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Microsoft Brings 36 New Features To Windows 7
Barence writes "Microsoft has unveiled a slew of new features that will appear in the Release Candidate of Windows 7 that didn't make an appearance in the beta. 'We've been quite busy for the past two months or so working through all the feedback we've received on Windows 7,' explains Steven Sinofsky, lead engineer for Windows 7 in his blog. A majority of these features are user interface tweaks, but they should add up to a much smoother Windows 7 experience." In separate news, Technologizer reports on Microsoft's contingency plan, should things not go well in EU antitrust, to slip Win7 to January.
I'm still on XP... you are saying that not only is this not fixed in Vista, but it's not fixed in 7 either? Yuck. I'm with you... I do a lot of VPN stuff and the responsiveness of the shell during network operations is my biggest beef with XP.
By the way, in the article I had to chuckle a little bit when I got to the graphs at the bottom. Even MS can't make Excel graphs look pretty. They look like the same Excel 5.0 default graphs we've been seeing for 15 years now, only with some translucency and overlaid on a weird rounded rectangular, ugly yellow gradient.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
its been a long time since I did Win32, but I remember when they changed it so applications couldn't "steal" focus from another application if the focused application hadn't seen mouse or keyword activity in X seconds (X configurable through the registry). The number of times the taskbar window flashed was also a configurable registry setting... somehow, though, applications like Outlook could ALWAYS steal focus. I always wondered what API call they used to do that, because I could never find it, and I scoured MSDN.
Now it looks like even their own apps can't steal focus? Good, that used to annoy the shit out of me.
I have TFA open right now.
1. Windows Flip (ALT + TAB) with Aero Peek
Meh... it doesn't sound like a killer feature to me.
2. Windows Logo + keyboard shortcut
OK, I really don't understan this one. hasn't [alt]+ the shortcut worked before? Seems they had this way back in win95, didn't they?
3. Needy State "Needy window" is the internal term we use for a window that requires your attention
Doesn't seem like much to me. YMMV I guess.
4. Taskbar "Open With"
OK, maybe I need more coffee, but I see apps, not documents, in the taskbar.
5. Taskbar scaling
Meh
6. Anchoring taskbar thumbnails
Meh
7. Newly installed programs we don't even allow programs to pin themselves to the taskbar when they are installed. This is a task expressly reserved for the customer
They're finally starting to catch up with Linux here I guess
8. Jump List length
A lot of these seem to be features we should have had ten years ago.
9. Increased pinning flexibility with Jump List
10. Desktop icon and gadget view options
Touch
the next four have to do with touch screens. As the MegaTouch games you see in bars all run Linux, it looks like Windows may be catching up here as well.
15. Internet access feedback The new network experience from the taskbar's notification area makes it much easier to find and connect to networks
I haven't had a home network for quite a while, but I've never had trouble connecting to my work's network.
16. User Account Control
17. Locking a machine without a screensaver
18. Faster access to High Performance power plan
I guess that may help notebook users
19. Custom theme improvements
Bleh
20-27 Windows Media Player
I hate Windows media player. I use WinAamp in windows, XMMS in Linux.
28. Enriching the Device Stage ecosystem
Market-speak for "we're still behind Linux in this but we're trying".
29. Improving the headphone experience
Bug fix
30. Increased audio reliability
Bug fix
The rest have to do with Windows Explorere. Sorry, Microsoft, this isn't enough to make me want to drop a couple hundred dollars for.
Free Martian Whores!
Why do you say that? I can think of multiple ways to address that issue.
And you don't even address the issue of someone NOT having any of those programs that depend upon the insecure configuration.
#1. Virtual machines for insecure apps.
#2. Load the insecure .dll's only if necessary for an insecure program and then put a notice on the desktop which cannot be removed.
The idea is to move towards a more secure system. Not to keep making excuses.
This is great, but I still don't see ISO mounting, which (as far as I know) has been asked for repeatedly by power users everywhere, and is one of (if not *the*) top request on Connect.
At most clients when I'm documenting work (network configurations, etc.) and writing scripts I'll be using Linux, and when they see me flip screens (desktop cube) they ask me about the OS and "Is that Vista?" (I run a Vista theme courtesy of Emerald - I don't care what you say about Vista's quality, you have to admit its default theme is pretty) so I give them brief tours of Linux - they're invariably impressed and ask if they can run it on their home systems.
I reinstalled my sister's computer for her a month ago, and while I was looking something up on my computer I did a Ctrl-Alt-Right to flip screens. She though that was really cool and asked if I could put it on her computer. I explained the issues and we talked about the software packages she uses, and finally decided to install XP on 160 GB of her 200 GB drive, and Ubuntu 8.10 on the other 40.
About a week later she IMed me to say she was trying to use her printer on Linux and wanted some help. I googled her model and groaned -- it's a Canon with manufacturer-provided binary-only drivers that require a bunch of manual futzing with config files to make work.
Well, back to XP, I figured. I didn't have time to go do it for her. I did give her the URL I found, though. It had reasonably good step-by-step instructions. I didn't hear back from her.
A week later she IMed me to ask how she can find out which printers work with Linux. I was offering to find time to help her get her printer working, before she went to drop money on one when she interrupted to say that no, she got her printer working just fine. She had just been thinking she might want a better printer, but wanted to make sure she got one that supported Linux.
I was pretty surprised both that she got her printer working (she's not dumb by any means, but she's far from a geek either) and that she appeared to be so committed to Linux. Then last week at a family BBQ she asked me what would be the best way to get rid of Windows and give the rest of the drive to Ubuntu.
And it all started with the rotating desktop cube.
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