programs. I did some test and my old dual core cpu on the old computer out performed by over 100% in my tests. Window 7 sucks other than the new graphics. I see why all my friends are slowly moving to MAC. If i have to I do that before I will moving over to that crazy windows 8 program. If you want a touch screen get a tablet or Ipad. I guess that why there CEO got fired. I think there done like blackberry.
Sorry should say my old computers was running window xp.
Sadly, Microsoft deserve to be done since that idiot Ballmer took over the company and set about ruining it. And I sincerely hope BlackBerry doesn’t go the same way, their phones are still by far the best business handsets available.
Microsoft has only been able to peddle it’s crap because when 95/98 and even XP came out most people were computer illiterate. That’s changed, big time.
It will never be like a Mac, Linux or BSD because honestly Windows is nothing but a bunch of patches, it’s like band-aids upon band-aids.
When shit really goes bad in Linux/BSD the code is removed or re-written.
Because of the binary nature of Windows… and not wanting to pay to do it.. nothing is ever really fixed… just “patched” …
They should have opened their source long ago. Who cares? They own the copyright to the Kernel and all of the system API’s no one’s going to steal anything in this day and age and get away with it.
Maybe then there would be some fixes and a code audit.
But until then we can enjoy our band-aids.
i hope Win 9 fixes all these problems because I am really pissed off and I don’t want to use win 7 for the rest of my life. Actually what am I talking about win 8 has EVEN MORE COMPATIBILITY ISSUES THAN EVER. I HOPE A SP2 SAVES US FROM THIS CRAP.
Just wait for’10’- sends every f’ing keypress you make, streight back to MS HQ!
Windows 7 is just garbage. Like many of you I was a Happy XP user until my Mainboard’s AGP port died on me & I decided that it was about time I invest in a decently spec’d laptop. my previous system was an old Dell Intel Xeon dual processor pro workstation (with hyper threading) that was plenty fast even by todays standards, My new rig is running an i7 processor and on paper one would think it would smoke my 13 year old system. Its not even close. the first thing i did was lay in with he usual OS tweaks like killing all the notifications, unnecessary eye candy & services like indexing which helped allot but the problem aside from the horrid new arrangement is the file system, particularly the thumbnail cache.the system keeps freezing up on me. it doesn’t even lock up. the contents of folders just disappear and the only way to fix them is to either log out and back or to make a change to the Max Cached Icons registry value which I currently have set to 2000. this helped allot but there still is the issue of the folders that are cashed forgetting the content. Oh and lets not forget about super hidden files. enable this and you will find all kinds of crap on your OS that you thought you deleted! This is not Progress. When I get the time I’m either going back to XP or installing Linux
Another thing that REALLY sucks in W7: in the XP file explorer if you click on a directory on the tree (left side), and then in the right side (files), the active element is always set on the right side: logical. If you then press the delete key, you will be asked to confirm the deletion of the file you selected on the right side, or it will do nothing if you clicked on the background, because you selected nothing. Everything as expected. You always see by the color which element is the active one, and what side of the explorer is active.
Try to do that in Windows7: if you click on the tree and then on the right side background, you will see one of the files on the right side as active, and you might think it is, but it is not: if you then press delete you expect the highlighted file on the right to be deleted, but it will delete the whole directory, because the active element is still the directory on the left tree (well; if we can call that shit a ‘tree’, because it is not). Maybe it depends on people habits, but my wife is always asking me for undeleting big whole directories she has deleted by mistake because she uses shift-delete and confirms without reading because she knows she is deleting (but this NEVER happened on xp).
The undelete tool I had to download and install is of the applications I use the most. Thanks, MS.
So that’s why I’ve kept losing whole directories, I was wondering what the hell was going on when I could have sworn I just deleted a single file.
You forgot to mention the fact that Windows updates tend to mess everything up from booting up (wanting to run CHKDSK at every start) to fonts to programs not being able to load. AND Microsoft expects us to PAY for technical support for something which is CLEARLY THEIR FAULT!!! This is evil! And how do they explain restore points disappearing or Automatic Updates running when I checked off NO UPDATES!!!???? (That was a new one!) No wonder Mac owners laugh at us! :o(
Chkdisk runs every time you start when you have an issue with your hard drive. It’s trying to tell you something.
“I haven’t gotten used to Windows 7, therefore it sucks!”
You idiot.
What if you had to move your home every six months? What if they changed the dashboard in your car every now and then, just for kicks, replacing the steering wheel with a holistic device and switching the order of your pedals from left to right? What would you do if you were forced to learn and speak new dialects of your language for no good reason except random groups of people suddenly forcing them on you? This is what Linux and now Windows is all about.
Yeah,
I still hate the “calculating size and time” thing when you move files, I mean why? Just move the fucking file!!!
After all of the updates and service packs it’s still here and it’s one thing I absolutely loathe when I’m using 7.
It did that with XP as well. It has to calculate when you have multiple files because each file takes a varying amount of time to copy and it’s trying to figure out multiple variables to get even a remotely accurate estimate. It doesn’t actually stop the file from copying. It copies whilst it’s estimating because that’s how it estimates.
While I havent read all the comments, those that I did I completely agree with. My bitch is the Backup. Keeerist it takes forever and some nimrod at MS has been saying for a couple years now they are aware and are coming out with a fix. But now they want us to go to Windows 8. Fat chance at our company.
And whats with the never changing “advanced system settings”. Open up the advanced settings to change your swap file, or try to disable a windows feature, set your environment variables or something like that, and whoop: the same f*cking screens that it has ever been. Even the styles of those screens have never changed in over 10 years. Guess they are building on the same “proven technology” for years…
There was nothing wrong with the compact System contol panel dialog – sysdm.cpl. However, they’ve been moving functionality out of it. Windows Update is no longer accessed from there, nor is Device Manager. Instead we get what looks like “web pages” with Back and Forward buttons, with sparse layout and few hints about the _context_ of each page. In the standard proven tabbed dialog we could easily see which tab we were on and access any other, without extra clicks to go up one or two levels first.
Grumpy Bear – You are too kind with your comments on W7 – I almost stroke out every time I try to something past basic email / web / word processing. Trying to get file permissions sorted out makes me furious!!! I am the admin and I get tons of permission denied – WTF???, logging in as administrator (once I found the cheat to support it) does the same thing – ???. I work when I can in Ubuntu and even being new at it it is less stressful.
Enjoy your comments!!
Repair technician tried to persuade me to get a new computer with Win 7 and I refused. After reading your blog post I’m more than happy I said no. Btw your very funny ^^
Imagine if car makers took the same approach, changing things ‘because they can’. The next model will have the steering wheel in the trunk and the gas pedal on the roof. Not because they are easier to use, or improve driving, but ‘because we can’ and there’s nothing you can do about it.
That was a great analogy, and one befitting this piece of junk that is Windows 7! And to think that I migrated from XP to try an d leverage additional RAM … now the only use I get from Windows 7 is as host to VMWare images running … Linux!
Actually, part of this is the bureaucracy at M$. Everyone wants a promotion and to claim they “did” something. So there is this culture of adding lots of useless stuff quickly and sloppily to get the raise and pump up some new system for stock investors. When PE ratios are so high, this is just the way things work in publicly traded companies. With regard to all the DRM and security, this ia also a culture of corruption, and we have to deal with it. It is actually almost criminal, because many critical businesses including hospitals depend on these bloated operating systems catering to NSA and RIAA, rather than customers. I heard they even deliberate blur radiology images for doctors trying to make diagnosis, because some Hollywood executives don’t want you getting a good copy of any picture you dowload. Its ridiculous really.
That’s total rubbish
I love Windows XP. I don’t care if people say it’s a dinosaur. The only thing 7 has on XP is Direct X 10. Hope my laptop can last another 5 years. It will be 7 years old this year.
Any company can design a nice User Interface on Linux, Windows will die second day!!! (Like how Windows killed OS2)
If any company can design a nice UI for Linux, why is it there still no decent interface that can rival XP? (the closest is probably Mint).
Hello fellow Windows 7 lovers. Was looking for some solutions to yet more unknown problems Windows 7 when I stumbled onto this blog. I spent my entire working life in electronics, and have at least a working knowledge of computers. Since my retirement I I have refurbished, or rebuilt a ton of computers. Most I donate to my granddaughter or other grammar school. A few I sell on eBay. I cannot count how many Windows 7 installs I have done, or how many hours I have spent finding missing drivers that are compatible, or troubleshooting mystery problems that seem to have no cause or cure. It is beyond belief that Microsoft, especially after the Vista debacle, would come out with an operating system that has no support for most older model computers. I don’t mean old clunkers, some no more than three or four years. I do my best to steer any one who will listen away from Windows 7 especially 64-bit. Well I guess that’s enough rambling from me! Hang in there grumpy!
I have a game called FAR CRY and it will not install off the disc no matter what I try, compatibility does nothing for it not even win 2000 compatibility! The only way I could get this game to install was to physically install windows 7 32 bit so much for 64 bit being so mighty, 64 bit is kind of a joke. Should have just stuck with my XP install if I knew it was going to be this big of a pain! I have a new PC I wonder what else 64 bit does not work with.
64 bit versions of Windows (or any OS) are one gigantic scam to flog kit that nobody needs under the guise of it being “better, faster, more efficient”. Apart from a tiny miniscule minority of users, the type found doing calculations for atro physics or working on sending the next man into space, there is absolutely no need for 64-bit anything. It doesn’t offer one iota of any significant advantage to either the home user, business user or even the power user.
Can’t tell you how much I despise Windows 7. If you are a photographer working with images the changes they’ve made to file folders is a complete disaster and constant source of frustration that never ends. Windows 7 brought my productivity to a grinding halt and forced me to install XP on a virtual machine in order to do my job efficiently.
Aww man, one of my biggest beefs is the way Win7 handles (or doesn’t handle) images. It now takes me twice as long to scan through large numbers of images by having to use that bloody preview pane crap instead of normal thumbnails.
OMG i’m glad i’m not the only one who’s so grumpy/
my computer (Win XP) @ work just died. our IT gave me a new one (Win7).
M$ added a lot of cutesy touches of very little. the only good thing i can say about it is the screen look nicer but useless in terms of my productivity.
so far i have spent the last few days hacking it to behave like XP (like alt-tab, quick launch, clipboard viewer)
the clip board behaves totaly different. i use screen capture to insert plots in power point for the test reports. somehow Win7 always inserts margin on the R side & bottom so the figure is no longer centered. this irritates me to no end. i have > 500 figures. my blood pressure probably has jumped 20 in the last 2 days.
it’s like M$ sell you a car, but they take away the door key, door knobs, steering wheel, brake & gas paddle, cause it decides it knows where you want to go.
Hey Grumpy Bear, latecomer here.
Cannot tell you how frustrating Win 7 is; I am a remote support tech for a large financial firm which “upgraded” from XP to 7. What a frickin nightmare. Suffice it to say that support tried to upgrade first, and couldn’t. EVERYTHING broke; apps, networking, scripts. The testbeds seemed okay, but they were built with new hardware which had been factory tested/patched for 7. We rolled back to XP, but production went ahead with the upgrade! Management has this weird belief that MS knows what it is doing; a running joke in IT. In the meantime, mission critical Linux machines just chug along maintaining local and remote databases and their secure data pipes.
There’s some kind of technical irony in all this. The very people hired to establish our infrastructure were ignored in the upgrade decision. Management: “The Sky will fall in 2014!!!!” IT: “Well, sir, our mission critical infrastructure is even older than XP and works cheaply and efficiently. If a tool does its job, there is no real reason to replace it.”
Microsoft’s revenue stream is not worth all this.
You wait til they “upgrade” you all to Office 2007+, we’ve just had this crock of crap dumped upon us a few months back and it makes Win7 look like a work of art. Everything, and I mean pretty much everything, takes twice as many clicks and useful functionality has been totally hidden away in the piece-o-junk ribbon toolbar.
Is it true that Japanese companies are still using Office ’97 and Fax machines?
If so thats so awesome and retro 🙂
Wouldn’t be surprised if they are. The Japanese have also hit upon an ingenious way of not being forced to upgrade their XP machines when support ends next year; they’re simply gonna take all their XP machines offline 🙂
GB,
BTDT. STILL get “How do I?” questions, months later. I honestly wonder where MS gets UI data from; its not business users, I can tell you that. I usually listen to a five minute rant about how stupid IT was for upgrading because the user can’t do this, or can’t merge that, or can’t even display something else. They REALLY don’t want to hear something can’t be done anymore. Efficiency is the cornerstone of business and requiring users to “Un-learn:Re-learn” is simply stupid. It takes time, causes user mistakes (sometimes, BIG ones), aggravates our customers, and even alienates IT from the rest of the corporate “team”. I absolutely understand when its necessary to upgrade for real reasons, but the infinite upgrade business model of MS has now become actually counter-productive.
I’m ranting, sorry. Guess I’m just worried about the next upgrade to Windows8/Metro and Office 2013/Cloud Services. Nah, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about there.
What I don’t understand is this: Why have the rest of the planet left Microsoft to it? Where are the other PC platforms? Why hasn’t someone, somewhere devised an alternative or an open source? Why are we living in a NO CHOICE digital age??
There are alternatives but they’ve either been crushed by Microsoft (OS2), are stupidly expensive (Mac) or require an indepth knowledge of writing drivers to make anything work (Linux).
Office 2013 and Cloud Services; the answer to the question “Office 2007 doesn’t shit on our customers hard enough, how can we possibly make it worse?”
re. the up button in Explorer,
i found a short cut
Alt + (up arrow)
apparently, the functiona is still there inside the OS.
those MORONS just took away the button!
Yep, just found this the other day. Nice one Microsoft, make me switch between mouse and keyboard like a ‘ckin idiot just to go up a level.
Thanks anyway for the tip.
Instead of up-arrow I just click on the folder I want in the address bar. this way i can jump up 2 or 3 levels also if I want to. (with one click)
[…] before Windows 7 came along to bog down everyone’s working day with stupid changes that made no sense, Microsoft had already cornered the market in dumb-ass interfaces by releasing […]
I have Windows 7 on a refurbished Dell laptop that used to run XP.
I loath this OS, but have to use it because my good laptop is down and I can’t figure out what drivers I need to restore this one with Windows XP.
Thank God there are things called virtual machines. I run Windows XP on a VirtualBox machine with all my data and work programs and never have a hitch. plus all I have to do is copy the .vdi file to make a backup.
I’m surprised you couldn’t find the XP drivers for your Dell on the Dell website, they’re usually good with driver support.
They have drivers on the site, But its hard to figure out what is actually needed because they’re not strait forward with what is or isn’t necessary. Some hardware that isn’t even on the laptop have drivers even though the model doesn’t support them and they just mix them in with other drivers so you can’t tell what you’re looking for. A guy I know who used to work at Dell told me that it was nearly as complicated for him as well.
Here’s another one – Got an animated gif that you want to view? In Windows 7, the only way you can view it is through Internet Explorer. The built-in picture viewer in Windows 7, unlike Windows XP, cannot view animations from animated gifs.
That plus having problems installing & running many programs that I use regularly makes me conclude that Windows 7 is a total bomb! Many people are gonna be unhappy when Microsoft totally ends its support of XP in April of next year.
If Microsoft had their way, they would have ended XP support 3 years ago. I think a lot of people will just stick with XP whereas companies will be forced to move to Windows 7.
Oh this is so true. I could cry every time.
And the fact that you can turn on the useless file-preview in windows explorer by just one click or shortcut but it it´s impossible to do this with the much more important navigation tree ,shows us what kind of programmers do the job.
also there is no possibility to change it.
Why are they soooo stupid?
Sadly, the innovation and brains have long since left Microsoft when Bill Gates departed. We’re just now left with Uncle Fester Ballmer, a useless, clueless salesman who is determined to foist one calamity after another upon the legions of Windows users in a concerted effort to drive them away.
just looking you saying 4GB RAM is too much makes me want to laugh , those days you can get a mobile phone for US$800 with that much RAM with quad core processor and 128GB storage
That’s exactly my point, never mind a PC, who the f**k needs a mobile with 4GB RAM, quad core processor and 128GB of storage? What are they planning on doing with it, running a server farm???
oh, another thing.
the explorer in XP has a L pane that shows the same folder in tree view.
in Win 7, the L pane perpetually shows Favorites, & Desktop.
so you always have to open a new explorer window, for any rudimentary file management.
morons.
I bought an Alienware M14x to run ArcGIS and AutoCad. Intel ProSET/Wireless WiMAX is constantly damaged by changing system settings. This is why I prefer browsing the web with my Samsung Galaxy 3. I would likely buy an Android based tablet in the future.
Actually there is sense to the madness. It is obvious M$ is bowing to media companies and government, not customers. Difficulty in navigating files allows them them to hide stuff on your computer easier. Less control for you is more control for them (and their NSA colleagues).
Well I’ve just got this Windows 7 and it’s been an absolute nightmare. Yes it’s not my old trusty XP but win7 is so sloppy. When I pick up an icon with the mouse, it’s as if it’s about to be dropped. I can pick windows classic, but change some and you’ve lost it again. The text was blurry. I read turn of clear type, this leaves you with very skinny spider text that is jagged, so it’s bold and blurry is jagged skinny. The general feel is of blur. Even after messing with the dpi. Where is the nice display panel, remove program panel, they’re renamed and a mess. Where is option folder? You have to go search about to find advanced setting to find the main tick box for folder to change icons to pic!
And now I’ve had a run in with the Backup pop up box which nags and stops games. Couldn’t find the off switch like MS shown, mine didn’t have those buttons and turning off it’s schedule elsewhere didn’t work either, it just kept coming. More online solutions said just do it. So I gave in and did it. Some way in it stealing my desktop deets I cancelled, Only to be told that my personal stuff wasn’t protected and that it would Cost, in spite of it’s earlier pop ups telling me it was free. Anyway I thought a least I wouldn’t get any more nags. Until one popped up telling me there was discount to be had. This prompted me to do more searching to kill it and I found it in msconfig startup and killed the monster. Went back to the Backup site and deleted my files and account. Which it allowed me to do after more pop up offer of a web browser kind, the last one claiming to be free, which by then of course I wanted nothing to do with. So thanks to win7 some people I’ve never met may have my bank details.
And here I was trying to hurry up and grab Win 7 before the only choice I had was Windows 8. Now I’m settling in with XP on my desktop as long as I possibly can.
I recently bought a laptop to replace a Macbook Pro my Son gave me that had an XP operating system called “boot camp”. I used it primarily to show my photographs on my 55 inch HD TV in crystal clear HD as I listened to music.
Well I thought Win 7 was horrible but I was trying to sift through the garbage out there claiming to be able to show HD graphics and I figured I’d be able to take care of the OS later should the graphics to my TV be worked out.
Well the graphics couldn’t be made to duplicate what the Macbook was doing. I don’t know but is it just me because my hobby is photography – that enjoys just turning on the screen saver in XP to show my images (15,0000 of them) in true HD brilliance?
The laptop went back – but I still thought I’d better get the Win 7 OS – but now it’s XP forever, however that lasts, and I’m just going to get a new video card with a HDMI port and a 50ft HDMI cable and hopefully be able to see my images again. I just don’t have the confidence I’d be able to do so in Win 7.
Thanks for opening my eyes to trouble!
Some time ago I lost my windows XP due to the hard drive failing. I went to a local provider who sold me windows 7 which stinks. For example I often need to do group mailing which I cannot seem to do with this . If I look in he internet for info it tells me to click on START then all PROGRAMS then CONTACTS. Guess what there is no such option in the menu. No where do I go? Tony
Howdy.
I concur with everyone stated here. I am using open office spread sheet. Whenever I move the mouse over a cell, or change the contents of the cell, winblows 7 image gets stuck. It shows ghosts copies of a row in place of the normal row sequence. It is clearly an image refresh issue. But it makes working in a spread sheet frustratingly impossible. I want to take a sledge hammer and
Sounds like a graphics driver problem more than Windows.
like so many others i was hapy with windows XP and decided to upgrade big mistake. the windows 7 start freezing , hanging . only a browser running and a video…, and the damn windows 7 froze. I had 8 GB RAM. Dual core processor. Finally it stop booting. I am back to the old computer with the XP.
You cannot look at pictures either. It keeps sending you off to another page and it takes several clicks to get back to the page you were on. By far this is the biggest piece of shit I have ever seen, even worse than vista!!!
Thank you everyone; this site lets me know my Windows-induced angst is reasonable and justified. Here’s my “favorite” for today; in fact it’s the reason I ended up at this site.
You click on an open app’s icon in the task bar. If the app already has focus, it disappears! Why would intuition ever make you click on something to make it go away? I use a dual monitor setup with wide monitors, and frequently click on the taskbar to find an open app (does anyone else ever do this?).
Btw, if you have any Microsoft apps open, of course each taskbar item’s name will have the “Microsoft” prefix in front of it, so depending on how your taskbar is configured, you may be left guessing which item is SQL Server, which is Visio, etc. They’re all Microsoft! You say go by the Icon? Then don’t keep changing the damn icons!
This actually hasn’t bothered me too much; I guess I have noticed it but not registered it as a change. It is sort of an on/off switch for an open desktop item. I find it useful in removing the clutter of open app windows, an alternative to the minimize but without needing to go to the app window. I don’t know that it is especially intuitive.
Well I have a fast enough machine, but sometimes there is a slight delay when I click a taskbar button (hmmm why could that be?), so I just click it again absentmindedly, which has the effect of hiding what I’m trying to look at. Sometimes it’s like playinig whack-a-mole.
Programs could be minimized from the Taskbar since Windows 95. That is quite useful. For example, I am typing in one window and want to briefly review something in a window that is not currently visible. I click on its taskbar button to bring it up, then click the same button to minimize it and return to where I was. I don’t need to go looking for a minimize button in the application itself. This is especially important if the app lacks a standard titlebar (like Winamp), and the control buttons are missing.
Windows Seven taskbar in the standard Aero Basic theme has a problem. It is difficult to tell if a button is “pushed in” and therefore the application already has focus just by looking at the taskbar. Hovering over a button highlights it in a color that is based on the program icon. For example, the registy editor gets a light blue shading. Opera gets a red shade. This difference is pure eye candy and doesn’t give any information about the state of the button. I often find myself repeatedly minimizing and restoring a window before I see that it is up.
Windows Classic themed taskbar (95-XP) is easier to use. The focused window has its button sunken and shaded slightly brighter. Hovering does not cause any visual changes, and they aren’t needed. If they decided to add an effect there it should be very slight, and not overshadow the most important state of the button – down or up.
In the flat Metro world of were are heading to, it’s probably gonna get more confusing.
How about these (apologize if previously mentioned):
1. When you double click a folder in windows explorer it jumps to the bottom of the screen, VERY annoying.
2. If you have file names that are the same except with leading spaces win 7 treats them as the same name and will overwrite or make a copy. XP treated them as different file names.VERY annoying.
As previously mentioned it’s very hard to find files and navigate to them.
I sometimes feel like I’m a new computer user..
You can’t order files exactly how you want them with Win7, like you could on XP, because you can’t disable the auto arrange function. It’s now very hard to find software you just downloaded (even using the date modified function, which doesn’t work perfectly) & photo editing is now virtually impossible. You can’t even order pics how YOU want them!
You can’t use your PC as a music studio very easily with Win 7, because they have built in a default latency in the monitor audio of your live sound, making it almost impossible to record & listen to playback.
XP was the most stable Operating System they ever made. It didn’t crash or freeze for the first year of use & I didn’t have to fully reboot XP for about 6 years & that was with MAJOR use.
Win 7 freezes & crashes all the time. I had to fully reboot it after about a year!
XP was the ultimate operating system & they couldn’t beat it, so they seem to have deliberately made it worse instead, by taking out functions & making it harder to use.
Didn’t know about the default latency issue. Yet another reason to hang on grimly to XP.
9 times out of 10 you can’t find the file or email because you don’t remember exactly what it was called an just about every search engine out there expects you to know some exact detail about what the file was called. However, there’s a new desktop search engine called AIKIN HyperSearch that doesn’t require you to know exactly what something was called in order to find it… uses fuzzy non-exact pattern recognition to find stuff I didn’t even remember I had… very cool.
Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-recover-deleted-files/#ixzz2ovxVCUI1
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When I manually set an IP address con Windows 7, the internet does not connect and I have to enable DHCP. I have to repeat this procedure several times so that Windows will let me connect to the internet. When working, I hope it stays for a few days.
It sound like Microsoft does not want Windows to be used for offices.
Windows is really hard to use. I have to be a computer engineer and also a medium to use Windows.
Unfortunately, I’m just an engineer and I expect that a rule is not changed by an (Sperating?) System.
Sorry for my english.
Your English is great, much better than many so called Brits.
Like the blog and all of the comments. This is my Windows 7 story…
I’m an ex IT professional (still an XP user) and looking back over my use of XP, I consider that there have been three main problems with it. The first is the number of default settings that are set to arbitrary and unhelpful values. The second is the way in which settings are distributed throughout the operating system with many that are hidden away (the whole Windows Annoyances thing). The third is the way that, unless you use a separate drive or create a separate partition, it mixes up program and user data files. However, once you get to grips with these problems, XP is great, the world is your oyster… Of the eight or so areas of the operating system I use on a regular basis (e.g. Windows Explorer, Device Manager, Task Manager, etc… ) they all do their job reasonably well, or at least work in an OK fashion.
Apart from the XP machine I use, I built a really nice quad core PC about seven months ago to run Windows 7 because I realised XP wouldn’t last forever and I wanted something more up-to-date to run HD video. Until recently this new PC has remained unused simply because I know getting to grips with Windows 7 will send me apoplectic.
A quick look at Windows 7 revealed that, of the eight or so areas of the operating system I use regularly only one or two remained unchanged and that the remainder had been redesigned in a way that just made them more difficult to use. And we’re not talking just marginally more difficult here, we’re talking about significantly more difficult. So now I’m possibly waiting for an opportunity where I have the time and patience to get to grips with Windows 7; but possibly not, I’m not as young as I used to be and I’ve got better things to do with my life. Building a PC operating system and making it intuitive and user-friendly is not rocket science and I don’t need something which wastes my time and makes life difficult; so I intend putting a “stop- loss” order on it.
The new PC? It’s really nice, well-put-together hardware. It has some really nice features and has put to good use the experience gained from building and upgrading PCs over many years. It runs very cool and very quiet. It looks awesome.
And… my eldest son is now using it as a music PC to record and mix music on, for which it is ideally suited. He’s also a Linux user and at some stage will probably make it dual boot. At which point, if Microsoft haven’t come up with anything that resembles a decent OS, I’ll switch to Linux. If Linux is good enough for my Tech Support (eldest son who is very hard to please), it’ll be good enough for me. The footprint of what I’ll have to learn can’t possibly be as large as that for Windows and I very much doubt that it’ll change 80% with every new release. With Windows, it’s not just the extra learning, it’s the frequent and unnecessary unlearning involved that is also a problem and which makes it so utterly infuriating.
It seems that, with every release of Windows, all the functions and features of the previous version are still there, but they are moved to different places, and are re-named to something non-intuitive.
One of the best examples is the “Lock Icons” (on the desktop) feature. Try finding it in Windows 7. It’s actually in there, but is so obscure that some Windows experts actually suggest editing the Registry to accomplish this formerly simple task.
This is just astounding stupidity on the part of Microsoft programmers.
Then too, I have found lately that the icons don’t much care to keep their positions, despite my having deleted the file that controls that so that it would be rewritten. I have a program that stores and restores the icon positions, but I would have to use it every few minutes, so it is mainly useful for an emergency where Windows decides to move all the icons into alphabetical order or whatever the programmers though was preferable. I have been impressed over the year or so I have been using Windows 7 with the effort Microsoft puts into messing up their operating systems.
Why does every list I open (service manager, file list, etc.) have to be massaged in order to get a useful view? Why can’t Windows automaticaly make those variable-width columns wide enough to make entire item names visible (or at least more than they are now)? OH, that’s so GREAT that everything is adjustable. IT JUST WASTES MY TIME!!
And how about opening a new window NEXT TO an already open one, instead of stylishly locating it almost completely on top of it (to the extent that you have to really carefully place you mouse in order to select the first window)?
windows sucks!!! the dumb person who made windows should go die in a whole. it lost all my pictures from my phone somewhere in the gigantic amount of folder after folder. i dont know what its called ether. so i cant search for it.
i never buy windows stuff again!!!!
Just install “Everything” from voidtools dot com and you will find your pics instantly
I don’t understand why people think Win 7 has no thumbnail mode. To the left of the Preview button there is a drop-down list. Choose Large Icons or drag the slider to change the size.
We know about the thumbnail view. But with that we have to lose icon view. I like changing my icons. But with 7 it’s either thumbnail or icon view. But XP lets me have both views.
I often long for the good old C> prompt. That was when my personal computer was my personal computer!!!!!!!!
Just trying W7, took me years to adjust to XP, give me my C> and freedom back.
I tried both Win 7 and 8 and couldn’t really figure out either in a sensible way so ended up sending back 2 computers for full refunds including shipping because of the OS.
I was buying a new computer because I wanted to increase my workflow in Photoshop because my computer had a 4GB RAM limit. But with either of these OS’s my workflow came to a grinding halt.
I ended up getting a MBP and though it has its quirks – and their forums are full of snooty people – I was able to figure out enough to get my photo’s on it and organized like I wanted them.
Not through iPhoto – but I just dumped all 40,000 of my “folder organized” photo’s into their “documents” folder and I’m now able to retrieve them relatively fast whenever I need them.
I don’t know why you would have such a successful OS like XP and not allow users to buy an upgraded version of the XP OS. It would be like Photoshop suddenly thinking everyone needs to adapt to a completely different program.
I wonder how many others sent back their purchases because of a dumbly planned OS. Really can’t make the Dell’s of the world happy. I can only imagine how large organizations had to retrain their employees at their own expense and time.
XP to a Mac or XP to Windows 7, hmm. That’s a tough one. I actually tried a Mac and found it even worse than Windows 7. Seemingly simple things such as copying files to a USB or trying to figure out context sensitive commands with a single button mouse drove me up the wall. And you’re right, the forums are full of snooty beardy types who have fully bought into the Cult of Apple and can;t imagine anything more usable.
It wasn’t just the OS that had me make the change – I wanted a powerhouse to use with my photography and Photoshop creations. This Mac fit the bill as not only does it have a retina display but on each side of it it powers both of my NEC monitors – a 24″ and 27″ without so much as a hiccup.
You’re right there’s far too many insane things around the copying and deleting of files (when you delete files they keep them on the flash drive or memory card in a secret folder called trash. Why would I want to keep something I wanted to delete???
I went ahead and bought Office for Mac and I just did a clean install of my XP desktop so I’m all good for now. Too dang old to try to learn anything more than what I need to know to do what I want to do.
Plus when you spend this much money you want to feel like you really got something and this MBP seems to fit the bill. The Lenovo and the Dell just felt cheap in comparison.
10 years ago software was all about engineering and solid design. Now it’s a popularity contest, boosted by google, which microsoft and mozilla now drool over, changing the user interface for no reason, with never-ending baby-blue colors and “ribbons” all in the name of “marketing” and the almighty dollar. People need to learn to speak up and not tolerate it anymore. We shouldn’t be tolerating the fix-it-later change-for-no-reason mentality.
i just tried to copy a word file — simple and obvious w xp — and i cannot even find the copy! It is not in the folder and it is not w the docs not in folders on the main documents page. I get so damn sick over all the things win7 makes impossible to do easily that were a snap in XP!
Just wait until you try to find the file using Windows 7 search, you’d have more luck using a divining rod.
The crazy thing is that I just received a email from Dell saying I could still get Windows 7. What a flop Win8 must be. Windows should offer customers XP full support for a certain dollar amount – say $100 – and I’d jump in as I’m sure many would.
I heard that most all the ATM’s use XP and the banks are paying for continuing support – not forever but for some time frame. If only they would offer that to the general public.
I ran Win XP for several years — never a problem. I upgraded to Win 7 on new $1,000 Lenovo and it worked for 6 weeks. Now have to reinstall Windows for the second time — after paying for Microsoft tech support, which was both useless and painful (they did refund second call — make sure you request refund within 30 days). On my new, fast computer with quad core, 8 GB RAM, etc., Win 7 is maybe a hair faster than XP. In short, Win 7 sucks, sucks, sucks and we should all show up at MS headquarters (or Bill’s mansion) with torches and pitchforks. Seriously, as a monopoly, they should be legally compelled to continue support for XP. And if wishes were horses….
Torches and pitchforks, I like it 🙂 To be fair though, Win 7 is nothing much to do with Bill, it’s Steve Ballmer who fecked things up.
I used a folder size software in XP. It sgowed size of the folder direct in the explorer. Nice. In windows 7 there will ever be such a a possibility.
Things I mostly do with computer takes now triple time than before and I installed ‘click counter’. It showed me that my mouse clicks amount increased 4 x than it used to be using XP. With same tasks. This means physical danger to the people who work with computer. And to me also mental danger. No matter what. I return to XP and use win 7 only with banking and other stuff. farewell win 7, It was as hot as microsoft said. I burnedout in a few weeks.
There’s no point to go insane with this IDIOTIC system. IF something is not broken,or bad, why to change it???? Stupidy is not an excuse, it’s a way of life – Microsoft.
It’s their attempt at a revenue stream purely for their stock market shareholders. Their stock has been stagnant for so long they thought to just change Windows and Office on a more regular basis in hopes of making money. Why they had to get rid of such a popular system is beyond me.
Just think of the large company’s having to pay for those extra clicks and the mass confusion of retraining their employees on a system that wasn’t as good as the one they were using. I’ll bet MS made some kind of deal to support a lot of those company’s.
Update: As previously mentioned I opted for the MBP and a few days ago a software update came in – I only u/d the OS thinking for security reasons – all the other u/d’s I can give a hoot.
Lo and behold my secondary monitor no longer worked afterwards and I spent a few hours on it trying everything I could before the experience of calling tech support.
Finally I decided Applecare is something I paid for I might as well give it a go. Thirteen minutes later I was up and running – 13 minutes from when I dialed the number. The call was answered within 1 minute and the voice had no heavy accent, was completely aware of the product and had me running in no time at all.
Now that’s something I’ve not experienced with computer tech support. MS/Dell/etc, would’ve blamed the NEC monitor that was my secondary monitor or some piece of software on my machine. I sure can get used to this sort of support for something I paid a good deal of money.
Apple support is one of the best. You pay a packet for the kit but they do know how to support it well. And best of all, no offshore call centres full of mumbling idiots reading from a script.
New slogan for MS: “Microsoft – changing the way you work, for the sake of change”.
or…if it ain’t broke, keep fixing it until it is
Try Classic Shell. Even if you are stuck with Windows 7/8 due to lack of real choice, it fixes a lot of annoyances with Windows 7/8 and tries to make the Explorer, Start Menu and IE as much as XP-ish. Their forum is also full of very helpful and knowledgeable people who can help you find solutions to XP to Windows 7/8 migration issues.
Yes, Classic Shell is the first thing that gets installed on any PC with useless Windows 8 on it.
I am seriously “ticked off” going to seven, it is a bunch of slow rubbish!!!!!! I built this desk top for seven and even with ram maxed out, it is still stupid slow. XP was perhaps the best platform we will ever have and we were forced abandon it for this garbage. I have been forced to buy new hardware, which is not as effective as my old versions, not to mention all of the software that quit working. A classic piece of Windows BS, who got into bed with the hardware manufactures, to get us to waste a pile of money! Sorry for the rant, but I have had enough of this BS.
Oh my god this ‘article’ is a load of shit. Most of them are wrong, the others are based upon your idiocy. Windows 7 is one of the best OS’ that MS have produced. Sorry you’re trapped in the past. But seriously, get a grip. XP diehard users are such morons.
“One of the best OS’ MS have produced”. Cool, you go enjoy your Windows 7 with SSD and let the rest of us grumble. I suppose you think Windows 8 is terrific too.
1. The search Functionality is based upon indexing, now you use filters to find files. It’s a much MUCH better way to search. for instance type:ai will search for all ai files or size:gigantic finds all files over 128Mb. You don’t have to tag anything. The word tag doesn’t even make sense in this context. You can add meta data to certain files, but it’s not required at all to search. You can add things to the index without requiring the prompt, and you can define where the small database of your files resides in the OS file structure. Control Panel > Indexing Options is what you want.
2. Windows doesn’t ‘configure some crap on startup’ for every install. If it modifies system files, it WILL need a restart, but a lot less often than XP. A LOT less.
3. XP’s towering and incoherent start menu is a mess. It’s always been a mess. It’s why MS tried to entirely remove it for W8. It’s one of the worst things about XP. the Fugly crappy start menu that slows the computer down at start up to simply load all the crap. Not only are you missing the benefits of the W7 start menu, but you seem to be entirely ignoring the task bar, which Since 7 has had the ability to attach nice, big icons too so you can launch in 1 click not 2 or 3 like with XP.
4. This doesn’t happen unless you have the thumb drive selected in explorer. What do you want Windows to display in this eventuality? Nothing, a white background with “Device removed”? It closes the window because the folder doesn’t exist any more. It would be ‘sub-optimal’ not to close the window. It shows more forethought that it does do this.
5. No…Not at all. You simply have to be running a processor newer than 10 years old. 4GB of ram is nothing in the modern age. I can make Firefox use 4GB on its own. I have 32GB of ram, and that’s still not enough for me, and I don’t even use it all. Windows 7 will run in basic mode on many many old XP machines. But what did you expect, a load of new features, functions and power on the same spec as before. Sorry, that’s not how technology works. I can guarantee you, 7 runs faster. Hands down. People who say XP runs faster are either lying, or have a decent enough spec to be running 7 and really should be. XP is basically just one massive security hole with a gross UI nowadays.
6. It’s called UAC. And if you don’t like it, you can turn it off so it won’t prompt you at all. It’s been added for all those morons who just go around clicking on shit. I still have it enabled, and I don’t even do that. It’s a valid and valuable function for the OS. OSX and Linux both do this, but it’s not just a yes, no option, you have to re-type your admin password. It’s an accepted way to increase security. XP doesn’t ‘manage this perfectly’ at all, which is why it has more security holes than 7 and more exploits in existence. There were far far less massive security breaches in 7’s reign.
7. Never encountered this issue. I can’t speak for it’s validity, but it again sounds like a problem you are having, not an endemic problem with windows 7.
8. OH MY GOD, NOT A DVD!!! Yes, it’s bigger, just like a lot of things, but Hard drives have also increased in size. Stop living in the stone age. Things will increase in size, but the footprint of the OS based on a percentage is the same as XP if you factor in the ever increasing size of Hard Drives.
9. They are Editions, not Versions. Version means they have different version numbers. They don’t, they all use the same Kernel and will have the same version number. Whilst I agree there are maybe too many versions. That doesn’t change how good the OS is. If, like me, you actually know what you are talking about, you just get Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and forget about the other versions. Ultimate, Home and Professional are the only real versions that people pay any attention too.
10. You can rip CDs just the same as you used to be able too and they can work on anyone’s computer after that. On top of that, there are numerous apps that exist that can circumvent anything that
11. Open images folder, look for the icon just next to ‘help’ on the blue bar above, looks like a green pane of glass over a folder window. It says “Show preview pane” when you hover over it. Click that, Shut up. ALSO. There is a built in thumbnail view you cleft. It’s just next to the previously mentioned preview pane button. Click that, select the size of thumb you want. You have actually used 7 right?
12. Open control panel, Next to where it says “View By” select ‘Small Icons’. It now looks identical to the Windows XP Control panel. Once again, I have to ask if you’ve actually used windows 7 for more than 3 seconds.
13. I don’t hibernate. But going by what you’ve used as evidence for the previous items, I can’t help feeling this is bollocks as well.
14. This hasn’t done what you have said every time I’ve done this. It starts a copy faster, and if it finds duplicate files, or folers, you can now merge the folders unlike on Xp, and you can select to keep both files, or one of the duplicate files, or whatever. It’s a far better file copy. Speed wize, image and functionality.
15. Since 7, you don’t have to manually defrag. If you do, you’re doing something wrong. Defrag automatically happens in the background and is in fact totally disabled on SSDs. Every Wednesday, 7 defrags in the background. My current fragmentation is 0% and I’ve never manually run it.
16. You see the address bar on the folder view. Simply click on the folder you want to go back too. No need to press up. You simply directly click on the folder you want to go too. This is a better function than a stupid up button.
I think that covers all your bullshit. Bye 🙂
Behold the geek who is excited about technology rather than usability.
Holy cow, what a bullshit list. You obviously are a 100% computer illiterate. Go and buy a Crapple toy. Or you may be able to work with this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vtech-Genius-80-101105-Childrens-Computer/dp/B001NGP65Y
There is a simple answer to that. CHANGE TO LINUX. Some of you dont do it cuz you think that it is too much work and then everything is complicated in linux. WRONG. Some of them are made for power users like arch linux but there are a lot of linux distros made for newbees like ubuntu, linux mint, zorin, opemSUSE, manjaro etc. I suggest start with ubuntu and switch to manjaro later if you want but ubuntu is the way to go. I currently use manjaro XFCE 0.8.10. Also, if you have any questions, there is always forums and for ubuntu there is http://www.askubuntu.com ( there are forums too ). Linux has a welcoming community and I personally love the linux mint forums the most.
🙂 Linux is good 🙂
another recommended site : http://www.cupoflinux.com
I’ve tried Mint and it’s great, installed and recognised everything but still had to fiddle with a few drivers to get it all working.
You are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO right. Why cant developers just leave well enough alone. I’m still being thwarted by the directory structure and a whole lot else most of which you identify above. On XP everything was so so simple. W7 is just plain stupidity.
Through these superficial changes and increase of memory footprint Microsoft can present a new version of Windows as a brand new product and not just a service pack, which customers would expect to receive for free. Bigger is better. Changes to drivers under the hood aren’t immediately visible to the user.
A number of good points have been expressed by the author. I agree with most, particularly about memory consumption on disk and at runtime. The 2.5 GB on DVD is expanded to 16 or more Gigs, and continues growing as the system receives updates. For some reason, nobody has a problem with that. They keep coming up with complex methods to speed up booting, when what is really needed is to slim down the size of the system, so that there is less to load.
For tasks such as browsing picture file and searching it is best to install 3rd party tool, which you can learn once, and then keep using on your new computer, under a new operating system.
While XP was better, it wasn’t perfect. Take, for example, the search function. I have tried to use it on other people’s computers to find a configuration file hidden deep within one of the “application data” directories to solve a problem. (Seven has even more of those virtual directories.) The built-in search never finds the file, and I am being misled to believe it doesn’t exist, and I look for the data elsewhere such as the registry or cookies. Turns out that I need to relax a number of non-intuitive filters to have the search function look into system folders.
The thumbnail view also caused it’s share of problems: slow listing of directories (including when I don’t need thumbnails), locking of files that prevented their deletion. This was particularly apparent with large video files.
For search and file management I use Total Commander. Its interface hasn’t changed much over the course of several major versions; its size has increased maybe twice. That is how Windows should have been too. Other people rely on plugins such as TeraCopy to aid file management. They don’t work for me because they have to “support” a particular version of Explorer to integrate with it. For browsing of graphic files there is “cross-platform” (NT5, NT6) software such as IrfanView or FastStone.
@ Dave Sidious, to search for file type and size range, you don’t need “indexing”. Total Commander can search for these criteria and more, such as date range and contents in different encodings. Indexing is the first thing I disable in XP installations. In Seven, it is more tightly integrated, which is disappointing. Going over gigabytes of data trying to anticipate my search queries is not something I need from the OS, because I hardly ever search for English words in text documents.
The Windows “7” and “10” Start menu sucks. Search is a nice addition. However, they practically removed the option to visually browse the directories of links, when I don’t want to type, because I can’t remember the name of the program, or I can’t use one of my hands. The old Start menu of Windows 4.x-5.0 with unfolding sub-menus was the best. You could use as much screen space to view it as needed. All they needed to improve upon it was to add an inconspicuous search box somewhere.
Slow Management Console! Introduced in Server 2003 SP2 and Vista is MMC 3.0, which implements Control Panel features such as Device Manager and Event Viewer. The damn thing is written in NET Framework. Opening up up the event viewer takes ages, at least 10 times longer than under XP, and it is unresponsive after it’s open. It’s unbelievable how slow it is.
Access Permissions on system files that cannot be removed. Upon slimming down the system I stopped at the service called ReadyBoost. I stopped and disabled it, but it left behind a file called readyboot.etl. It cannot be deleted. It is 2 MB, so not that big of a deal. But the principle that neither an Administrator not SYSTEM (psexec -i -s cmd.exe) users are allowed to affect a file is unacceptable.
I was able to read this file in direct disk access mode in WinHex. So it’s not so much about real security, but a major hurdle. And then there are the normal system files where you must do “take ownership” each time to change them.
I have fixed the severely impaired Start/Programs menu on my Seven computer without loading external programs. The Start menu is able to display certain directories in flyout menu format: Favorites, Computer, and Control Panel among others. But for programs one must scroll through the box.
I never use MSIE Favorites. So I redirected that folder for the current user in the registry to point to Start Menu\Programs. Allowed that directory to be listed in file system permissions, and moved all items from All Users common location into there (the favorites menu can’t automatically combine these two directories).
This causes the menu to be displayed as “Programs” on the Start panel, and it can show multiple levels of directories as menus. Items on them can be dragged and right-clicked. Opening programs from there does not add them to “recently open” in the main box of the Start panel. I personally don’t care.
I know there is Classic Shell. But if it can be done without extra memory consumption and complexity, I prefer to go that route.
An external program called “7 Taskbar Tweaks” is quite useful to return the taskbar to normal behavior without button grouping, and to disable the fancy tooltip/menu that comes up on right-click instead of the normal window control menu. The program uses around 900 KB of memory, and must be loaded the whole time. I renamed it to “ztaskbar.exe” and hid its icon to get it out of sight.
Excellent grumpy bear, Agree with everything here……Windows 7 sux. Sticking with XP even unsupported its the most stable and sensible OS they have made, (probably by mistake??) 🙂
I’m forced to use Windows 7 at work and the only thing actually worse than this is having to fire up Office 2007 and use all that ribbon shite which makes everything more cumbersome. Two years on, I still end up having to search for basic functionality in Word because it’s just not available permanently on-screen.
I swear that since Windows 7 came along, Microsoft have made a concerted effort to build software that’s just total bollocks. Windows 8 is a prime example and even worse than Windows 7, something I didn’t think was possible.
I seem to have managed to make W7 behave reasonably well and look more or less like XP. I am not as dissatisfied as I once was. There still are countless mind-numbing things, like the goofy security prompt that has asked me now for perhaps the 387th time whether I want to run a particular program. Each time that pops up, it reminds me of how silly and useless that is. Then there is the incompetent diddling with the file system display, the explorer interface, where someone apparently thought the one in XP was too useful. I only use explorer occasionally though, mostly using a character-based browser (Ztree).
I have been taking a programming course where the machines are running W8. Now that is genuinely a great leap backwards. Apparently W7 could be made to be somewhat useful with a lot of tweaks (and that may be possible on W8), but things like deciding to make the up arrow in the now mostly useless explorer so faint and small as to look like a screen smudge leaves me with my mouth agape.
Ah yes, that pointless user access control thing that prompts you everytime you launch a non Microsoft app. Next time it happens, click the link in the popup box that lets you change the setting and you can switch the damn thing off.
You know the thing that grinds on me the most is these are supposed to be “productivity software”. Yet the learning curve is so out of the ordinary your productivity almost grinds to a halt. I feel sorry for any organization that upgraded and had a fleet of employees that had to learn how to use this OS. Sad!
Everything that is being done in the past decade is either Bill’s Revenge or is being done to control and reduce the population by pissing us off. Planned Obsolescence, Planned Regress etc. all are tools of the New World Order. Boycott all those products and corporations that are regressive.
I blame this one squarely on Balmer, if his Billness had been in charge, I doubt Windows 7 would have turned out to be the travesty that it is.
He (Bill) would’ve done Something to add backwards compatibility like maybe a commercial Dos Box that’s polished and easy to use without hopping on hot coals.
Bill Gates would’ve also added a lot of themes to Windows 7 probably calling it 7 Plus or 7 Deluxe with cool sounds.
I bought a new notebook (Dell inspiron) just over 2 years ago, and unfortunately it was loaded with Windows 7 “Home edition”. What an awful total pos it proved to be; in fact it reminded me of Windows f***ing Vista – which was unfortunately loaded on a previous notebook I bought in late 2007. That f***ing pos included Internet Explorer 7 (which was quickly replaced with i.e. 8 – which was a pleasant return to the likes of i.e. 6), a f***ing Beta version on Windows Media Player 11 – that was totally f***ing useless. I got so frustrated with this pos that I tried to reformat my HD and reload XP 2002. However, I couldn’t.. meaning that it was not possible to “go back to an older os”. In the end, I gave it to a vendor to reformat it and install XP. He said “no problem”, pick it up tomorrow. I returned “tomorrow”, but he said that it was not that straight forward and to drop by 2 days later.
I went to pick it up and it was done. However, when I got home, I noticed that the vendor had changed my hard disk. On calling him, he admitted that it was impossible to remove this f***ing pos Windows Vista from the hard drive!
Anyway, back to Windows 7: I put up with this fucking pos “Home Edition” for about 2 years – until it gradually crapped out. Being as I had taken out an extended 3-year warranty when I bought the notebook I took it back to the shop. To cut a long story short, they gave me a choice – 1. they could reload it with Win 7 Home Edition, or (for a small fee) reload it with Windows 7 Ultimate. It didn’t take me long to opt for the second alternative, and low and behold, I have to report that it is absolutely f***ing fantastic. It starts in 15-20 seconds, shuts down immediately and even downloads 5 times as fast; I have no explanation for this, In fact, it is even BETTER THAN WINDOWS 200 SERVER!!!
So you found Windows 7 Ultimate quicker than Windows 7 Home Edition on the same hardware? Can’t see how that is possible, the binaries are pretty much the same. When you install Windows 7 as a download, it asks you which version to install for the licence key you have.
Go to a repair shop where they know what they are doing. Installing and booting XP can be a challenge, but the difficulty is the same with any hard drive. It is the components on the motherboard, such as the disk controller, which might not have the right drivers. If you experience network speed issues, use a program called TCP Optimizer.
Home differs from ultimate only in that some non-essential, superfcial features are disabled. Both versions are installed from the same source medium. Maybe the previous installation had some 3rd party “bloatware” components installed by Dell, which slowed the system down.
If you care for efficiency, don’t use Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. They are piece of shit products, intended to lock users into the Microsoft ‘ecosystem’ and upgrade path.
I just spent two weeks building a custom Windows 7 install on a Sony Vaio Notebook for a friend. I went out of my way to replicate the look and feel of Windows XP with classic interface and configured for performance ……I dis so much Google searching for answers to little annoyances that I went cross-eyed! …I went over this Windows-7 operating system with a fine-tooth comb….
Here are the insights I gained from this effort:
[1] Windows 7 IS A BAD replacement for Windows XP if you are a dead-serious business-like computer user who needs to conduct fine-grained operations on hierarchical structure, text and details.
[2] Windows 7 HAS NO MECHANISM to allow you to disable the ‘Recent Items Pinned List’ at the top of the Start Menu—this is a privacy nightmare!!!
[3] Windows 7 HAS NO MECHANISM to allow you to disable the auto-sorting of files and folders when you conduct file operations in Explorer—this is a showstopper IMHO!!!
[4] Windows 7 Explorer GUI IS A SAD JOKE if you are the type of user in point [1] ……the toolbars cannot be controlled or customized properly; the default logic is idiotic; vertical space is totally wasted; in XP you could customize Explorer to have only one thin toolbar having small icons of your choosing plus the menu text-buttons! ………Full-Row Select drives you insane if you are a power-user in details view; the only way to disable it is through undocumented registry hacking! ……..To prevent windows grouping their icons in the taskbar requires undocumented registry hacking–you don’t have a choice in Control Panel ………speaking of Control Panel; it is a confusing dumb mess; after all these years Microsoft should have offered users an optional advanced view of this interface similar to the Group Policy Management Console interface.
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Final Thoughts:
Windows XP is the last Windows OS I’ll be using. When my hardware starts dying in a couple of years, I will look at the open-source operating systems for salvation.
If I was rich, I would donate a million dollars to the developers of the ReactOS operating system (an attempt at reverse-engineering the Windows API with an exact replica of the Windows XP desktop).
I would like to ask every one of you who who commented here at this blog to consider making a small donation to the ReactOS project; the lead developer’s name is Alex Ionescu.
Thankyou.
My favorite aspect is the default setting that makes the computer automatically shut down for “important” updates without any notice when I am right in the middle of something. How anyone thought shutting down everything with no notice or a chance to save your document was a good idea is beyond comprehension. That person deserves a dozen back-handed bitch slaps to the face on a daily basis.
This. Of all the irritating “features” in Windows 7, and Lord knows there’s a venerable picnic to choose from, this shite is the one that annoys me the most. To be fair, you can switch it off with Windows Updates to only install outside normal office hours but I think those bitch slaps are still well deserved.
I seemed to have switched that off in some way, though it is nearly impossible to get rid of the message that you need to reboot. I turn off the automatic update process to kill that for a while, but it restarts itself like some 50s monster movie character.
One of my amusing discoveries early on was that Microsoft felt it important to clean up my desktop by deleting any links that were not up at the time, such as links for other computers on my network that weren’t on at the time.
Microsoft is often credited with having intelligent people working there, but it is very hard to see how someone could have concluded such a thing given the number of laughably stupid things they put their time into creating.
To turn off Windows Update for good, you also need to stop the service (under Administrative Tools in control panel). I never switch on Windwos Update, all it does it waste CPU cycles and bandwidth downloading crap in the background that nobody really needs. Security updates? Pah! All you need is to install a good firewall, virus checker and malware checker. Absolutely no need for so called critical updates that cater for a minute section of remotely plausible use cases which most people will never ever go near.
How about forced installation of updates when you shut down the computer, and don’t have the time to wait.
Of course these updates have great potential of causing system instability. Microsoft can’t predict how they will interact with a tweaked system. What if I have swapped out a component and the update depended on it? It’s best to configure systems and then leave them alone until problems occur.
I have been fighting with this _____ thing for a couple of days now, so, I decided to google my feelings, WHY DOES MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7 ____ING SUCK? Bingo, your answer turned up. I feel a little better knowing that it is not just me.
Why does contemporary man insist upon making simple things cumbersome and more complicated then they need be? Just once I would like to be able to purchase a computer with only a few items that I want instead of being inundated with useless baggage that, espeically in the W7 case lead to mulitple flusterclucks!
Right now, I am a step away from wiping my PC clean and reinstalling W7…or…buying a Mac!
My PC has been running slow and I have done the usual virus scans, registry scans and an attempt at SYSTEM RESTORE which may be the straw that has broken the proverbial camels back.
Great, I figured, just go back a couple of months prior to when it was still running fine. Not! System restore gave me one date! Today! I could not create a restore date either, so, that has brought me to smashing the dam thing, rebooting or going to a Mac!
Anyway, thanks for providing a place to vent and offerning your insights as to why WINDOWS 7 FREEKIN SUCKS!
Oh man, System Restore is about as useful as an underwater umberella. I’ve never ever seen any company use this and for those poor end consumers who’ve tried their luck, it seldom works as expected. Best to just switch this crap off and regain both your disk space and sanity.
I sent back a Lenova laptop and a Dell desktop – both purely on the OS sucking. I went to a Mac Book Pro. It took a bit of time as I had tons of digital images and they wanted me to put them in 1Photo which basically lost my images somewhere within the computer. I then loaded all my images as “documents” in the document folder and I’ve been able to do what I wanted the computer to do.
Microsoft has to keep making the system ‘different’ to prove that they are still relevant. Otherwise a question might arise, why should one pay for windows again if it feels mostly the same as the previous version.
That’s exactly why Windows 8 has been such an epic fail. Nobody see’s a need to upgrade because it offers nothing new other than a horrible Metro interface which forces a rubbish touchscreen tile based UI on non-touch screen kit. It’s no surprise they are hurrying to Windows 10 and that Windows 8 has been a complete failure.
Couldnt agree with you more.. w 7 and 8 totaly suck.
95 to 98..we could change tab colors.. 98 to xp wow usb and network support..xp to 7 going down hill from here.. 7 to 8.. time for a new company to come run microjerk out of buisness.
You know, international version of Windows 7 sucks far worse!
As I use Japanese one, I cannot select any option by keyboard ’cause they are written in Kanji/Kana letters.
E.g. it’s disasterous to look up long long… long list of “Choose Details” items… *sigh*
Microsoft seems to go on the way of “Seen but no be heard” yet again though…
Can’t wait to see how they screw up everything in Windows 10 😛
The screwing has already started in earnest with the abhomination that is Windows 8.
well and it will continue for as long as there is no one with a big scale replacement. Humen are lazzy and as long as they don’t get something easier they will just go on with what they get. Oh and I am curious how the 16 reasons you named will work out in Windows 10, e.g. the search function. But I guess we will have to use 3rd party tools again to find what we are looking for…
After years of becoming a windows tech just to service my own machines, I’ve given up and installed UBUNTU! I suggest everyone try this OS. Oh yeah, it doesn’t cost $239.00! I love LINUX! Windows blows. JS
Of all the Linux distro’s, Mint is my favourite as it’s the one that’s most like Windows.
Windows 7 sucks. It’s March 2015 and I’m still on XP. I multi-boot XP/7 and I seldom use Win7 for anything than IE11 to upload large files to OneDrive. XP is/will be my go to OS at least for the next decade or two…
I have just been given a company laptop with a work build of Windows 7 on and it’s utter crap. 50% of the time it will hang at the login screen and require a battery pull to restart (which takes forever), VPN doesn’t work properly, shut down is another 50% gamble as to whether it will successfully close and the whole thing is just far too slow, buggy and laggy. In contrast, the work build of XP was a fleet footed gazelle compared to this lumbering, plodding Windows 7 pile of shite.
I love Windows XP. I wish Gates could rounded up the old XP team and make a Windows XP2. I hate to have to use 7 forever. Because 8 and 10 are duds. I’m still using XP at this moment. So fast and easy.
Dishonest companies and corporations have to create an INFERIOR product, so they can later make money “improving” it. Also look up “Planned Obsolescence”. We are doomed overwhelmed by dishonest manufacturers and to add insult to injury and infection, we are being sprayed with chemtrails on top of our heads (from airplanes). Take a look at the sky, what you see is persistent and spreading chemical trails and chemical clouds. Look up “chemwebs fallout” as well.
I just installed an SSD with a fresh copy of Windows 7 and my old XP laptop with a mechanical drive still boots faster than Windows 7 with an SSD.
WHY MICROSOFT PURPOSEFULLY DESTROYS SOFTWARE–AND CALLS IT AN UPGRADE.
You are very right. ALL Windows OS’s after XP are DEGRADES, not upgrades at all.
Windows XP Professional was the best OS Microsoft could make. XP followed the visual simplicity, clarity and point and click of Macs (that made Steve Jobs and Apple so successful).
But then, MSoft realized it was at the end of the road and there was not much more it can do with an OS. So it had to come up with ways to keep selling the same OS over and over to keep making money. So it had to put the old wine in new colored bottles.
Windows Vista and its progeny, 7 and 8 are basically DISABLED, degraded, damaged and mutilated versions of XP. See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista
They are neither easy nor user friendly. They are full of new bugs, and mutilated and disabled and disarranged (i.e. deranged) versions of XP. Many basic features are hidden away and takes a while to search and find them.
Toolbars with Icons, the sine-qua-non of a GUI have been removed. What I could do in minutes in XP often takes hours in Windows 7. Most screens are so huge, but empty and filled with white space, I cannot see the buttons at the bottom to click OK or Cancel. But the text is so tiny, I can’t even read it. The vertical scroll bars have been disabled.
The task bar will not stay down! It keeps coming back up (bug). Basic functions that could be done in 1-2 clicks in XP take an hour to find and 6-7 clicks to access, as they are buried deep and in confusing places. Even the close and minimize buttons have disappeared in Windows 8. So you cannot even close a window in Windows 8.
And of course, Windows 7 and later are full of many new bugs. Windows 7 crashes all the time, which XP almost never did. I spend an hour changing some settings, but a month later, it loses it. It shows my 2 basic drives, the hard drive and the external thumb drive, in “groups” (as if I have 20 of them) and I have had to turn this off a hundred times, but the 2 “groups” keep reappearing, containing one drive each!
Vista and Windows 7 and later versions were, as if, built by a madman who takes a normal car (XP), smashes the dashboard and puts a shiny plate to cover it up, puts the brake pedal in the trunk and the gas pedal under the back seat and the steering behind.
Why did they do that? Well, it is a racket to make money. Knowing that there is nothing more to design compared with XP, they had to find a way to keep making money. So the only way they can make it seem new is to make it somehow different–by disabling basic features.
Then a couple of years later, they come up with a “new version” in which some of those left out features are put back in. This “upgrade” or new version is, however, secretly damaged in other ways and, in reality, is really a degrade. A few years later, another “new version” comes out claiming to fix those problems–and it does, but destroys something else in the previous version that was working!
Microsoft even purchased Skype and destroyed it. The window is so huge, it does not even fit on the computer, though it is mostly empty white space, but the scroll bars are removed. The text is so tiny, you cannot even read. Buttons, text boxes and labels are all made to look alike, so I am not sure if it something clickable (button) or something I can type into (text box) or it is just telling me something (label). Even the text box to type in your phone number you want to dial looks just like the background, so you don’t know where to type the number!
This “upgrade” racket makes you go round and round in circles, spending money thinking it is a real “upgrade”, when, in fact, each “upgrade” is really a circular downgrade. Solution: Stick with XP or get Linux.
Microsoft needs to be sued for fraud and racketeering. People should contact attorneys and state attorney generals and complain and inquire about filing class action lawsuits.
George, I agree with everything you wrote. Vista was the beginning of the end of Windows. They should have improved on XP and left the interface alone. And now they are moving to a cloud Windows. So I’m staying with XP. Gates blew it when he let these modern people change a easy going OS that was XP. Microsoft you suck.
Windows Seven, the S stands for “sucks”. Windows XP, I’m reminded of that pic where Einstein sticks out his tongue and blows a raspberry… pure genius!
XP 2nd ED ain’t never gonna happen. MSFT is in bed with intel. Each generation, they have to think of new ways to slow the system down for Intel to sell new CPU’s.
For Windows 10, the new bloatware is/are Cortana constantly mining user data in the background/compressing/decompressing system files on demand… Nobody ever tried those console emulators that can load ROM in zip files? OMG, the game becomes stutterty and unplayable b/c of the constant need to decompress each segment of the ROM image. And I wager Cortana’s background service will be even worse than that Windows indexing service that nobody needs.
In Windows XP we could have our icons and picture view at the same time. Not with dumb down 7 though. You have to choose one or the other. Why did they change that. And I hate the “library” useless ideal. I liked when all my folders were in My Documents.
Exactly, it is intentionally dumbed down. It is part of Bill Gates’ Revenge strategy.
I have been confused as to how MS managed to write a directory listing routine that is laughably slow. WTF are they doing? I don’t use the explorer interface very often for that, but sometimes I do use it for moving lots of files, though it is so slow I have about quit doing even that.
Once again tonight I tried to get a simple directory listing using Explorer. It is just astonishing that something that would take perhaps a second on a 1985 computer running at 8 mHz could take almost a minute with MS’ fine coding in 2015 on a machine with multiple processors running at 3 gHz. Doing the same listing in Java would likely take a 50th of that much time even though it’s running in a virtual machine. I can’t picture how one would go about coding something to be that slow other than including a bunch of do-nothing loops or wait() instructions. It’s easy to imagine that MS work together with Intel to make each new combination of processor and op system slower than the previous. I should probably just move over to Linux and be done with it. I could just run XP in a virtual machine there for those few things that have a Windows only solution.
You’re absolutely right, Microsoft and Intel have been in cahoots for years to ensure each iteration of Windows runs no quicker than the last.
Intel proves their partnership with Microsoft quite clearly when they refuse to provide drivers for previous versions of Windows: AHCI disk controllers (now available after a long delay), USB 3, integrated graphics, and by making their drivers incompatible with PAE, which would extend the life of 32-bit systems. No doubt their intention is to force people to update Windows, which in turn would require purchasing of additional modern hardware.
I’ve had some time to reflect, and here’s the reason why I believe WINDOWS XP IS “THE REAL WINDOWS 7”:
It all has to do with numerology. Back in the old days, Pythagoras discovered a law where you reduce compound numbers to a single digit by adding them. And somehow, obeying this law leads to magical properties, such as increased public consumption of an Operating System. Let me illustrate…
Windows XP had a kernel version of NT5.1. So according to Pythagoras, 5.1 = 5+1 = 6! Let us call Windows XP, Windows version 6.
Next came Vista, with its kernel version NT6.0. Again, we numerologically obtain 6.0 = 6+0 = 6! So, Vista also turns out to be Windows version 6.
Next was Windows 7, bundled with kernel version NT6.1 = 6+1 = 7! Aha! Windows 7’s numerology matched its kernel version. Windows 7 is said to be a harmonious OS where numerology is concerned.
Next was Windows 8.0, which you guess it 8+0 = 8! Again, another harmonious OS!
After that was Windows 8.1 = 8+1 = Windows version 9!
Now, here’s the interesting tibbit. They’re skipping Windows 9. Know why? Hint hint. (I’ll get to this a bit later).
So after Windows 8.1 comes Windows 10 with kernel version NT6.4 (or that was what they numbered it initially!) 6.4=6+4=10! Another harmonious system! In fact, they’re gonna number the .NET framework version that comes with W10 .NET 4.6 b/c you guessed it, 4.6=4+6=10! to remain harmonious with our universal law of numbers.
Okay, so back a paragraph, why did MSFT skip Windows 9? B/c numerologically, there is already a Windows 9 (in the form of Windows 8.1). The reason why Vista flopped was b/c they screwed up the numbers/didn’t obey the law. They already had Windows 6 (in the form of Windows XP) and they were gonna call the next Windows after that Windows 6. Windows vista didn’t harmonize with “the law” b/c numerologically, it tried to steal XP’s identity. Some ET alien who understands this law must have laughed at MSFT’s goofup in coming up with the label NT6.0 for Vista’s kernel…
While it’s true that W8.x can be considered flops, together, they command a larger share than Vista ever did b/c they obeyed the law of numbers!
So back to the premise of this post, why is Windows XP “The Real Windows 7?” B/c Windows XP is Windows 6 (NT5.1 kernel) and in computers, numbers start counting from 0, where in the real world, they start counting from 1. So 6 is actually the 7th digital in computing. Tada!!!!!!!
Oops, there was a goofup. Windows 8.0 is Windows version 8 b/c of its kernel (NT 6.2 = 6+2 = 8) and Windows 8.1 is Windows version 9 again b/c of its kernel (NT 6.3 = 6+3 = 9)!
I should add, 7 is said to be God’s number. Insulting Widows Seven by calling it Windows “Sucks” isn’t insulting God at all b/c 7 is the 8th digit in computing terms.
Finally, the reason why Windows XP is commonly believed to be MSFT moment in the spot light is b/c XP is God’s operating system, not Windows Seven, at least where numerology is concerned…
Microsoft got too carried away with attaching meaning to version numbers, so that they now actually don’t make much sense anymore. The current trend is to make the version number bigger than the competition. Look at web browsers developed in “rapid release cycles”, without any major technical innovation or code restructuring between, say, Firefox 22 and Firefox 23. Hell, 22 and 27 are mostly the same.
Seven was tweaked, updated (not necessarily improved) version of Windows 6, which was a radical new development with new boot loader, new driver model, rehashed security permissions, new bugs, new hardware requirements, and many issues as a result. “Seven” is very Similar to Vista, and the version number reflects that. “XP” is an updated tweaked Windows 2000, not necessarily in a good way (Luna theme, consumer-oriented interface such as the doggy, etc), so 5.1. People learned to accept the NT 5 and NT 6 platforms, and Microsoft used a catchy name to differentiate the latest releases as new products, even though on a basic level they are very similar.
Perhaps the public was too vocal in analyzing of the ambiguous versions of the “Eight” family (6.4, 8, missing nine, 10). If it were up to me, I’d call “Ten” version 6.5 – it is a half-step ahead.
Microsoft is forcing me to sign up for a Microsoft account in order to use certain applications such as Skype etc. At the same time Microsoft is blocking me from signing up with the…. Microsoft account and giving me hard time, such as empty green screens etc. etc. I am tired of it… FUCK microsoft, I hope it becomes microscopicsoft…
Windows 7 is a sneaky SOB. You can create a local admin account with no online link but it’s well hidden away. Microsoft would much rather you sign in with your Microsoft Outlook/Hotmail/Live/Skype account, link it to your PC, phone home with all your details, your partners, your kids, your kids friends, your kids friends parent’s, their relatives and the mail man who delivers their post.
With Windows 10 you will have no choice it’s online or nothing. I completely agree, fuck Microsoft.
I actually got most of your posts.
I didn’t want Windows 7, but had to buy a new computer, and got Windows 7 instead of Windows 8 because I knew it was the lesser evil.
Six months later, just as I was getting familiar, and had tweaked Win 7 to “usable” stage, it became corrupted, and the only way to repair it was a full reformat/reinstall.
Now, I’m starting over, and I can’t remember how I disabled all those annoying features, like auto-minimizing windows I’m using, and the damn task bar that sucks the work off my desktop and stacks it in tiny little lists that cost me hours of time. My file folders have useless pictures instead of file details.
My Windows 7 backup will not fully restore, or install anything where it should be, so I need to figure out a manual workaround for every file.
I really hate Microsoft. They’re like an overbearing parent forcing you to mimic them, think like them or “you’re wrong!”.
Am I just paranoid, or are they forcing us to arrange our work, our thoughts, our lives into a neat database for them, which we will be forced to upload to their cloud, and pay them to allow us to access it?
I love a messy desktop. I thrive on connecting unrelated data and images and processes. I can’t do that when I’m forced to think like an engineer or arrange my world for a database.
I’m so ready to try an alternative.
No you are right, Microsoft would love for you to upload everything to their cloud which is why Windows 10 forces you to log in with a Hotmail/Outlook/Live/Skype account. Windows 10 will also be the last Windows release. Thereafter, any new functionality will be provided as “service” through a regular update. This means no more licences, Microsoft wants you to pay perpetual fees for Windows and all future updates.
To customize the damn taskbar you can use “7 Taskbar Tweaker”. I almost managed to restore the taskbar to win2k functionality with this program. It uses less than 1 MB of memory. Of course, you could at it another way and say that now Windows needs to waste an entire megabyte.
I think they’re pushing the difficult to understand large number identifiers (guids, ipv6) and virtual folders, which are made different with every winddows version, to discourage people from learning and understanding how a computer functions, and resign to the “cloud” abstraction, which “just works”. I hate the cloud.
I think their is always an inclination to overestimate the competence of a group like Microsoft rather than just concluding they are a bunch of idiots. 🙂
One of the dumbest things I’ve seen them do is to include a script in Windows 7 that deletes what it decides are dead links on the desktop, apparently never having heard of a network connection that may or may not be available at the time. I am not generous enough to think that anyone who thought that was a good idea has a clue. In any case, they seem to be doing a good job of driving their users away, and perhaps that is their goal. When they seem unable to assemble a functional operating system interface, I’m not inclined to entrust them with any important data.
You forgot reason #21: Windows 7 pro desire to reinstall updates every day. A PC that can run a all those little apps and saervices should be able to check and see if a recommended update is required because if it already there it does not need reinstall.
A fellow sufferer
Oh better still, just switch off the useless updates.
Had the misfortune of having to re install win 7. What a nightmare,
going on over 8 hours to do an update, and i’m still waiting for the ridiculous 208 update at once. while my system is so bogged down.
It used to only take maybe 2 hours top from start to finish.
To make it worst I’m on a Mac Book Pro.
They definitely bloated the update on purpose to push people into upgrading to win 10.
I miss xp unfortunately some of the software i use cant be used on xp.
I’m really hating apple and microsoft right now.
1) Had to phone activate my win 7 cause i bought my computer in thailand and now I’m back in the states.
2) System is so laggy cause device drivers are not updated first.sure it will speed up after this batch but omfg over 8 hours wayy over 8 hours that’s just for the last batch of 208 one time instal not the whole process.
3) Update wasn’t showing download or instal so had to waste 3 hours getting updater to work properly.
4) Non of the troubleshooting systems are working they all have errors.
5) just doing something as simple as replying to this the system hung up a few times.
I should geek up and use another system and ditch both microsoft and apple for:
Any suggestions on some alternative OS for a semi tech person that isn’t microsoft or apple?
Linux Mint is the best option. It’s very like Windows but without the bloat and annoyances. It installs quick, recognises all my devices and is much faster than Win7 on even modest hardware. You can download it for free and install from a USB or burn the ISO to a disc.
I don’t see the point of ever installing any updates on Win7. The standard build with integrated SP1 works just fine. As long as you have a decent antivirus package and don’t open dodgy attachments (or stick to using webmail), there’s little risk of any malware. Most of those so-called critical updates are just an excuse for Microsoft to shove even more junk onto your PC.
If you don’t mind not playing games. Sure Linux Mint has WHINE but I’ve never seen it work. Most Linux games are nothing better then phone apps like Candy Crush and in some cases worse that make a phone app seem polished.
That is why Steam OS or The Steam Box failed as it didn’t do Windows software so it only did tabletop type games such as Penguin Jump or Rock Paper Scissors. Goat Simulator would be the best it can do or Garbage Truck Simulator.
I’d rather get/earn my CDL Type B and drive the real thing then play a lot of Linux *simulators* as they forget the laws of physics.
You forgot to tell why the taskbar sucks.
Of course everybody turns off the combined buttons and gets back separate buttons with text on them. But then, the color of the text often makes it hard to read. The color cannot be changed, so when you prefer a bright theme with a bright background image, you cannot read the text.
Furthermore the button of the window ehich has the focus is hard to spot because it is only slightly brighter than the other buttons. This, combined with the mouse hover highlight, causes lots of mistakes when switching quickly between windows.
You’re right. I have not seen any other person complain about the taskbar colors yet. It is not possible to clearly see which button is “depressed” and therefore its window is active. (Unfortunately the 3D concept of a preessed button is now obsolete with modern “immaterial” design.) I see that the color of a taskbar button is determined by the icon, so different programs get different colors. I often raise and lower a window a few times before I can find it on the screen.
My life isn’t long enough to set up a homeGroup using 2 computers sitting side by side connected by a frigging cable… Windoz: ” can’t find the other computer…”
Enters password given by windoz for Homegroup: ” not useful for homegroup.”
Errormessage just now: “Windoz cannot setup a homegroup on this computer…” while below that: “This Computer is Connected to a Homegroup.”
Next, using Windozz explorer, yep, lists the second computer sitting next to the first as it always did, but oh dear, cannot connect… Do you want to diagnose the problem? yes lets diagnose your a***, result: cannot connect “do you want to ask a friend to help?
FU windoz
I know there’s an easy way somehow, I just don’t know that way because sure a sh*** Windoz ain’t telling. USB sticks and backup harddrives are what I’ll use. Saves all the cussing.
Rant done!
Thanks for this WONDERFUL site 🙂
The network services change radically with every Windows version. I guess they want to force people to “upgrade” all machines to the same build of Windows, or accept problems. I also find the error messages to often be misleading. For example, they may report that access was denied (i.e. wrong password) when there is either a name resolution or transport-level connectivity issue. The deep abstraction of connections and accounts into computers that are automagically “found” doesn’t help any.
In the meantime good FTP server software, adhering to standards, works with OS and clients a decade or more old. I set up FileZilla on all network-connected Windows computers, to have a backup means of file transfer and a method to diagnose speed and connectivity problems. For block level file access like media file playback we’re stuck with whatever Microsoft provides. (offtopic, FZ has also gone bad in this year with overzealous ‘security’ and is incompatible with older clients, but Windows has always been bad since NT and 9x, and probably earlier.)
I honestly never liked Windows XP. No matter what I used it on, it was always laggy and had tons of problems with certain software/hardware I used. It really didn’t age well IMO.
It’s laggy out of the box but very easy to de-bloat. Better still, creating your own slipstreamed XP installation with all customisation, updates and drivers is a snap. My XP installation boots in under 10 seconds from a cold start on a fast drive which is as quick as Windows 7 on an SSD. Usually, there is a particular driver that causes the delay in booting (on mine, it’s the Bluetooth driver) so if you can find that and optimise, it makes the world of difference.
Well I love using XP.. And it’s very fast compared to dumb down 7. And it’s easy to configure.You are just one of those XP downers.
All versions of Windows had problems upon release because the developer changed them radically, and used resource-demanding visual effects (relative to previous products and contemporary hardware), both trying to impress customers who already had a computer with an operating system. I remember Windows 98 SE was regarded as a downgrade by some, then XP SP2 was received similarly. Of course everyone knows about Vista. Those problems got resolved with “aging” as more compatible low level applications were made (drivers and video games). In this example, one eventually had to use 98 SE to work on modern-ish ACPI hardware. Of course if you never changed your problematic drivers to ones made for XP, then the problems would stay.
It cannot be denied that Microsoft Windows tries to do more with every version, particularly in the area of multimedia (like video file playback), which was covered by usually more efficient 3rd party applications earlier. Those feautures come at a cost of performance, regardless whether users want them or not.
Why does Microsoft INSIST we upgrade? And yes they do insiste because they withdraw support from XP which was a perfectly good OS. The reason is that they want to make even more money from us simple as that!
As for Windows 7, I cannot run Windows updates which is a pretty basis function, and looking at various Internet post I am not alone. Why MS released a buddy OS is beyond me, or is it? Of course we wil soon all HAVE to upgrade yet again! $$$$$$
WinXp was far more intuitive and way easy to use as Windows above ! I’l don’t go under the hood but GUI is total mess and crap in all windows above ! We are now 2016 but nasty MS still manages randomly to tamper user with nasty ” file write protection bug” or it is feature to for bringing user nerves sky high ??? They are stealing HOWTO’s philosofy from Linux ! I use Win7 for a year now and i can proudly say that MS is waste time electricity money user nerves …. and if were WinXP user experience 10 then Windows above -10 ! Its all about the GUI and if GUI sucks then all god damn OS sucks ! From Start Menu to useless Metro ! Someone at MS thinks that our PC’s are some sort of smartphones with more than expensive touch screens !!! MAD MAD MAD MADMAN’S ! Before the era of Win7 is over i go to some Linux ! MS has lost it ! Do they not seeing this and other negative user experience ??? We have to have 100% control over OS and that is from Windows XP above not possible any more !!! Who do you trust ??? I trust no one !!! And windows more and more becomes danger to user big time the way that things develop !!! I give up on write protect error FORMAT FORMAT FORMAT and put on some Windows mod without user/file restrictions on it !!! This MS policy force users to use ”black mod windows” why – they are easy to use and do not tamper user for simple operations like copy/move files that are basic tasks for OS !!! Thank you MS for crippling my user experience ! And go fuck your self big time ! It would be far more better if Gates never existed, we have today more likely better/secure some sort of full blown developed Linux Desktop OS despite learning curve is more intense !!!
i like this post very much and im completely agreed with it. there’s a thousand more reasons why the xp is much better than 7,and one of them is – windows 7 does not have implemented windows movie maker. and that new paint sucks! great,just great!
And I like Windows XP start menu. Why didn’t they leave the interface alone.
I’ve decided my next system is going to be a Macintosh since Linux now works for Microsoft. (Windows 10 has Linux GUI in it and MS has deals with the company that makes apps work for Linux)
Good luck with that, you’ll be sucked into the Apple ecosystem which works beautifully with Apple devices but is useless for pretty much every other mainstream business activity unless you work in publishing and graphic design.
Most apple snobs work for graphics doing things like Blender and advance photo editing.
They don’t even look at you if you like to play any kinds of games even hidden object games. You are like something that got stuck on their shoes.
I’ve had a MBP for over 2 years now and though at first I had some difficulty in how they wanted to treat my music and pictures and stuff I just made them all generic digital files in a “My Docs” folder and I was easily able to adapt.
I still have a Windows XP desktop which isn’t connected to the internet unless I connect it and I’ve not had any problems in my systems. As a matter of fact I may replace the desktop with another MBP this Xmas.
The MBP is a powerhouse that I run 2 large NEC monitors and can have both Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Painter open at the same time and have very little lag in performance.
I dislike Apple products and the whole sucking you into their ecosystem mentality and then once they have you charge premium pricing on all their stuff so they can have high margins for their stock shares. The MBP is the only Apple product I own.
Anybody know when React OS will get off their butts and actually make a stable release to encourage more people to use it and work on it even more?
Right now as far as I know React OS is a dead end by people in a garage and their forum shows the lack of activity.
If React OS can get a stabilized release that’s more then just “Oh this looks cool let’s see what that line of code does!” then we have a decent chance at competition against Microsoft.
However the current rate shows it will be when Windows XVI comes out and by that time so many people will have moved on that not even the original developers will care anymore.
Not even the care will care.
Future windows OS needs to more customizable. Windows 8 is actually the *program files* when you click on start and explore your programs via the list in the old Win OS all blown up.
THe bad part is in 8 you couldn’t customize that screen and get rid of junk you didn’t want or need.
8.1 finally allowed you to do that but it was too late and nobody wanted to touch it and I don’t blame them one bit. Sorry Charlie.
I agree with you so much – this is THE worst version of windows I have ever seen! NOTHING works the way you want it to – even if you tell it to!! I absolutely HATE Microsoft right now! Thank you for letting me vent!
Windows 7 is a dud like Vista. But the gullible sheep continue to worship it. I used it for a while and hated it. I hate Microsoft for the way they treated XP in the end. A big smear campaign. I don’t care. I’m still using XP. Vista onward are all inferior. XP Forever.
i can add some:
– explorer: keyboard shortcut conflict for “Large Icons” and “Refresh” under “View” menu.
– explorer: must press too many tab key to switch between controls.
– explorer: sometime if we execute a file (i.e., app installer) by pressing enter key, explorer lost focus. if you press up or down arrows, nothing happen.
– explorer: in XP, we can press a, b, c to find file/folder started with a, b, c, etc. sometime this not work in win7.
– explorer: in XP, you can close explorer (or any open app window) by pressing Alt+Space, then C. but this won’t work for win7 explorer when CDROM selected.
– in XP, i can turn my PC on, start MS Word, typing one full document, formatting (fonts, paragraph) save, print, close, shutdown without touching mouse and work faster. but in win7, not touching mouse will takes longer time.
– sometime i can’t copy a file from my laptop to my phone connected as mass storage. win7 still discovering files until 15 minutes. i tried the same thing in XP, the file can be copied successfully in less than 1 minute.
– task scheduler: sometime showing a status indicating that a specified task is running, but this status is wrong
– explorer: everytime i open an app folder that contain about 3 mp3 files, the column layout change into music style. i must do many click to show date, size, type columns.
i hate win7, win8, win10 so much. also i hate office 2007+.
Copying files in Win7 is more painful than root canal surgery. There are ice ages that have come and gone quicker than it takes Win7 to copy a few GB of data. It helps if you don’t bother joining a home network and switch off thumbnail generation as the copying issue is something to do with Windows Explorer. Copying via the command line is much quicker.
As for Office 2007+, this suite of crap is best left uninstalled. After three years of having to use Office 2007+ at work, I still find myself having to search for basic functionality that has been hidden away in the fucking ribbon shite.
Agree.I hate Vista too. The losers at M$ should of just kept XP as the blueprint for Windows. They should have stopped with XP and improved it under the hood. Now I’ll be stuck with 7 when my XP breaks now. Hoping it’s a long wait. Gates sucks.
The damn Internet won’t work
The interface of Windows 7 looks like one of those amateur visual styles from DeviantArt. Why didn’t they just update Windows XP. And I refuse to give in to Linux. But I’m still using XP right now. And so far it’s still working great. And no, I’m not bored after all these years. XP was done right.
For a long time Linux Mint was improving *and you still have a lot of choices to make* like for example on Linux Mint dad created a fake start menu and called it *fake*. 🙂
HOWEVER Linux Mint has catered to the smart phone crowd by making tiny fonts and things hard to use with a mouse.
VLC Player was working and doesn’t do anything the last few updates. Movies are totally dumbed down when playing thru VLC vs any other player on Windows.
We installed Windows 7 32 version after being hacked on Linux Mint causing the screen to constantly flicker and Windows 7 32 works a lot better then 64.
Windows 7 32 plays a lot more programs more like XP did and guess what? WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER WORKS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOOO HOOO! Watching movies is VERY colorful in display and it’s a rich experience for those who can’t get an expensive home theater setup.
Windows media center and Windows Player won’t work very well for movies on 7 64 version.
Windows XP and up to 7 were the fun days with lots of downloads to do and new software being cranked out.
A lot of the hidden object games that you would see sitting on the shelf at Office Max or Target were designed for windows 98 and XP.
Sorry but OS’s don’t matter if there ain’t no software to run on it!
Windows 10 has almost no software that makes you go “I’ve got to have it!”
All the independent companies have all got bought up by big corporations so for games a lot of them are now just ports from consoles and come out crappy looking.
Indie software are basically just “Let’s see what this kind of style does!” Cool!” without much thought into them.
Most Indie games haven’t matured past a more crappy SNES game like the *Noahs Ark 3D A Doom Knock Off*
which in today’s world would be a classic *Indie* game that everyone must have in order to spit in the face of big corporations.
This is still as timely as it was when first written. Microsoft Windows 7 (and now 10) seriously SUCK. I have spent the last 3 hours waiting to copy a few GBs of data to disk, which in Windows XP would take about 20 minutes or so….
Agree. They both suck. Believe or not I’m still using Windows XP. And it does not give me any problems. And I;m not bored with it after all these years. You know what also sucks. Firefox. They have decided to drop XP. Now I don’t know what to do. I use Firefox. I hate IE8. Cripple browser. IE 6 and 7 were okay. But Microsoft always have to change things. And now Windhyped 10 is forever. So there are no good Windows to choose from after XP..
One solution is to use 3-rd party applications, and reject dumbed down web/cloud apps. If you don’t rely on any of those, an older browser can remain functional with mostly static web pages. These days they push everything onto the web, media players, communication, and the stuff that’s built onto Chrome, like the cast thing. I still use Firefox 22 and 27 on my computers; they both are more recent and support more technologies than IE8.
Do not rely on any applets that come with Windows: media players, image viewers, Explorer. Do not get used to them, and suffer when they get taken away. Instead, choose a file manager that works for you and carry it over to the new version of Windows. I use Total Commander, and it helps me settle in with a new computer with everything is different. But make your own choice. 3-rd party software will usually get updated a few years after Microsoft ceases providing functional enhancements to analogous solutions built into Windows.
As most Microsoft technologies, IE is designed to keep people on the update track. For example, the security module is integrated into the operating system, and it cannot be updated just inside the browser, when new SSL certificate formats are introduced. You have to change the whole OS.
Thanks for the help. And you use Firefox 22 and 27. I’m using Firefox 52. Is it okay to use whatever Firefox I want to. Because I really don’t like 52. I do like Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Windbloat 7 took that away.
Try Opera browser. It’s my default browser now and much nicer to use than Firefox which has been a bloated mess for years now.
You can use Sea Monkey. Despite it’s name the picture/background has nothing to do with the sea or even a monkey. I think they wanted it to be *See the monkey?* but there isn’t even a monkey to see. They forgot that part.
After some manual setting up to do Sea Breeze is very good and handles YouTube better as it doesn’t have ads for some reason on Sea Monkey where FF is loaded with ads on youtube.
That same video on SM will look higher res and the sound quality will be much higher. For some reason on modern browsers the sound quality is like a hand held device where it’s so quiet even with everything turned way up.
On SM it will come blasting out at you if you dont’ turn it down quite a ways.
Overall Sea Monkey will work on XP and you won’t be disappointed however it sometimes goes thru updates and it behaves weird when that happens and something goes wrong different from everyone else.
I seldom use bad words in real life but about w7 I totally agree with you. It is a “poc” or/and a “pos”. Nice post.
Wait until you have to use Windows 10. It makes Windows 7 look like a Work of Art.
Windows 10 sucks also because of NO SOFTWARE! Or badly written software! It’s all for smartphone idiots.
I actually enjoy your work , Fantastic post.
AGREE WINDOWS7 IS FOR NOOBS