I dont want a start bar at all. I would love a built in launchy type interface where unless you know they keystroke command to bring up the launch window you cant do shit. Then i wouldnt have to log my pc out all the time when i walk away.
Windows users fail in ways you never thought possible. From shoddy hardware dredged from a dumpster at the Smithsonian, to accepting emails from Ungobe Mjibwe the Nigerian prince, PC users are almost destined to fuck their PCs into oblivion.
Bwahaha, but Ungobe Mjibwe is totally legit!
I totally agree on the BSOD thing- it's annoying for me to figure out what the hell went wrong, much less my little sister, who was probably emailing good old Ungobe to begin with. The world would run much smoother if it were easier to figure out what was wrong with computers in the first place.
I want to be able to completely customize the Explorer UI, I don't like MS thinking that they know better than I do what's good for me. I like the link bar in Vista, but am annoyed that the Details pane gives me useless information (I should be able to choose what it displays), and having a completely separate Preview pane is just an excuse to eat up real estate when the Windows XP way worked just fine.
My biggest pet peeve is Windows guessing the contents of folders completely wrong, and forgetting my folder settings. Has that been fixed in 7? Haven't had a chance to install it yet.
I agree that I would love to have a fully customizable explorer. Many items on the Win7 Explorer go un-used by me. I can think of quite a few additions that would add to my productivity.
I would also love to see better handling of application settings. It's such a painful part of reformatting.
I wish Microsoft would just nuke User Access Control already. Sure, it's kind of less annoying in Win7, but it's still stupid. It confuses the crap out of people. When a user issues command 'x', and the computer locks up every time and asks 'are you sure you want to 'x'?' That's garbage, and it confuses people.
I wouldn't mind having a better solution for disk defragmentation. Probably a wishlist item to coincide with the filesystem adjustments. I'd love for a windows machine to act as OSX does, automatically defragging files as long as you have the free space to do it. Running disk defrag is something I've never gotten into the habit of doing on a regular basis.
What in the world takes windows so long to read and display thumbnails for media files? Whenever I reformat, the first time I access one of my digital camera video folders, it has to re-read and load all the thumbnails. This process takes for an unbelievably long time. ANd what sucks the most - it only loads thumbnails for those files that are visible in explorer, so I have to keep scrolling the window before the OS will load all thumbnails. In OSX, thumbnails load almost instantly for folders of the same size. It may have something to do with how Win7 picks thumbnails from the actual video rather than just taking the first frame. But I recall the process being equally painful in XP.
Auto-defragging will likely not get implemented now that SSDs are getting into the marketplace. Defragging an SSD is useless and may actually detriment the drive.
I do agree with the Explorer wishes; if I can hide recycle bin, my documents, etc in the Start menu, I should be able to reassign Favorites or Library in Explorer.
Auto-defragging will likely not get implemented now that SSDs are getting into the marketplace. Defragging an SSD is useless and may actually detriment the drive.
Auto Defrag is in 7, from what I can see. It does turn itself off if it detects an SSD though.
Defrag came scheduled weekly on my Vista laptop. I imagine doing it constantly in the background would be better, but there's already enough BS Windows services running that keep hitting the hard drive on my laptop - which drives me insane. Seriously. I can't stand hearing hard drive noises constantly and seeing the light flash when I don't know what's accessing it. It's hard to ignore when I'm only a foot or two away from it.
Auto Defrag came with Windows XP. Since then you have the option to have it run when the computer is idle, although using a 3rd party program is always preferable. What Windows 8 needs is a way to actually defrag a fucking drive, swap file and all. Unless that feature is built into Windows 7 and I didn't know it.
And to Thrax, no offense but some of these ideas were clearly filler so you wouldn't have to call it 2 things I want to see from Windows 8. Free up disk space? Do you have a 12gb hard drive? All of the services and utilities that you don't want to leave a trace of can be disabled, I'm not sure why you're concerned about the 300k of disk space they take up when disabled. Just sayin.
As far as services go, the only thing I want Microsoft to change is hide system services that are vital to running Windows, and having an option to show them if you choose. This would be very handy in troubleshooting issues by disabling services, without having to worry about disabling the wrong service, and watching your computer count down to destruction. Giving the end user easy access to disabling services would be a tech support nightmare. There are things that should remain hard to do in Windows and for a very good reason.
I agree that the registry is getting dated, but you are essentially suggesting that we go to a glorified version of the old INI hell. For starters, they could use a real database platform to manage it. I think that it would be beneficial to have a streamlined version of MSSQL (because let's face it, they're not going to use MySQL or Postgre) that not only served as an engine for the registry, but as an engine for an advanced file system as well. Not that I don't like ZFS, but let's be real. MS will never adopt ZFS. It should be up to software vendors to add functionality for migrating their own software, not Microsoft's, and nobody forces them to use the registry. There are also other ways of solving the issues of making the registry and file system database more failsafe and self-correcting.
I agree with you on improving error handling and customizing Windows Explorer. As long as the Explorer configurations are also applied to common dialogs we should definitely be allowed to disable libraries and favorites.
Internet Explorer with WebKit would be like putting a racing spoiler on a Ford Taurus. Even with WebKit, you're still using IE. How about they start with allowing people to copy links and image urls to the clipboard from the context menu, and then work on the hundreds of other features Firefox has that IE doesn't. There's a reason why a large majority of web developers use Firefox as a basis for web development. One would think Microsoft would understand this given their history of putting the needs of administrators and developers over the needs of the end-user.
Neither Outlook or Outlook Express come with Windows. Outlook is an Office product and Outlook Express has been replaced by the optional Windows Live Mail program, which I'm surprised you didn't mention since you're starving for all that precious disk space. BTW, Windows Live Mail allows you to export messages, contacts and account settings, albeit separately.
For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around the idea of 86ing the 32-bit option. That would essentially make half of the computers in the world obsolete. This is actually an issue where Microsoft did the right thing. Instead of forcing its users to move in a certain direction, like they are notorious for doing in the past, they put more effort into making the 64-bit operating system more backwards compatible so less people can use the excuse of compatibility to stay with 32-bit Windows. Maybe when less than 25% of desktops are still using 32-bit processors, we can make the full switch but for now I support Microsoft's approach 100%.
I really feel like an asshole for sounding like such a hater here, but I feel that you just took a really good concept, with a catchy title and put absolutely no thought into it at all. My eyes perked up when I saw the title of this article, but I was severely disappointed with the lack of substance. I love you guys, but come on.
And to Thrax, no offense but some of these ideas were clearly filler so you wouldn't have to call it 2 things I want to see from Windows 8. Free up disk space? Do you have a 12gb hard drive? All of the services and utilities that you don't want to leave a trace of can be disabled, I'm not sure why you're concerned about the 300k of disk space they take up when disabled.
They weren't filler at all. Everything on that list is something I'd change or remove. And yes, keeping the Windows partition to its bare minimum capacity is relevant to my interests. I ran Windows XP on a 5GB partition and I run Windows 7 on a 12GB partition. Size aside, the ability to fully remove protection and services gives users the option to load superior alternatives.
As far as services go, the only thing I want Microsoft to change is hide system services that are vital to running Windows, and having an option to show them if you choose. This would be very handy in troubleshooting issues by disabling services, without having to worry about disabling the wrong service, and watching your computer count down to destruction. Giving the end user easy access to disabling services would be a tech support nightmare. There are things that should remain hard to do in Windows and for a very good reason.
It is already easy to disable services and bork a system. Nobody is suggesting that service removal would be presented to the user at first blush, and indeed it's an option that could be activated only after tinkering with the user policy editor.
You're looking 10 feet ahead when solutions to what you're taking issue with are a mile down the road.
I agree that the registry is getting dated, but you are essentially suggesting that we go to a glorified version of the old INI hell. For starters, they could use a real database platform to manage it. I think that it would be beneficial to have a streamlined version of MSSQL (because let's face it, they're not going to use MySQL or Postgre) that not only served as an engine for the registry, but as an engine for an advanced file system as well. Not that I don't like ZFS, but let's be real. MS will never adopt ZFS. It should be up to software vendors to add functionality for migrating their own software, not Microsoft's, and nobody forces them to use the registry. There are also other ways of solving the issues of making the registry and file system database more failsafe and self-correcting.
Using a databasing engine is just as good as any other solution, but it has to be easy for users to back up. Storing registry entries locally would allow a user to take their applications through a reformat or to any PC without worrying about taking that database with them. There are advantages to databasing the registry, to be certain, but it makes it more complicated for users to push applications around.
Perhaps the middle of the road is a more relevant solution. Applications store their information locally, but the rest of the OS runs on the database model. The OS would get a streamlined alternative to the registry, and users would get to back up their apps in a snap.
And yes, you're right, ZFS may never be a part of Windows, but that's not the point of this article. It's what I would do if I could make those kinds of changes.
Internet Explorer with WebKit would be like putting a racing spoiler on a Ford Taurus. Even with WebKit, you're still using IE. How about they start with allowing people to copy links and image urls to the clipboard from the context menu, and then work on the hundreds of other features Firefox has that IE doesn't. There's a reason why a large majority of web developers use Firefox as a basis for web development. One would think Microsoft would understand this given their history of putting the needs of administrators and developers over the needs of the end-user.
Web developers use Firefox because Firefox has extensions and Gecko. IE was bad for so very long that avoiding it has become habitual, even if it is now fully CSS2-compliant.
Your "reason" as to why Firefox is the development platform of choice isn't even a legitimate reason, so I'm not sure why you brought it up. Your argument essentially boils down to "well IE is IE and people use firefox so why work on IE?" Improving the browser is not about developers. You forget that the VAST MAJORITY of people that use Windows are end-users who couldn't give two shits about dev time, even though switching to webkit would greatly improve IE's robustness as a dev platform.
It would also improve browser rendering, keep IE in sync with the rest of the standards community, and improve security. There are no drawbacks to the change.
Neither Outlook or Outlook Express come with Windows. Outlook is an Office product and Outlook Express has been replaced by the optional Windows Live Mail program, which I'm surprised you didn't mention since you're starving for all that precious disk space. BTW, Windows Live Mail allows you to export messages, contacts and account settings, albeit separately.
I'm aware of all of these things, so I'm not quite sure why you even bothered to point them out. It's like telling the sky "hey, do you know you're blue?" That said, Outlook and Outlook Express are still the most common desktop mail solutions for Windows users. Think Thunderbird has any impact? It doesn't. Even most enterprises use exchange + outlook, and they would benefit greatly from a consistent export model that could be taken to other applications should they ever change platforms.
Users can export their data in WLM, sure, but it cannot be migrated to other applications, and that data still can't be copied raw from the hard disk due to GUIDs.
For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around the idea of 86ing the 32-bit option. That would essentially make half of the computers in the world obsolete. This is actually an issue where Microsoft did the right thing. Instead of forcing its users to move in a certain direction, like they are notorious for doing in the past, they put more effort into making the 64-bit operating system more backwards compatible so less people can use the excuse of compatibility to stay with 32-bit Windows. Maybe when less than 25% of desktops are still using 32-bit processors, we can make the full switch but for now I support Microsoft's approach 100%.
Please review the specs for Midori, the codename for the next version of Windows. It has been confirmed that x86 binaries will not be offered when the OS is released circa 2013. 100% x64 is coming, and it's about time.
More than that, the industry has had no compelling reason to migrate to 64-bit because -- despite the benefits -- nothing has required it explicitly. The PC industry needs a kick in the ass sometimes: New CPU sockets, new video card slots, new form-factors. X64 binaries are no different, and a new OS that supports them exclusively doesn't mean that all current PCs are suddenly obsolete. If anything, the adoption trends with Windows suggest that people are perfectly content to keep their current generation until they absolutely must move.
But this is not a big deal, because you seem unaware that the vast majority of Windows licenses are sold with new PCs, which means that your obsoleting crisis isn't as severe as you make it out to be.
I really feel like an asshole for sounding like such a hater here, but I feel that you just took a really good concept, with a catchy title and put absolutely no thought into it at all. My eyes perked up when I saw the title of this article, but I was severely disappointed with the lack of substance. I love you guys, but come on.
This article is the result of months of playing with Windows 7, weeks of research, days of writing, and a lot of thought about what I would do if I could make the changes I want to make. To suggest that I put no thought into the piece is patently absurd, and a poor expression of your disagreement.
Maybe you have a different 10 ideas in mind. I suggest you channel your efforts into that rather than spending your time offering obvious statements and insincere alternatives that disguise crude attempts to discover shallow reasoning.
First, you are right, in a lot of the examples I am providing an alternative and I shouldn't have implied that my ideas were better than yours in those instances. I have some different ideas about what I would like to see Microsoft do, doesn't mean they are better or worse than yours, and I didn't put as much time into my responses as you put into this article.
However, I stand by my statement that a lot of this was filler. I can sort of understand why you are so anal about disk space, I understand the logic, but it still seems a bit trite to me. It hardly seems like saving a couple megabytes of disk space is worth spanning two separate points, especially considering that they are both part of Windows' built-in security suite.
I have been in this business for a while. I am the guy people call for realistic solutions that cater to the end user, and not my inner geek. Some of the points you made seem like ideas that seem logical to a person who is an expert, but would be counter-intuitive to the average end-user experience. In other words, there are a few points you made that you seem to be saying, "I wish Windows was more like Linux." There's a reason why Linux has not caught on in the desktop computing market, and that's because operating systems have stuck to a model that is designed to make everything idiot-proof, rather than geek friendly. I understand these are things that YOU would like to see in Windows, but as an admin, there are a lot of reasons why I don't want to see Windows become more like Linux. I value my sanity.
But this is not a big deal, because you seem unaware that the vast majority of Windows licenses are sold with new PCs, which means that your obsoleting crisis isn't as severe as you make it out to be.
True, but doesn't that also make your point about the amount of people still using Outlook Express moot as well? Seeing as how it hasn't been included with the last two versions of Windows, and the replacement addresses most of your concerns, it doesn't really matter how many people are still using OE. They aren't effected by these changes at all unless they migrate to the newer client.
That being said, Outlook has become a bloated piece of crap. I find it amusing that they completely "modernized" the UI in Office, but did nothing to change some of the internals that have been holding back the entire Office suite for years. Among a million other things, simplifying migration in Outlook would be prudent. Even though... you know. We're still talking about the next version of Windows and not Office.
I apologize for being so harsh though. In my defense, I think I read two or three of your points and thought, this is bullshit, and decided to tear the rest of article apart out of bias. So I'm going to make like the other DJ named Norman and praise you like I should.
One of the biggest thing windows could learn from OS X is the way programs are managed. No installations spanned across your harddrive. You have 1 package that drag and drop and that's it (some exceptions apply). You want to back up your software or do anything you just drag that application to the new location and your done. All your settings, save games - whatever intact.
^ This. There are a thousand ways to accomplish this, but ditching the registry and not hiding settings in a hidden folder on %SYSTEMDRIVE% is critical.
100% spot on. I might add a hope that they will stop with the ridiculousness that is Windows Genuine Advantage, and perhaps have a better means of distribution than optical media in boxes at stores. As far as the design choices for the OS itself, you could not have done a better analysis, and it like Microsoft is tuned in and listening at long last. Perhaps we will see a few of these bullet points in 7's first service pack? Lets keep on em.
Great and timely article! I agree with all of the points raised, especially with application-settings/registry issues.
I only want to add one more item about the installation of user applications. All of the user applications should be strictly prohibited from writing in the system folder both during installation and while running. And user applications should not be permitted running permanent services. If an application needs a system extension, such as an additional service or driver (or even just a configuration change), those should only be allowed with WHQL-like certification and installed separately from the application installation through a standard interface controlled/designed by Microsoft (or another independent certification institution). This should, IMHO, improve the system reliability,efficiency, and security. System extensions, permanent services, background tasks added by applications are the most significant reasons for degradation of Windows installations.
Most of the article is spot on. What I really agree with is nixing the registry. I don't agree with your solution though. Perhaps I'm just a *nix purist, but once the app is installed I don't want it writing it's data to its application folder. At all. Ever (with the possible exception of licensing/updating). What I'd ideally like to see is this:
*A standardized database, that can be backed up, to store registration information and that is accessible to ALL PROGRAMS. This way if you need to reformat you can just restore said database and all your programs go "hey, we're registered on this computer already, sweet". No more having to type in activation keys every time your reinstall.
*ALL configuration, save files, etc. written to the users home dir. This simplifies backup and portability. All you have to do is make sure your homedir is backed up and even if you reformat you just need to restore your homedir and bingo, all your settings, saves and whatnot are there.
*As much as it pains me to admit it... Mac style, drag and drop installation would be a huge plus. There... I said it... Apple did do that right at least.
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
Comments
I'm a bad.....?
Bwahaha, but Ungobe Mjibwe is totally legit!
I totally agree on the BSOD thing- it's annoying for me to figure out what the hell went wrong, much less my little sister, who was probably emailing good old Ungobe to begin with. The world would run much smoother if it were easier to figure out what was wrong with computers in the first place.
My biggest pet peeve is Windows guessing the contents of folders completely wrong, and forgetting my folder settings. Has that been fixed in 7? Haven't had a chance to install it yet.
I loved the analysis to which this line refers. It was my favorite tech-based math piece I've ever read.
I agree that I would love to have a fully customizable explorer. Many items on the Win7 Explorer go un-used by me. I can think of quite a few additions that would add to my productivity.
I would also love to see better handling of application settings. It's such a painful part of reformatting.
I wish Microsoft would just nuke User Access Control already. Sure, it's kind of less annoying in Win7, but it's still stupid. It confuses the crap out of people. When a user issues command 'x', and the computer locks up every time and asks 'are you sure you want to 'x'?' That's garbage, and it confuses people.
I wouldn't mind having a better solution for disk defragmentation. Probably a wishlist item to coincide with the filesystem adjustments. I'd love for a windows machine to act as OSX does, automatically defragging files as long as you have the free space to do it. Running disk defrag is something I've never gotten into the habit of doing on a regular basis.
What in the world takes windows so long to read and display thumbnails for media files? Whenever I reformat, the first time I access one of my digital camera video folders, it has to re-read and load all the thumbnails. This process takes for an unbelievably long time. ANd what sucks the most - it only loads thumbnails for those files that are visible in explorer, so I have to keep scrolling the window before the OS will load all thumbnails. In OSX, thumbnails load almost instantly for folders of the same size. It may have something to do with how Win7 picks thumbnails from the actual video rather than just taking the first frame. But I recall the process being equally painful in XP.
I do agree with the Explorer wishes; if I can hide recycle bin, my documents, etc in the Start menu, I should be able to reassign Favorites or Library in Explorer.
And to Thrax, no offense but some of these ideas were clearly filler so you wouldn't have to call it 2 things I want to see from Windows 8. Free up disk space? Do you have a 12gb hard drive? All of the services and utilities that you don't want to leave a trace of can be disabled, I'm not sure why you're concerned about the 300k of disk space they take up when disabled. Just sayin.
As far as services go, the only thing I want Microsoft to change is hide system services that are vital to running Windows, and having an option to show them if you choose. This would be very handy in troubleshooting issues by disabling services, without having to worry about disabling the wrong service, and watching your computer count down to destruction. Giving the end user easy access to disabling services would be a tech support nightmare. There are things that should remain hard to do in Windows and for a very good reason.
I agree that the registry is getting dated, but you are essentially suggesting that we go to a glorified version of the old INI hell. For starters, they could use a real database platform to manage it. I think that it would be beneficial to have a streamlined version of MSSQL (because let's face it, they're not going to use MySQL or Postgre) that not only served as an engine for the registry, but as an engine for an advanced file system as well. Not that I don't like ZFS, but let's be real. MS will never adopt ZFS. It should be up to software vendors to add functionality for migrating their own software, not Microsoft's, and nobody forces them to use the registry. There are also other ways of solving the issues of making the registry and file system database more failsafe and self-correcting.
I agree with you on improving error handling and customizing Windows Explorer. As long as the Explorer configurations are also applied to common dialogs we should definitely be allowed to disable libraries and favorites.
Internet Explorer with WebKit would be like putting a racing spoiler on a Ford Taurus. Even with WebKit, you're still using IE. How about they start with allowing people to copy links and image urls to the clipboard from the context menu, and then work on the hundreds of other features Firefox has that IE doesn't. There's a reason why a large majority of web developers use Firefox as a basis for web development. One would think Microsoft would understand this given their history of putting the needs of administrators and developers over the needs of the end-user.
Neither Outlook or Outlook Express come with Windows. Outlook is an Office product and Outlook Express has been replaced by the optional Windows Live Mail program, which I'm surprised you didn't mention since you're starving for all that precious disk space. BTW, Windows Live Mail allows you to export messages, contacts and account settings, albeit separately.
For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around the idea of 86ing the 32-bit option. That would essentially make half of the computers in the world obsolete. This is actually an issue where Microsoft did the right thing. Instead of forcing its users to move in a certain direction, like they are notorious for doing in the past, they put more effort into making the 64-bit operating system more backwards compatible so less people can use the excuse of compatibility to stay with 32-bit Windows. Maybe when less than 25% of desktops are still using 32-bit processors, we can make the full switch but for now I support Microsoft's approach 100%.
I really feel like an asshole for sounding like such a hater here, but I feel that you just took a really good concept, with a catchy title and put absolutely no thought into it at all. My eyes perked up when I saw the title of this article, but I was severely disappointed with the lack of substance. I love you guys, but come on.
They weren't filler at all. Everything on that list is something I'd change or remove. And yes, keeping the Windows partition to its bare minimum capacity is relevant to my interests. I ran Windows XP on a 5GB partition and I run Windows 7 on a 12GB partition. Size aside, the ability to fully remove protection and services gives users the option to load superior alternatives.
It is already easy to disable services and bork a system. Nobody is suggesting that service removal would be presented to the user at first blush, and indeed it's an option that could be activated only after tinkering with the user policy editor.
You're looking 10 feet ahead when solutions to what you're taking issue with are a mile down the road.
Using a databasing engine is just as good as any other solution, but it has to be easy for users to back up. Storing registry entries locally would allow a user to take their applications through a reformat or to any PC without worrying about taking that database with them. There are advantages to databasing the registry, to be certain, but it makes it more complicated for users to push applications around.
Perhaps the middle of the road is a more relevant solution. Applications store their information locally, but the rest of the OS runs on the database model. The OS would get a streamlined alternative to the registry, and users would get to back up their apps in a snap.
And yes, you're right, ZFS may never be a part of Windows, but that's not the point of this article. It's what I would do if I could make those kinds of changes.
Web developers use Firefox because Firefox has extensions and Gecko. IE was bad for so very long that avoiding it has become habitual, even if it is now fully CSS2-compliant.
Your "reason" as to why Firefox is the development platform of choice isn't even a legitimate reason, so I'm not sure why you brought it up. Your argument essentially boils down to "well IE is IE and people use firefox so why work on IE?" Improving the browser is not about developers. You forget that the VAST MAJORITY of people that use Windows are end-users who couldn't give two shits about dev time, even though switching to webkit would greatly improve IE's robustness as a dev platform.
It would also improve browser rendering, keep IE in sync with the rest of the standards community, and improve security. There are no drawbacks to the change.
I'm aware of all of these things, so I'm not quite sure why you even bothered to point them out. It's like telling the sky "hey, do you know you're blue?" That said, Outlook and Outlook Express are still the most common desktop mail solutions for Windows users. Think Thunderbird has any impact? It doesn't. Even most enterprises use exchange + outlook, and they would benefit greatly from a consistent export model that could be taken to other applications should they ever change platforms.
Users can export their data in WLM, sure, but it cannot be migrated to other applications, and that data still can't be copied raw from the hard disk due to GUIDs.
Please review the specs for Midori, the codename for the next version of Windows. It has been confirmed that x86 binaries will not be offered when the OS is released circa 2013. 100% x64 is coming, and it's about time.
More than that, the industry has had no compelling reason to migrate to 64-bit because -- despite the benefits -- nothing has required it explicitly. The PC industry needs a kick in the ass sometimes: New CPU sockets, new video card slots, new form-factors. X64 binaries are no different, and a new OS that supports them exclusively doesn't mean that all current PCs are suddenly obsolete. If anything, the adoption trends with Windows suggest that people are perfectly content to keep their current generation until they absolutely must move.
But this is not a big deal, because you seem unaware that the vast majority of Windows licenses are sold with new PCs, which means that your obsoleting crisis isn't as severe as you make it out to be.
This article is the result of months of playing with Windows 7, weeks of research, days of writing, and a lot of thought about what I would do if I could make the changes I want to make. To suggest that I put no thought into the piece is patently absurd, and a poor expression of your disagreement.
Maybe you have a different 10 ideas in mind. I suggest you channel your efforts into that rather than spending your time offering obvious statements and insincere alternatives that disguise crude attempts to discover shallow reasoning.
I've loved your posts in the past, but come on.
However, I stand by my statement that a lot of this was filler. I can sort of understand why you are so anal about disk space, I understand the logic, but it still seems a bit trite to me. It hardly seems like saving a couple megabytes of disk space is worth spanning two separate points, especially considering that they are both part of Windows' built-in security suite.
I have been in this business for a while. I am the guy people call for realistic solutions that cater to the end user, and not my inner geek. Some of the points you made seem like ideas that seem logical to a person who is an expert, but would be counter-intuitive to the average end-user experience. In other words, there are a few points you made that you seem to be saying, "I wish Windows was more like Linux." There's a reason why Linux has not caught on in the desktop computing market, and that's because operating systems have stuck to a model that is designed to make everything idiot-proof, rather than geek friendly. I understand these are things that YOU would like to see in Windows, but as an admin, there are a lot of reasons why I don't want to see Windows become more like Linux. I value my sanity.
True, but doesn't that also make your point about the amount of people still using Outlook Express moot as well? Seeing as how it hasn't been included with the last two versions of Windows, and the replacement addresses most of your concerns, it doesn't really matter how many people are still using OE. They aren't effected by these changes at all unless they migrate to the newer client.
That being said, Outlook has become a bloated piece of crap. I find it amusing that they completely "modernized" the UI in Office, but did nothing to change some of the internals that have been holding back the entire Office suite for years. Among a million other things, simplifying migration in Outlook would be prudent. Even though... you know. We're still talking about the next version of Windows and not Office.
I apologize for being so harsh though. In my defense, I think I read two or three of your points and thought, this is bullshit, and decided to tear the rest of article apart out of bias. So I'm going to make like the other DJ named Norman and praise you like I should.
Windows needs this type of app functionality.
I only want to add one more item about the installation of user applications. All of the user applications should be strictly prohibited from writing in the system folder both during installation and while running. And user applications should not be permitted running permanent services. If an application needs a system extension, such as an additional service or driver (or even just a configuration change), those should only be allowed with WHQL-like certification and installed separately from the application installation through a standard interface controlled/designed by Microsoft (or another independent certification institution). This should, IMHO, improve the system reliability,efficiency, and security. System extensions, permanent services, background tasks added by applications are the most significant reasons for degradation of Windows installations.
*A standardized database, that can be backed up, to store registration information and that is accessible to ALL PROGRAMS. This way if you need to reformat you can just restore said database and all your programs go "hey, we're registered on this computer already, sweet". No more having to type in activation keys every time your reinstall.
*ALL configuration, save files, etc. written to the users home dir. This simplifies backup and portability. All you have to do is make sure your homedir is backed up and even if you reformat you just need to restore your homedir and bingo, all your settings, saves and whatnot are there.
*As much as it pains me to admit it... Mac style, drag and drop installation would be a huge plus. There... I said it... Apple did do that right at least.