Vista, did they even fix anything?



  • I started using vista for the first time a few weeks ago(was borrowing a friends laptop), our clients haven't moved to vista yet so we haven't bothered with the upgrade either, and wow after a cursory inspection what a piece of shit.  I know there has been many a post about vista before but one thing that struck me using vista was the fact that all the usability bugs that were in xp seem to exist in vista plus a few more.

    1.  if you are actually bothering to do the safely remove hardware thing for an external hdd it still about 90% of the time comes up with the "can't be stopped blah blah blah" message and still doesn't actually tell you what is using it.

    2.  when copying files it still stops the copy on the whole "Thumbs.db is a system file are you sure you want to copy" which i can't beleive is still there because it doesn't make a pinch of shits difference whether you copy it or not.  I mean couldn't they have made an arbitrary decision to either always copy or not copyd ?  that always annoys me when you're copying a bunch of shit ancome back an hour later to find it's stopped copying.

    3.  when using multiple monitors there still isn't a "move to monitor" option when right clicking stuff in the taskbar.  and i apologise if it is an option you can turn on somewhere, i was in nepal and had no internet access at the time to google ii cout so ld be wrong, but if it is an option i couldn't find it.

    4.  i plugged in an external hdd the other day from my old laptop which still had an xp install on one partition and loads of files on the other ones as well and it just sits there scanning the drive, i stopped waiting at 15 minutes and just unplugged it.  The insane thing is the drive doesn't appear until after the scan but there was no dialog to cancel the scan.  I know it's not the hdd because it works perfectly on OSX, ubuntu and xp.  Plus what's the point of that scanning bullshit, just show me the damn file system, i know my tv episodes are in the videos folder on the root of the drive and there are hundreds of them so there is no way i would ever want to click the "start playing videos" option and i don't know why anyone would because it's pretty rare to actually only have one or two videos on an external drive anyway.

     

    That's just some of the stuff i noticed in my small venture into vista, i had assumed they would have spent time improving the usability of the OS rather than just having some shiny effects and the same old usability bugs, i was sorely dissappointed.  plus the thing ran mad slooooowwwwww.  considering it was a pretty decent new hp laptop i was really disappointed with the speed of it. 

     

    well that's my rant for the day, peace out



  • In response to number 4 that can be disabled, google autoplay (not autorun as that's something else) and make the necessary registry changes, otherwise you can change it with a GUI, it takes roughly 20 clicks to complete (at least on XP). Also Vista likes RAM, if you have 512MB of ram it'll be slow, also be aware "vista compatible" is a load of shit.



  • In before MPS



  • @element[0] said:

    1.  if you are actually bothering to do the safely remove hardware thing for an external hdd it still about 90% of the time comes up with the "can't be stopped blah blah blah" message and still doesn't actually tell you what is using it.
     

    This is really more likely to be your drivers than Vista. You should try and see if the vendor has more current drivers. Otherwise see if other people have had better luck with other drives.

    @element[0] said:

    2.  when copying files it still stops the copy on the whole "Thumbs.db is a system file are you sure you want to copy" which i can't beleive is still there because it doesn't make a pinch of shits difference whether you copy it or not.  I mean couldn't they have made an arbitrary decision to either always copy or not copyd ?  that always annoys me when you're copying a bunch of shit ancome back an hour later to find it's stopped copying.

    Windows treats all system/hidden files the same. I don't think I would want to see Windows suddenly try to guess that all thumb.db should be treated differently. The current system seems to be fine.

    Also, it sounds like you have 'View hidden and system files' turned on in your folder options. I believe if you turn this off (default) you will no longer get this dialog.

    @element[0] said:

    3.  when using multiple monitors there still isn't a "move to monitor" option when right clicking stuff in the taskbar.  and i apologise if it is an option you can turn on somewhere, i was in nepal and had no internet access at the time to google ii cout so ld be wrong, but if it is an option i couldn't find it.

    This would probably be nice functionality for Windows in the future, but Windows cannot be all things to all people. It tries, but everyone has different preferences. 

    Most people that use multi monitors that I know simply drag the window to the other monitor or use a third party program to accomplish this with the options you are looking for.

    Some ideas:

    http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm

    http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/

    @element[0] said:

    4.  i plugged in an external hdd the other day from my old laptop which still had an xp install on one partition and loads of files on the other ones as well and it just sits there scanning the drive, i stopped waiting at 15 minutes and just unplugged it.  The insane thing is the drive doesn't appear until after the scan but there was no dialog to cancel the scan.  I know it's not the hdd because it works perfectly on OSX, ubuntu and xp.  Plus what's the point of that scanning bullshit, just show me the damn file system, i know my tv episodes are in the videos folder on the root of the drive and there are hundreds of them so there is no way i would ever want to click the "start playing videos" option and i don't know why anyone would because it's pretty rare to actually only have one or two videos on an external drive anyway.

    If this bothers you, you should turn off autorun or just hold the shift key while you plug the drive in. This will remove this behavior.

    Windows will not get rid of this behavior, as many of it's users depend on this.

     




  • @element[0] said:

    1.  if you are actually bothering to do the safely remove hardware thing for an external hdd it still about 90% of the time comes up with the "can't be stopped blah blah blah" message and still doesn't actually tell you what is using it.
     

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    This is really more likely to be your drivers than Vista. You should try and see if the vendor has more current drivers. Otherwise see if other people have had better luck with other drives.

    really?  have you ever installed drivers for a usb IDE caddy?  i haven't since 98 and i've never had issues before. 

    @element[0] said:

    2.  when copying files it still stops the copy on the whole "Thumbs.db is a system file are you sure you want to copy" which i can't beleive is still there because it doesn't make a pinch of shits difference whether you copy it or not.  I mean couldn't they have made an arbitrary decision to either always copy or not copyd ?  that always annoys me when you're copying a bunch of shit ancome back an hour later to find it's stopped copying.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

     

    Windows treats all system/hidden files the same. I don't think I would want to see Windows suddenly try to guess that all thumb.db should be treated differently. The current system seems to be fine.

    Also, it sounds like you have 'View hidden and system files' turned on in your folder options. I believe if you turn this off (default) you will no longer get this dialog.

    Why?

    Windows makes the thumbs db files, the way they work makes no difference to not copy them and if you do it just gets automatically re-written.  why wouldn't you want a default option for that?

    Also i know it won't happen if i hide "system files" but you can't seriously be telling me that you run windows with this option on. 

    @element[0] said:

    3.  when using multiple monitors there still isn't a "move to monitor" option when right clicking stuff in the taskbar.  and i apologise if it is an option you can turn on somewhere, i was in nepal and had no internet access at the time to google ii cout so ld be wrong, but if it is an option i couldn't find it.

     @MasterPlanSoftware said:

      

    This would probably be nice functionality for Windows in the future, but Windows cannot be all things to all people. It tries, but everyone has different preferences. 

    Most people that use multi monitors that I know simply drag the window to the other monitor or use a third party program to accomplish this with the options you are looking for.

    Some ideas:

    http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm

    http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/

     

    i use ultramon for this but seeing as a hefty chunk of users use multiple monitors, in fact pretty much every computer professional i know uses more than one monitor(i use 3) + everyone plugs their computer into their tv.  a "move to monitor" option should definitely be built into the OS.  Plus how easy would it be to check the screen count and if it is greater than one just add a button on the taskbar menu that repositions windows to another monitor.  It's the kind of thing i can live with installing a third party thing for in xp because when it was realeased not many people used multiple monitors, now they do, the vista team should have recognised this, it's just poor planning.

    @element[0] said:

    4.  i plugged in an external hdd the other day from my old laptop which still had an xp install on one partition and loads of files on the other ones as well and it just sits there scanning the drive, i stopped waiting at 15 minutes and just unplugged it.  The insane thing is the drive doesn't appear until after the scan but there was no dialog to cancel the scan.  I know it's not the hdd because it works perfectly on OSX, ubuntu and xp.  Plus what's the point of that scanning bullshit, just show me the damn file system, i know my tv episodes are in the videos folder on the root of the drive and there are hundreds of them so there is no way i would ever want to click the "start playing videos" option and i don't know why anyone would because it's pretty rare to actually only have one or two videos on an external drive anyway.

     @MasterPlanSoftware said:

       

    If this bothers you, you should turn off autorun or just hold the shift key while you plug the drive in. This will remove this behavior.

    Windows will not get rid of this behavior, as many of it's users depend on this.

     

    cheers for the heads up, i didn't know about the shift thing(i always just diasable that functionality in xp) but have you ever actually plugged in a drive with  500 video files on it and clicked the "play video" option.  try it, have fun.  Also the average user isn't going to understand this, they will just think the drive is broken if it never comes up.



  • @element[0] said:

    Also i know it won't happen if i hide "system files" but you can't seriously be telling me that you run windows with this option on. 
    FWIW, I used to turn off "Hide protected OS files" (i.e. files with both hidden and system attributes set), but I got tired of seeing 2 desktop.ini files on my desktop all the time.

    Now I just choose the "show hidden files and folders" option.  (I get to see most hidden files, except the ones with the system bit set, which I almost never want to see.)



  • @element[0] said:

    really?  have you ever installed drivers for a usb IDE caddy?  i haven't since 98 and i've never had issues before. 
     

    Nope. But then, I have never had a problem with the hardware and never needed to suspect the drivers.

    You should look into this if you are interested in solving the problem.

    @element[0] said:

    Windows makes the thumbs db files

    I am sorry, but this is does not excuse non standard behavior. I don't agree that this exemption should be made.

    @element[0] said:

    Also i know it won't happen if i hide "system files" but you can't seriously be telling me that you run windows with this option on. 

    I don't, but I except that my user experience will be different than a 'standard user'. The 'standard user' operation will not prompt for these files.

    Since we have a more 'advanced option' turned on, I think the extra question and control is justified.

    @element[0] said:

    a "move to monitor" option should definitely be built into the OS. 
    @element[0] said:
    now they do, the vista team should have recognisd this, it's just poor planning.

    Obviously MS doesn't feel a justification for this at the time. Just because you know a large amount of people that do use multimonitors, doesn't make this a large part of the market share. I know most end users I know (outside the tech industry)  barely even know you CAN plugmore than one monitor into a computer.

    So, while I agree with you that it would be nice, I don't think I can say MS is wrong for not having this. Perhaps they like what the third party vendors have? After all, that software is not outside a normal person who would use multi monitors' reach.

    @element[0] said:

    Also the average user isn't going to understand this, they will just think the drive is broken if it never comes up.

    The average user most likely would not have 500 video files on an external harddrive either.  The would also wait for it to finish scanning in most cases.



  •  1: Make sure "Optimise for safe removal" is checked in the hardware properties, otherwise windows is accessing and locking system files on the drive.

    and all windows of any folders on the drive is closed before you attempt to . as any previewed files are locked.

    You cannot expect windows to know what applications are locking files as this would cause waaay to much overhead, and microsoft/windows cannot be blamed for any third party app not unlocking files correctly after they've been used. If in the case that a file has not been unlocked correctly simply choosing to eject the drive in the context menu before attempting the safe removal tool does seem to help.

    2: what MPS said

    3: There are plenty of free tools for this and most graphics drivers include these tools

    4:and... what MPS said 



  • @Hitsuji said:

    You cannot expect windows to know what applications are locking files as this would cause waaay to much overhead
     

    Why not? It's trivial the scan the open files table and get the PIDs of whatever's holding locks/handles on the files, and from the PIDs you can get to the full details of the process. There's quite a few utilities available for free from Sysinternals to do this in various ways (filemon, procxp, handle).

    Windows is already scanning far too much on opening a directory as is (icons, thumbnails, preview clips, blah blah blah). One more purely internal scan won't slow things down any more than they already have.



  • @Hitsuji said:

    You cannot expect windows to know what applications are locking files as this would cause waaay to much overhead

    This thing has saved me some nerves: 

    Did they include something like this in Vista ?



  •  @MarcB said:

    One more purely internal scan won't slow things down any more than they already have.

    Scanning every file on an external HD to figure out which ones are locked and what is locking them would certainly have a non-trivial impact on performance. This would definitely result in more people posting anti-MS garbage such as 'bloatware'.

    Also, like hitsuji wrote, the problem lies in the vendors of the software leaving things locked. Not everything that happens is the OS's responsibility. Windows informs you there is a problem like it should. It should be trivial to figure out what program is causing the problem and never use it again or fix the issue. You also have the option to turn this off, or to just unplug the HD.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    It should be trivial to figure out what program is causing the problem and never use it again or fix the issue.
    And as MarcB even mentions, the SysInternals (which is part of Microsoft, BTW) collection contains an app to do just that.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Scanning every file on an external HD to figure out which ones are locke
     

    Wrong way of looking at it. Don't scan the files on the HD. Scan the open files table and see if any are on the drive in question. Don't know what the file count limit is on NTFS, but I'd rather scan a table with a maximum of a few thousand entries, than a file system with potentially billions of files. 



  • @MarcB said:

    Wrong way of looking at it. Don't scan the files on the HD. Scan the open files table and see if any are on the drive in question. Don't know what the file count limit is on NTFS, but I'd rather scan a table with a maximum of a few thousand entries, than a file system with potentially billions of files. 
     

    But why do it at all? Report there was an error, and let the user figure it out.

    There is not likely to be much information that is going to be easy for an average Windows user to interpret/react upon. And an advanced user should figure it just fine without a list from Windows.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    But why do it at all? Report there was an error, and let the user figure it out.
     

    Because it's handy to be told that "Microsoft Word is currently using the file V:\blah\blah\blah\xxx.doc. Please kill Word and try again", so the user can shut down Word and try to eject the drive again. Just saying "No" isn't user friendly. This ain't a Mac after all - "Error -124523524523423 has occured. Screw you".



  • @MarcB said:

    Because it's handy to be told that "Microsoft Word is currently using the file V:\blah\blah\blah\xxx.doc. Please kill Word and try again",
     

    The chances of it actually being a .doc file or something the user knows about is pretty small. In most cases it would likely be a process the user has never heard of and a file they know nothing about.



  • @MarcB said:

    @Hitsuji said:

    You cannot expect windows to know what applications are locking files as this would cause waaay to much overhead
     

    Why not? It's trivial the scan the open files table and get the PIDs of whatever's holding locks/handles on the files, and from the PIDs you can get to the full details of the process. There's quite a few utilities available for free from Sysinternals to do this in various ways (filemon, procxp, handle).

    Windows is already scanning far too much on opening a directory as is (icons, thumbnails, preview clips, blah blah blah). One more purely internal scan won't slow things down any more than they already have.

     

    Especially since windows is already scanning the open files table to check if anything is open, so it would not be much of a burden to add code to display the  relevant process.

     

    WRT (2), it would be nice if Windows would continue copying other files,and build up 2 lists, one of files which cannot be copied and one of files which need confirmation, presenting a dialogue similar in appearance to the Outlook Send/Receive Progress dialogue, with a list of errors in one tab and a confirmation list in another, with "Confirm", "Cancel", "Cancel All" and "Confirm All"  buttons. This would be far more elegant than the series of blocking dialogues used presently.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    The chances of it actually being a .doc file or something the user knows about is pretty small. In most cases it would likely be a process the user has never heard of and a file they know nothing about.
     

    True, but even something as simple as an Explorer window can cause a file to be locked. As is, you've probably noticed that Explorer windows automatically close when you eject the CD they're browsing. It's no different ejecting a drive - Windows is already doing a scan of some sort to kill the Explorer windows. Might as well go the extra inch and inform the user that an app is holding a lock of some sort on something on the drive. Even if it doesn't display the info on exactly what's holding the lock, the option of auto-killing the offending process could be offered.

    You or I wouldn't care, and could get (or already have) the tools to figure out what's holding the lock. The average person wondering why their cupholder isn't appearing will probably be dialing us up to ask why. I hate calls like that. 



  • @MarcB said:

    You or I wouldn't care, and could get (or already have) the tools to figure out what's holding the lock. The average person wondering why their cupholder isn't appearing will probably be dialing us up to ask why. I hate calls like that. 
     

    Again, I must remind you that just because something might be a nice feature, doesn't mean it is broken. That is what the OP is about. How this is somehow broken.

     

    I can agree about all the nice features MS could/should add to Windows someday... but they don't make anything 'broken'.

     



  • @Physics Phil said:

    it would be nice if Windows would continue copying other files,and build up 2 lists...
     

    To Vista's credit, they did at least enhance the blocking dialog. My major gripe about is the huge wall of text you get on file conflicts. All three options are clickable, but unless you mouse over them, you'd never know because there's no chrome to indicate clickability. Making buttons of all the text would look hideous, but they could at least have embedded a small "choose this option" button beside each one, to make it obvious what you should do. "Click the file you want to keep"? How about "Click on the option you want".

    Mixing hypertext-type links (without even doing standard hypertext link coloring) and regular buttons is always a no-no, imho. 




  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    doesn't mean it is broken.
     

    All depends on the definition of 'broken'. I'll agree just spitting out the "can't do it, bub" dialogue works fine for us. But for the average user, it's going to confuse them, and probably end up being a call to tech support of some sort (neighborhood geek,  Dell's 1-800, etc..) at which point it becomes a cost issue. If it happens enough, then it becomes a bug/issue and therefore "broken".



  • @MarcB said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    doesn't mean it is broken.
     

    All depends on the definition of 'broken'. I'll agree just spitting out the "can't do it, bub" dialogue works fine for us. But for the average user, it's going to confuse them, and probably end up being a call to tech support of some sort (neighborhood geek,  Dell's 1-800, etc..) at which point it becomes a cost issue. If it happens enough, then it becomes a bug/issue and therefore "broken".

    But since Microsoft hasn't bothered to change the behavior, clearly the amount of feedback hasn't been severe enough for them to care.



  • @bstorer said:

    But since Microsoft hasn't bothered to change the behavior, clearly the amount of feedback hasn't been severe enough for them to care.
     

    That brought to mind the old joke about how many Microsoft engineers it takes to change a light bulb: None - make darkness the new standard.

    How many people would take a message like that to be a bug in Windows, though? I'd guess they're more likely to blame the manufacturer of whatever gizmos they're ejecting, which means Vantec or Apple or Seagate or Sandisk get the call, not Microsoft. 



  • @MarcB said:

    That brought to mind the old joke about how many Microsoft engineers it takes to change a light bulb: None - make darkness the new standard.
     

    You just really cannot seperate the whole "What I want" and "What the rest of the world is happy with"  thing can you?



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    You just really cannot seperate the whole "What I want" and "What the rest of the world is happy with"  thing can you?
     

    I don't remember saying I wanted things this way anywhere. I don't care what the message is, as long as there is a message of some sort instead of just failing silently or whatever. 



  • @MarcB said:

    as long as there is a message of some sort instead of just failing silently or whatever. 
     

    And there is. So what is the problem?



  • blah blah blah, microsoft didn't add a cube desktop that spins, blah blah blah, vista doesn't let you have multiple task bars, blah blah blah.    Seriously, get over yourselves.  Microsft will add what people want, that's why they have billions of dollars.  The move to monitor feature is stupid and would just add clutter to the context menu.  However, I would like the ability to drag and drop the items in the task bar in order to rearange them.



  • @tster said:

    However, I would like the ability to drag and drop the items in the task bar in order to rearange them.
     

    You may find Taskbar Shuffle useful, if you haven't tried it yet. 



  • @tster said:

    Microsft will add what people want, that's why they have billions of dollars.
     

    So I guess MS is infallible? Still a little suspicion arises that Vista is not exactly what people want. 



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    And there is. So what is the problem?

     

    Providing descriptive and detailed error messages is IMHO a sign of good software quality. To hide it under a "details" tab or something is fine, but to just bail out is a sign of lazyness. And fetching the conflict from the internal open file list can't be that hard. You don't see lsof take time proportional to the size of the fs or the filecount :)



  • @MarcB said:

    @bstorer said:

    But since Microsoft hasn't bothered to change the behavior, clearly the amount of feedback hasn't been severe enough for them to care.
     

    That brought to mind the old joke about how many Microsoft engineers it takes to change a light bulb: None - make darkness the new standard.

    How many people would take a message like that to be a bug in Windows, though? I'd guess they're more likely to blame the manufacturer of whatever gizmos they're ejecting, which means Vantec or Apple or Seagate or Sandisk get the call, not Microsoft. 

    But as you yourself said, if they sensed any real pressure, they'd change it. That they don't means that it's an uncommon enough complaint for them to chalk it up to the fact that you can't please everyone.



  • @bstorer said:

    uncommon enough complaint
     

    I cannot even remember the last time it even happened to me...



  • Windows makes the thumbs db files
    Only on network drives. Vista no longer clutters up directories with Thumbs.db files, thankfully.
    Also i know it won't happen if i hide "system files" but you can't seriously be telling me that you run windows with this option on.
    What advantage is there to showing them (or hidden files, or extensions)?


  • @benryves said:

    What advantage is there to showing them (or hidden files, or extensions)?

    Showing extensions is really helpful when you have to change them. Like jpeg to jpg because some software won't open jpegs, or from .txt to c, h, cpp, js, html, etc when making a website or program (I prefer to do this in explorer sometimes).



  • Ah, true. I guess I'm too conditioned to keeping the command prompt handy. (Another feature Vista improves upon, of course; Shift+Right-click in Explorer).



  • @benryves said:

    What advantage is there to showing them (or hidden files, or extensions)?
     

    I wonder if people would be quite so eager to open that "Britney Spears Nekkid.jpg.scr" file that showed up in their email if Windows didn't default to hiding the .scr. Of course, you'd hope people would notice that only this one file ends in .jpg and the rest of their "collection" doesn't, but given the number of cupholder users out there and the amount of money Symantec makes, obviously not.



  • assuming they didn't turn off every security feature vista has it would warn you once that it is a script and again when it tried to actually do something damaging since that would require a UAC.   I think people would be pretty suspicious when opening a picture made the computer give them the big annoying dialog that only happens when they do things like install and uninstall software.



  • @tster said:

    assuming they didn't turn off every security feature vista
     

    That's fine for Vista, but there's till more 'other' Windows boxes out there than Vista boxes. I wonder what the rationale was to hide the extensions originally. Maybe they got tired of support calls from people who'd "accidentally" renamed their resume.doc to resume.dick and couldn't figure out the "choose the application you want to open this with" dialogue. 



  • @MarcB said:

    I wonder what the rationale was to hide the extensions originally.
     

    Perhaps because the 'average Windows user' doesn't know or care what an extension is. They know what the icon is though. That is what is important to them.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Perhaps because the 'average Windows user' doesn't know or care what an extension is
     

    I'm thinking it was a misguided attempt to make Windows more Mac-like. Macs couldn't care less about extensions, since application ownership is stuffed into the resource fork anyways. 



  • @MarcB said:

    I'm thinking it was a misguided attempt to make Windows more Mac-like.
     

    MS trying to be more 'Mac-like' would just be sad. Let's all thank them for not doing that.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Filed under: why the hell would they want to be like Apple??

    Haven't you heard?  Apple has, like, 4% of the personal computer market!  Oh, the things M$ could learn from Apple! 



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Oh, the things M$ could learn from Apple! 
     

    My favorite is how hard Apple tries with their ads, throwing straight lies and FUD out.

    And yet what does MS do? Nothing. They don't need to. 



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    My favorite is how hard Apple tries with their ads, throwing straight lies and FUD out.

    Like those damn iPod ads.  With the psychadelic backgrounds I figured owning an iPod would make me trip balls.  WRONG!  It didn't do anything for my dancing abilities, either.  It did make me feel like a smug, elitist prick, though, so that was pretty sweet.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    And yet what does MS do? Nothing. They don't need to. 

    Because they already have everything -- not because they're so great.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Haven't you heard?  Apple has, like, 4% of the personal computer market!  Oh, the things M$ could learn from Apple! 

    This statistic has precisely 0 relevance to product quality.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    MS trying to be more 'Mac-like' would just be sad. Let's all thank them for not doing that.

    Sad because Windows has a superior interface? Or sad because you'd feel bad for MS if they were self-peer-pressured into copying that slick, cool, shiny OSX? Please clarify.

    I'd also thank them -- or anyone -- for not actively copying, although you've to admit that there are many things worth copying (from all OS camps) because they're simply great interface concepts.

    Examples:

    OSX menu bar > Windows menu bar

    Windows Taskbar > OSX dock 

    Alt-Tab > Expose (though the jury's still out, I think)

    Everything > idiot spinning cube 

    PS.
    Taskbar shuffle is HEAVEN. Also because you can middle-click to close. Which is another goodinterface concept: tab/item control via middle mouse. FFX, Windows Commander, Foobar etc. Great!

     

     

     



  • @dhromed said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Haven't you heard?  Apple has, like, 4% of the personal computer market!  Oh, the things M$ could learn from Apple! 

    This statistic has precisely 0 relevance to product quality.

    In a market economy, penetration does matter.  Obviously Microsoft is satisfying the vast majority of customers with Windows.  I believe this is one of the only truly objective metrics of quality.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Obviously Microsoft is satisfying the vast majority of customers with Windows.
     

    Ah, but if 99.9% of the PC users of the world weren't ignorant sheep just using whatever came with the "compew-tah" they bought at Best Buy or Dell or whatever, and knew enough to make a choice, would they be happy with Windows?

    Just how much of MS's market share is purely from the network effect, how much is because a particular required application is Windows-only, how much is from ignorance of alternatives, and how much because people couldn't care less, as long as the pr0n flows?



  • @MarcB said:

    Ah, but if 99.9% of the PC users of the world weren't ignorant sheep just using whatever came with the "compew-tah" they bought at Best Buy or Dell or whatever, and knew enough to make a choice, would they be happy with Windows?
    That's a fair point. I always wonder why Apple doesn't lower their prices (without resorting to things like the iMac) in order to better compete. I mean, they've got a great brand thanks to the iPod and now the iPhone. Make use of it to cut into the market!



  • @MarcB said:

    Ah, but if 99.9% of the PC users of the world weren't ignorant sheep just using whatever came with the "compew-tah" they bought at Best Buy or Dell or whatever, and knew enough to make a choice, would they be happy with Windows?

    This is incredibly arrogant and flat-out retarded.  People have a choice, Apple advertises widely and you can buy Macs almost anyway.  People choose Windows because it works best for them.  People have been doing this for almost 20 years now and it almost put Apple out of business in the mid-90s.  Please stop sprewing garbage like "99.9% of PC users are ignorant sheep".  Having known a lot of PC and Mac users, I would claim that Mac users are far less informed about Windows than vice-versa.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Having known a lot of PC and Mac users, I would claim that Mac users are far less informed about Windows than vice-versa.
     

    I agree 100% with this assessment.


Log in to reply