Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Windows 7: first impressions

Not so hot.

I know the change to file storage was a Vista thing, but... damn, it's bad.

"My Pictures" - the folder is "locked," you have to go into the Pictures library to get to them. Why? "My Documents" - similarly problematic. The user documents set-up is not intuitive to someone who's used to files being where you put them for fifteen years. Don't even get me started on "where the hell did my WoW folder go?" If I could turn off the "libraries" thing and go back to getting to stuff via the folder I put it in, I would be very happy.

Do I even get to choose where stuff is installed anymore? I don't appreciate Microsoft deciding how to organize my information. I put stuff where I had it for a reason.

Graphically, I don't like it. The transparency/fading stuff - not my thing. Turn it off, and the windows are flat and ugly. I don't like the new folder icons (it looks like stuff is going to fall out). I don't like my folder display space eaten up by menus on the left. Even in XP I use "Windows Classic" folders.

"Pinning" programs to the taskbar instead of having a quick launch bar - theoretically, not bad. However, there's so much extra space stuck between the icons that just won't go away.

Customization is spread all over, and the terminology is all... half different. Some terms apply to things I'm not used to them doing so. And it's so convoluted I can't even tell if there's a way to make it look like XP. Or rather, Windows 2000, since I made my XP look like Windows 2000.

Everything is all pictures and whatnot now - I turned the quick access bar into a toolbar and hid the Ribbon in Word for a reason.

Outlook is not playing nice with Hotmail again. (Why? They're both Microsoft products.)

Honestly, I don't haven't found anything about Windows 7 that is better than Windows XP. The macro to make Esc work as my large thumb button on my mouse lags, and there's no driver to make my media keyboard work. I have to advance music manually in the program, rather than hitting the "next" button on my keyboard. Despite being able to address all 4 gb of RAM in my system now, it actually feels slower.

So... bottom line: Windows 7: uglier and more autocratic.

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