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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?
What other features would you suggest to Microsoft if they are to have a hope for recovery?
A Linux kernel.
Sadly what will happen is they will be slated for the final product and fail to make it in. I was really looking forward to Winfs. It design specs and features looked like a big benefit to Windows Vista. I'm still kinda bummed it was never included. :-/
EGA mode
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
What other features would you suggest to Microsoft if they are to have a hope for recovery?
The ability to boot on a single core with 1GB of RAM in under 5 minutes?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Perhaps they could take FreeBSD, perhaps with a customized Mach kernel, and add a fancy, easy to use and intuitive graphical user interface?
oh, wait...
If Vista is any measure, Windows 7 should not include marketing driven development.
How about multiple desktops?! Native...that don't suck!
A crust that rises.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Comment removed based on user account deletion
While I'll go along with the one-version-to-rule-them-all idea, the most important thing?
Easy external backup, for everybody.
Apple has it right with time machine. No muss, no fuss, and I had only the tiniest of glitches when I restored onto a newer hard drive.
And if they don't do this, well, this needs to be a feature of Ubuntu. That'll gain them market share.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
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
Perhaps we should look at the reason why we switched to Macs or to Linux. Lack of innovation and high prices. If MS can make a secure product, that is innovative, and affordable, I might buy it, or at least not wipe my OEM install of it. The fact though is, I don't think that MS can innovate, which is really sad.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
A "Gaming Mode" to disable some services? When is the last time you said "Ah, crap, my error reporting service is making me lag?"
And Program Caching notice? The average user doesn't even know that Vista uses RAM. His suggestion would just confuse them more. We need fewer popup notifications, not more. Instead of cluttering the user's view, get stuff out of the way. Interfere less.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
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.
It's mind boggling that third party apps (Ultramon, Oscar) or drivers (Matrox, Nvidia) have had better dual monitor support for Windows since NT, yet Microsoft hasn't implemented any of their features. As far as I can see, nothing changed in regards to dual monitor features since Windows 2000.
Being that gadget zone is still a fan of the Redmond, Washington, company (although we like Apple too), gadget zone contributor and computer expert, Vito Cassisi, has come up with the 20 Microsoft must do's to ensure the success of Windows 7.
20. Modularised OS
The great thing about being modular is that the OS can be modified easily. Think Linux here - in Linux everything is modular and replaceable. For example, you can replace the whole GUI component without affecting anything else. With the abundance of third party applications written for Windows, this would spur a whole new variety of customisation and open-source implementation.
19. XP Virtual Machine
It seems that the biggest issue with Vista was compatibility with older software/drivers. A solution may be to include an XP virtual machine which ensures compatibility with said software. Apple did a similar thing when they re-wrote their OS a few years back.
18. New UAC
In theory UAC was a great idea. It protected people from themselves, but it was too intrusive. An alternate idea is to teach the user the importance of limited accounts and how they prevent the accessibility of nasties such as viruses. UAC should be a single dialogue with 'Continue' and 'Cancel' and an explanation of why the user was interrupted.
17. Gaming Mode
Most Windows users like to dabble in a bit of gaming when on their PC. But the constant demand for computing power by the latest titles (read: Crysis) can leave the majority in the dark. Perhaps Microsoft can offer a mode similar to that of the current 'Safe Mode' which only initiates the required services for gaming. This would minimise overhead and increase performance.
16. Customised Install
The avid performance tweakers out there may have heard of the likes of NLite and VLite for XP and Vista respectively. These pieces of software allow you to remove unwanted components from the OS before you install it. This increases available HDD space, and also improves performance depending on the services cut out. Offering the same amount of control when installing Windows 7 would settle the 'Windows is bloatware' activists out there.
15. Productive GUI
Microsoft bit the bullet with Vista and changed the GUI to be attractive. This is fine by all means, but the productivity of this new GUI wasn't exactly enhanced all that much. Small things such as multiple desktops and simpler open/save dialogues can make all the difference. Perhaps even let the user modify the GUI to their liking, i.e. toolbar sizes etc.
14. All for One and One for All
Vista came out in so many versions that even Chuck Norris was bewildered. There should only be three, Home, Business/Pro, and Server. This would lessen the current Windows ambiguity.
13. WinFS
Whatever happened to the infamous NTFS replacement? Windows 7 would really benefit from an improved file system, and such an improvement is bound to attract businesses that shunned Vista for its lack of innovation and improvement. The relational database structure should enhance overall system performance.
12. Home User Licensing
Let's say you have 3 PCs in your house, two desktops and a laptop. You want to upgrade to Windows 7, but have to pay three times for three separate licences. In a world where P2P and torrents are commonly used, how many users would slip into the world of cracks and keygens? The solution (to an extent) would be to offer a home licence. A small fee to be able to use the OS up to, for example, five times in the one household would surely benefit both Microsoft and the average home user.
11. Driver Availability
Arguably the Achilles heel of Vista was the slow uptake of drivers by device manufacturers. Although this is hard for Microsoft to dictate, it would be in their best interest to promote driver production during the OS development stage. Even if the drivers are beta, it sure beats being left with no hardware functionality.
10. Standards Compliant Browser
This isn't mu
1. edit the boot screen from "windows XP" to say "windows 7", then just re-release it as the new version and continue to refine XP's codebase. problems solved!
stuff |
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
...a hope for recovery?
Isn't this a bit gloomy? I know it's cool 'round these parts to bash M$, but seriously, do we HONESTLY believe that Vista, even the flop that it is, is marking some sort of very likely demise for Windows? Isn't it much more likely, that, as with 98 ME for example, users will suffer through the pains of Vista and M$ will continue to be the majority OS by a large margin for several years?
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
new UAC, program caching, standards compliant browser
From what I've seen from builds so far, UAC is getting modified in that you'll be able to say "Don't bug me again for for X minutes"...program caching is in Vista called SuperFetch...works nicely if you have the RAM (even if people tend to complain it "uses my memory", ironically)...and IE8 is supposed to be standards compliant by default. So, out of that list, 2 out of 3 are already here if you don't use IE, and UAC prompts are rare if you don't use software from 10 years ago.
throw new NoSignatureException();
A proper Windows Classic GUI, and MUCH lower system requirements than Vista. Dual-booting XP works fine for running games, and that's all I need Windows for. Make me want to upgrade, don't force me. They tried that with Vista but I got Halo 2 to run on XP anyways. Also try to make UAC less of a PITA.
The Colin Chapman theory of design applies here: "To add speed, add lightness."
Vista is a fatass riced-out American SUV with flat tires and the brakes stuck halfway on. Dump that POS and try again.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's 2008. Dump the triumvirate of Windows design retardedness:
1. Drive letters (we are not using CP/M)
2. Backward slashes for directory separation (we are not using DOS)
3. CRLF (we are not using a typewriter!)
1) Hardware acceleration
2) Only two versions. Home and Pro.
3) An expose function that is actually useful
4) Multiple desktops
5) IP over 1394a/b
6) NTFS support for Readyboost
7) Built-in support for running on a virtual machine
8) Better organization in the control panel and start menu.
And that's just off the top of my head!
21. Microsoft Bob! /ducks
22. Clippy7
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
I read that article earlier today, and it is complete drivel.
One of the points is they want to do away with UAC and instead educate the users.
But otoh they complain that there is no status bar telling people that Vista is using their RAM for caching. So what do you want the users to be: Expert or novice?
And I'm all for educating users, but
a) it doesn't work if they don't care and
b) Microsoft got bashed for not protecting the users. UAC enforces the design guidelines that were not enforced up until now.
And it has to be 'productive' Fine. You tell them what 'productive' constitutes and they'll be happy enough to implement it. As it is, usability experts find it difficult enough.
Is 'the gimp' so much better?
And it has to be rewritten from scratch.
You can complain about the Shell all you want, but the Vista kernel is an engineering masterpiece, and there are some real design innovations in there. Read 'Windows Systems Internals, 4th edition' if you don't believe me.
Yes, windows has its problems, but the list in TFA is complete bollocks as far as I am concerned. It is just a bunch of easy catchphrases for getting support from the windows bashers and for getting hits on their page.
1. I want to be able to install an application without having to give it complete and unfettered access to every single aspect of my machine. As a long list of "reputable" companies (Sony, Intuit, Apple, every game engine, etc) have proven, I can't trust any of them. They all want to install rootkits, spyware, adware, whatever they can when I choose to install their app. I can't find out beforehand what they're going to install, I can't easily find out afterwards what they did install.
Give me a way to sandbox every single app. I don't care if that means that I can't install an app that hooks the keyboard, or the filesystem. I want my machine to continue to run!
2. Implement a "Snitch" mode for performance. Tell me why my computer takes 3 minutes to boot, and name names. Tell me why my computer takes 2 minutes to shut down, and name names.
These are OS-level improvements (not eye candy implemented in the windows manager) that would make my life easier. /frank
And the worms ate into his brain.
- NO drm shit to slow down the computer
...
- No bloating of the system with embedded browsers, players or other shit
- Modular structure that only installs or loads stuff that is absolutely necessary
- No 2342532523 different versions that only came to being due to shit from the marketing department
- No 'we could do it, but we wont give some features to old oses to force you to go up to 7' thing, like the dx10 flop in vista
- NO 'win 7 certified' logo on computers that cant run win 7.
- Less chair throwing
that should get you going
Read radical news here
I'd really like a smarmy paperclip that will pipe up all the time and suggest things. Say, it pops up while posting on the Intarwebs and says, "It looks like you're trying to spell the word 'ridiculous'. Can I help with that?"
Really though, the killer app of Linux is. Customization. For MS to get more marketshare, you need to be able to customize everything on it. From the kernel to the GUI.
I'm pretty sure they're willing to let the 0.01% of people who care about this sort of thing, slide.
2) UAC
3) DRM
4) excessive bloating
5) DRM
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.)
Windows isn't fragmenting your files, it's sharing them with otherwise unoccupied sectors on your hard drive.
Another legitimate use of file sharing in my opinion.
Innovation is messy... you invent a design idea and hope the masses like it. Sometimes the innovation is great and everyone loves it. Sometimes the innovation is awesome but it's not released soon enough so it never takes off and is eclipsed by a different technology. Sometimes the innovation is released too early and everyone hates it.
You don't want innovation from Microsoft. What you really want is a Windows 7 that is enough like XP that you know how to use it and most of your existing application still work, but includes the few features you've come to enjoy on Mac/Linux/BSD/etc. Please stop using the "innovation" buzzword.
You get a message from Carly Fiorina?
Seriously, this is the root of many of Microsoft's problems. They need to stop bolting on poorly-designed "features" and work on reliability and functionality.
Honestly, if Microsoft made a solid, secure OS without all the "value-added enhancements" and profit-driven lock-in tactics, then public opinion of them would be much higher. I would be very happy to see them shift all OS business to their server-level products, because they really are significantly better than their consumer-level OSs. If they spun off their end-consumer products into another business, fine. Those people who like their bells and whistles can buy them, and those who just want a stable and secure platform would have it also.
Yes, I know, use and love Linux. But I also worked at Microsoft (Windows 2000 team,) and am proud of having worked on that OS. There are alot of good developers there, but they have no say in the management direction. While I was there, I saw ME in development, and couldn't believe that I was working at the same company. I was embarrassed for the team.
So, we'll see how Windows 7 turns out. MinWin is a great idea, and I hope (but don't at all believe) that the mentality behind it will influence the rest of Windows 7. But with Ballmer now completely unrestrained, I'm sure it will be trash. Things really went to crap there after he took the helm in 2000.
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:
20. Modularised OS
This example is silly. You can use different user interfaces by changing the desktop shell. Hell, there's a posix subsystem floating around there somewhere if you want to use it.
19. XP Virtual Machine
'Virtual Machine' is a big buzzword, but the truth is you're going to hit issues with drivers and this situation, and with software that does a lot of heinouss stuff on XP, and with games that hate running on VM, and no matter how much you'd like it to be the case, someone would be whining about how hard it is to sync files to and from the XP VM.
18. New UAC
The author's premise is wrong here; UAC is clearly about making sure new apps are authored for the standard user, old apps function the same for protected administrator as for standard user, and making the standard user a more viable option for people. Changing UAC significantly is a bad move for MSFT.
17. Gaming Mode
So you should reboot to play games? That's absurd. Services spend most of their time sleeping, and memory pages that aren't in use get paged out when the system is under pressure. I doubt you would see much room for an increase in perf with this 'gaming mode'.
16. Customised Install
This is probably fair. The 'advanced install' type options could give you choices like with XP. However, then you would need the DVD in order to add Windows features later. Currently, it does a full install, and just doesn't 'install' certain features that are sitting on the system waiting to be enabled. So, in a sense, you do already have that customizability - but it comes at the cost of disk space in order to be convenient. I'll stick with the option that doesn't force me to dig around for a Vista DVD to enable a webserver, though, thanks.
15. Productive GUI
GUI programming and fit and finish are TREMENDOUSLY hard. The author might as well ask for the moon in a picnic basket. He also fails to notice that Vista goes to great lengths to make the UI more accessible for the visually impaired, appease the people who like the XP feel (see the control panel options), and yes, for efficiency - see the 'search' widget at the bottom of the start menu. Explorer views are TREMENDOUSLY more featureful now than in XP, as are the search tools if you don't disable the search indexer.
14. All for One and One for All
Author says there should just be one SKU. I agree. Won't happen.
13. WinFS
The author blindly asserts the relational database would speed things up. There's a reason WinFS was canceled; to the math. Windows does need a new filesystem, but there's no need to throw out 40 years of filesystem traditions.
12. Home User Licensing
I agree, Microsoft should explore alternative licensing and pricing models. But it won't happen for Win7, I don't think.
11. Driver Availability
32-bit drivers mostly continue to work. Many services that had UI components are broken by session 0 isolation for services in Vista, requiring a rewrite - and that's a good thing. See 'Shatter attack'. As for 64-bit? Complain to vendors. 64-bit OS isn't that hard to write for. This is not MS's fault.
10. Standards Compliant Browser
Nobody has a standards compliant browser. Yes, there's the ACID test, but the test changes with time, raising the bar on browsers. More importantly, Javascript is a mess of a language. So long as it's around, the web is going to be a graveyard of usability and standardization. And the same goes for browser plugins.
9. Program Caching
Superfetch. It pre-loads stuff during the start of your process to improve start times. Most people don't even know this is occuring. Why bother them with a popup that would occur at LITERALLY, every process start, and offers no options?
8. Microsoft Toolbox
Sort of like a package management system for 3rd party software. Sounds grand. Maybe someday.
7. OS Restoration via imaging
System restore is QUICK and CHEAP, but it's not a backup. If you want to back up your system, BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM. Unless reimaging would wipe the
I think that Microsoft would do better to simply drop the DRM altogether, it is creating large amounts of customer confusion and frustration (even Joe Sixpack is starting to realize that DRM == BAD) and more than a little bad PR. Microsoft is in the Software business and their customer is the user and NOT the MAFIAA (the sooner they realize this the better). As for the bundling of software, Microsoft has been busted before for this behavior (although only the Europeans made the consequences stick, the Justice Department let them off the hook) and as long as they can continue to get away with it I don't see that changing and especially not with Ballmer firmly in charge going forward.
The problem with these recommendations is that they are formulated from the perspective of "What would make Windows a better operating system?" It's being thought of in terms of, what improvements are in the best interest of Windows users?
That's not how it works. Vista is a shining example of the fact that new features in Windows are designed to be in the best interest of Microsoft. Sometimes the interests of Microsoft and its users overlap (for example, an OS that doesn't crash quite as much will provide a better user experience, but it also saves Microsoft tech support dollars) but more often their interests are conflicting (end users were not asking for more DRM).
The bottom line is that operating systems are not killer apps. The job of an operating system is to provide a platform for the launching of applications. Do that and then get out of the way.
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It's not a devil, it's a daemon.
New things are always on the horizon
Enabling safe mode (for games) with networking pretty much disables the "safe" portion of that equation
2Good4U96 is trying to fire a rocket at you.
Accept or deny?
This space up for sale.