What things do you love and hate about Windows Vista and higher?

Wonder why almost everyone is going for Windows hate?

Well, I FUCKING HATE the taskbar thumbnail preview bullshit. I've tried everything to disable it but nothing works. It shits me to tears!

I mainly like Windows 7 and in my opinion the problems mainly started with Windows 8 so here's three things I love and hate about modem Windows versions.

LOVE

• Being able to search from the Start Menu when possible. I'm currently stuck with Windows XP for a couple more days and I keep accidentally making the Control Panel open when I open the Start Menu and type "CMD".
• Snipping Tool. XP doesn't seem to have the tool that lets me quickly crop part of the screen and paste it into conversations.
• Aero Snap. I find myself trying to drag a window to the side or the top of the even only to not see it automatically cover half of the screen or maximize the window in XP. Even if they removed Aero Glass, at least Microsoft kept the useful snapping behavior.

HATE

• They removed a lot of customization after Windows 7. Colors? Gone. Ability to choose the classic theme? Gone, stuck with ugly single-color title bars. They also removed Aero Glass, which is why I didn't include it in the "like" section above as I liked Aero Glass!
• Mobile apps are where they don't belong. Microsoft, starting with Windows 8, felt they needed to shove mobile apps onto a desktop operating system. Said apps on mobile devices would usually lack features proper programs or even websites would have.
• Desktop Window Manager. It was nice back when there was proper “glass” you could use on all windows as DWM powered the beautiful effects, but nowadays I'd like for DWM to stop using the GPU as the main cool thing it powered no longer exists. After a big update Adobe Premiere Pro would do old-school wipe screen redraws, making it a chore to edit text and videos, and guess what process' GPU usage shot to 100% every time? DWM! Windows 7 didn't make that happen when I edited videos on it!

6 hours ago, savagegrant said:

Well, I FUCKING HATE the taskbar thumbnail preview bullshit. I've tried everything to disable it but nothing works. It shits me to tears!

Taskbar preview panes of open windows when you mouse-over them.
I don't see the usefulness of this 'feature'.  I think you can also turn off the Aero desktop, which may disable this.

This is down my list of annoyances, but it is on there.  I've known lots of people who have dozens(if not hundreds) of windows open at once -- and I do see the usefulness if you are one of those people.  I don't, so it is nothing but an annoyance.  These procedures are for Windows7, but should work with 8 or 10.

If your version of Windows7 has the group policy editor(Ultimate/Professional), then you can change this there.
a) run gpedit.msc in the Run dialog box and turn it off 
b) Navigate to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar in left pane of Local Group Policy Editor.
c) Locate and double click on Turn off taskbar thumbnails in right pane of Local Group Policy editor.
d) Select Enabled radion button.
e) Click OK to make the change effective.  (You will need to re-logon/reboot to enable the fix)

If you have Windows7 Home, then:
a) Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press {ENTER}
b) Navigate to the following location: 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
c) Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named ExtendedUIHoverTime
d) Double-click ExtendedUIHoverTime and click Decimal
e) This is in milliseconds so it needs a large delay number; 400000 or so is fine.
f) Exit the Registry Editor. (You will need to re-logon/reboot to enable the fix)

General rant here about Windows 7. Yesterday, my computer downloaded software updates for about 1 hour, during which time it brought all other processes to a crawl. Today, it installed the updates, and slowed everything down again (thankfully, only for about 15 minutes). And this happens quite frequently, causing much frustration and annoyance.

4 hours ago, ReX said:

General rant here about Windows 7. Yesterday, my computer downloaded software updates for about 1 hour

Well this is interesting, I've been through the exact same experience on W10 with this month's cummulative update.

On 2/13/2018 at 2:41 AM, Xane123 said:

Snipping Tool. XP doesn't seem to have the tool that lets me quickly crop part of the screen and paste it into conversations.

Basically the only thing that I really love about Windows 7 and higher.

On 2/13/2018 at 2:41 AM, Xane123 said:

HATE

• They removed a lot of customization after Windows 7. Colors? Gone. Ability to choose the classic theme? Gone, stuck with ugly single-color title bars. They also removed Aero Glass, which is why I didn't include it in the "like" section above as I liked Aero Glass!
• Mobile apps are where they don't belong. Microsoft, starting with Windows 8, felt they needed to shove mobile apps onto a desktop operating system. Said apps on mobile devices would usually lack features proper programs or even websites would have.
• Desktop Window Manager. It was nice back when there was proper “glass” you could use on all windows as DWM powered the beautiful effects, but nowadays I'd like for DWM to stop using the GPU as the main cool thing it powered no longer exists. After a big update Adobe Premiere Pro would do old-school wipe screen redraws, making it a chore to edit text and videos, and guess what process' GPU usage shot to 100% every time? DWM! Windows 7 didn't make that happen when I edited videos on it!

1. Yeah, the new design really sucks. It is really ugly. The old Aero Glass was really better.

From Wikipedia:

Quote

The Aero Glass theme is replaced by a new theme with a flatter visual appearance in line with Metro design language. This is intended to prevent skeuomorphism. Aside from the taskbar, the new theme uses fewer transparency effects than the previous Glass theme.

It is really ugly, they felt the need to shove useless Metro design language onto Windows 8.

2. Mobile apps are useless on desktops, indeed.

3. DWM is now an useless shit nowadays. Nothing really useful about it.

Saddest thing is, Windows 10 Technical Preview had a cool drop shadow effect that they removed for no f***ing reason in later builds of Windows 10.

From Wikipedia:

Windows 8 was going to have Aero Glass, but was shitcanned.

No, it is strictly from Wikipedia.

I don't like the flat look of Windows 10. I hate how everything has to be "minimalist" and "clean", why can't we just have Windows Aero back pls

Oh, apparently I'm not alone on this one.

Found a nice utility a while back: http://www.glass8.eu/

At least there are people trying to fix up flat look shit in Windows 8 and higher.

On 2/13/2018 at 5:23 AM, Opulent said:

Taskbar preview panes of open windows when you mouse-over them.
I don't see the usefulness of this 'feature'.  I think you can also turn off the Aero desktop, which may disable this.

This is down my list of annoyances, but it is on there.  I've known lots of people who have dozens(if not hundreds) of windows open at once -- and I do see the usefulness if you are one of those people.  I don't, so it is nothing but an annoyance.  These procedures are for Windows7, but should work with 8 or 10.

If your version of Windows7 has the group policy editor(Ultimate/Professional), then you can change this there.
a) run gpedit.msc in the Run dialog box and turn it off 
b) Navigate to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar in left pane of Local Group Policy Editor.
c) Locate and double click on Turn off taskbar thumbnails in right pane of Local Group Policy editor.
d) Select Enabled radion button.
e) Click OK to make the change effective.  (You will need to re-logon/reboot to enable the fix)

 

If you have Windows7 Home, then:
a) Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press {ENTER}
b) Navigate to the following location: 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
c) Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named ExtendedUIHoverTime
d) Double-click ExtendedUIHoverTime and click Decimal
e) This is in milliseconds so it needs a large delay number; 400000 or so is fine.
f) Exit the Registry Editor. (You will need to re-logon/reboot to enable the fix)

Thanks but I've tried both of those things and they've never worked.

i mostly use windows 7, but really the only thing i actually hate about it is how it looks. personally, i prefer the older windows 2000 look.

but that's why classic shell is a thing.

What I hate about Windows is that the company behind it, Microsoft, is that they often scrap good things. Just look at the beta of Windows XP, 7 and 8, XP was going to have sky background in its OOBE, 7 beta had nice background in Windows Setup and Desktop and 8 was going to retain Aero Glass, all of which was scrapped.

Also, Windows 10 UI is bland and too flat, the backward compatibility is fucked up. I prefer Windows 2000 and Windows 7 look.

Also, Why tf would anyone care about Win2000 look? Wasn't Win2000 released as a Windows version intended only for professionals and non-consumers and for servers?

And yeah, Win10 single-colored title bar is ugly as f***.

Windows 2000 was a much, much better OS than Windows 98 and, unlike NT4, was fully capable of running games, usually at higher framerates than 98. It was the OS that 98 should have been in the first place (or, more precisely, Windows 98 should never have existed and Microsoft should have shipped a consumer-focused NT version and let 95 wither away like the hacked-together Frankenstein's monster of an OS it was). Also the Windows 2000 interface is mostly unchanged from Windows 95 and 98, which a lot of people liked for being all business and no flash.

E: And the word is spelled "fuck". You can say "fuck" here.

I kind of wish Microsoft kept the ability to play sounds and music's right from Explorer from Win2000. It is faster than having to open Media Player.

Also, wish Win2000 was released to consumers. And I wouldn't be surprised if admins of that time used it.

Also, I prefer old Win2000 look while listening to Canyon.mid and passport.mid. It just feels more at home with the UI for me.

Also, why would any gamer here use Win2000?

No, because Windows XP does everything 2000 did better. I briefly used Windows 2000 on a retro machine but using XP is just less of a chore. 2000 could run most, though not all, Windows 98 games and was plenty suitable for a gaming PC in its heyday, before XP was out.

So what do you mean is that Win2000 was suitable for a gaming PC, yet none actually used for that?

On 2/20/2018 at 9:11 AM, Cacodemon345 said:

Also, wish Win2000 was released to consumers

What do you mean by "consumers"?

What? Consumers mean us normal people.

@chungy

5 hours ago, Cacodemon345 said:

So what do you mean is that Win2000 was suitable for a gaming PC, yet none actually used for that?

It is, and it was used widely as a consumer OS in Japan, which is why the unofficial patches to improve 2000's compatibility with later software are buried deep in the bowels of sites written entirely in Japanese.

Anybody could have bought Windows 2000 when it was new, and all versions of Windows are made for consumers (of different types, of course). Quite a lot of people (at home) got Windows 2000 actually under the assumption that it was the intended upgrade path from 95 and 98.

For a time, even Microsoft planned it to be the home user's upgrade... until its Home Edition was nixed and delayed for the next NT release.

It makes me wonder if some major turf battles between the NT team and the 9x team and various other office politics were going on in Microsoft's Windows product planning from the late '90s up until 2007 or so because they seemed incredibly indecisive with developing and releasing Windows versions during that time.

8 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

It makes me wonder if some major turf battles between the NT team and the 9x team and various other office politics were going on in Microsoft's Windows product planning from the late '90s up until 2007

It would kill Windows if anything. But I can't ignore your point.

Basically Windows ME and Windows Vista was utter trash, which might be due to these. Microsoft reset Windows Vista development maybe due to the reason that you posted.

It also makes me wonder what is going with Microsoft now.

Also, what mistakes did MS did in Windows?

I think you're reading more into my idle speculation than I intended.

I also used Win2000 for a brief amount of time before moving to WinXP.

Also, I am not reading more into your idle speculation. I simply asked a question and I simply stated my own opinion.

Also, this thread is getting replies slowly.