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20 Features Windows 7 Should Include
Damian Francis writes "Australian computer expert Vito Cassisi has come up with a list of 20 features that Windows 7 should have. The article includes features like modularized OS, new UAC, program caching, standards compliant browser and a whole lot more with explanations as to why these features should be included. With Windows Vista only receiving a luke-warm reception, Microsoft needs to make sure Windows 7 is a winner from the get go." What other features would you suggest to Microsoft if they are to have a hope for recovery?
Most of the issues I have with windows stem from lukewarm support of a text command line.
/s not \s for \.'s sake.
I don't want to have to run cygwin just to get a reasonable CLI. Even having done that, it's just too hard to manipulate the registry etc. through text commands. I'm sure with a little thought, MS could come up with an industry leading text based interface that I could ssh into with a reasonable way to switch between different users (with different admin privileges) on the server.
And make them
Nullius in verba
Features? It doesn't need new features, most people don't use the features it already has. What it needs is not to suck!
The first thing Microsoft needs to do is look at everything from the user perspective. What can be faster, lighter, more convenient? What can be more stable? The absolute last thing they need to do is to--even for a second--imagine that bolting some shiny crap onto Vista is going to somehow make people happy with it.
Christ. Some of the stuff he thinks 7 needs is stuff that would make any knowledgable geek recoil in horror. WinFS?!? Are you kidding me?
"Game Mode" so I can turn off the resource hogging of my OS and run a game? NO! Pay attention! I want the OS to not hog resources.
A standards compliant web browser? It's called Firefox. Next.
Site licensing for the home user? *pause for sardonic laughter* Yea, right, that's going to happen about the time Ballmer gay marries Steve Jobs.
The only things I think he had right (aside from the impossible things like a modular os, etc) were XP virtual machine/emulation, and a better UAC interface. An XP vm would be a quick and dirty fix for compatibility issues; Mac pulled this with OS9 emulation, and it definitely smoothed their adpotion of OSX. As far as the UAC, Microsoft has always been the king of suck as far as security interfaces go; I almost always end up having to disable security to get the machine to do the crap I want it to do, and while I've got faith in my upstream security, I'm the kind of person who can't ever have enough security, and it pisses me off when some of it is useless. If you have to disable security to make your machine work, it's WORTHLESS (I'm looking at you too Symantec).
blah blah. End rant.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
What other features would you suggest to Microsoft if they are to have a hope for recovery?
What is the one thing MS can do that no one else (realistically) can do these days? Games. They need to start thinking Windows needs not be a one size fits all approach. Why can I not install the most basic framework of the OS and DX in order to utilize all available resources of my rig?
I'm sure I'm not the only one at their without any choice in OS simply because my computer is most often used for games. Which if it's going to be that way, don't make a guy who tunes every bus speed and multiplier he access too use the same OS install his grandma would use to check her e-mails.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I want more control over the O/S and less questioning of my actions by the O/S. For instance, I want the ability to kill a process without further interrogation. And when I kill a process, I don't want to see it lingering out there, requiring me to kill it 9 times. Actually, what the computer needs is a setting to tell it how advanced the computer user is, from say 1 - 10. Where a 1 is a housewife and a 10 is an XP kernel developer. Then, I would set my O/S to a 10, and it would do what I tell it to without question (deleting files, killing processes, etc.)
Allow the OS to be aware of it's own limitations, and adjust it caching style to accomodate that. If the OS knows it has a slow HDD, it should cach more into RAM. If it knows it's low on RAM, it should cache to disk backround paused tasks. If it's low on resources, unloading (or not loading at all) unsuled items (like fonts, textures, etc) would be awesome, thanks.
Take it a step futher and have it unload drivers for devices not currently connected, recomend the user terminate programs that are not needed, limit the use of "pre-load" application resources for items rarely used (I don't need itunes and acrobat pre loading crap if I only look at a PDF occasionally, and don't typically play music while working).
It should recomend TO the user to add more RAM, and be able to communicate the number of minutes or seconds it would save the user to perform the upgrade. If the user commonly runs a lot of programs, and it commonly caches stuff that would otherwise be in RAM, TELL THE USER TO GET MORE RAM, don't assume they know. If HDD performance is causing real-time applications to stutter, or games to have frame skip, tell the user it's too slow.
Microsoft should also list system requirements, as should EVERYONE else, based on an average system configuration, not on a clean install. Windows Vista runs OK on a cleam machine, but load Outlook, OneNote, iTunes, Acrobat, a domain connection, a few network shares, 2-3 printers, motherboard and network monitoring software, and some AV and spyware security software, and it runs like CRAP! Retailers are not equipped to explain this to people, so lets start quoting resource limitations in REAL WORLD scenarios. Also, games and other real time applications, should list not only the recomended requirements, but what frame rate to expect with a given screen resolution using out of the box settings (and all images on the box should be required to use default settings, or note otherwise that they're using "prefered" settings which should also have their own requirements listing and frame rate expectation). No, it won't be perfect, but if they use benchmarking on real word systems, it should be cloe enough for most people to understand.
"Game Mode" for the OS is a load of crap. A nice OS embeded script that automatically kills some background stuff, and unloads unnecessary drivers, thats fine, but to be honest, it should do that ALL BY ITSELF, not with a click. The application should be signed, and should be able to request those kinds of resources when it needs them, and background "helper" apps should be the first to go, followed by warnings about any applications the user launched that should first be killed before playing the game. Booting to a seperate mode? no, that's a pain in the ass... Besides, it's not really to OS settings that slow game play, but all the crap you added to the OS.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Litestep is what you're looking for; it's a replacement window manager (for Windows), and includes virtual desktops. It's also customizable and fragmented to a ludicrous degree, but if you try a few themes you should be able to find one you like.
It seems like the low-hanging fruit would be to copy the parts of Linux and OS X where Windows is still behind. This would include: