Why is it that all the Win7 reviews seem to compare it to Vista and not XP? They all gush about how great Win7 is...compared to Vista. Of course it's better than Vista, Vista sucked. That's why no one but don't-know-any-better average Joes and corporations used it. How about comparing Win7 to the version people actually used instead of Vista? Well here's the first Win7 vs XP comparison, as far as I'm aware...
Compared to XP, Win7 sucks donkey balls. Here's a list of Win7 pros/cons:
+ It starts up and shuts down faster.
- My system's usually on 24/7, so I only give half a crap.
- The MS devs have started thinking they're Mozilla devs.
The first two are self-explanatory. The third needs explaining:
In case you're not familiar with Mozilla, this is what goes on in the mind of a Mozilla dev: "Let's fuck around with UI elements that work perfectly fine and refuse to make the changes optional".
Obviously, for something a person uses as frequently as a web browser or an OS, the details of a UI are extremely important, and what works best for different people tends to vary. One of the most damaging things a UI designer can do to productivity and usability (not to mention the extreme arrogance involved) is to pull the rug out from under people with a new design they've convinced themselves is "obviously" better, and not provide a "turn that crap off" switch.
Too much around-the-bush beating? Ok. The AwfulBar can suck my nutsack, and so can the unified Forward/Back dropdown (I thought that unified dropdown was a nice idea when IE7 introduced it...then I actually tried IE7...yea...fuck it. Dumb design).
Back to Win7: Here's the things I've tried, hated, found no way to disable, and cite as reasons MS can pry XP from my cold dead hands:
- Goddamn taskbar tooltips. I hate shit constantly popping in and out every time I move my mouse. It was bad enough in XP. Win7 just makes it worse. Sure, a thumbnail image of the running window sounds nice. But in practice, I've never found them useful. Not once. But they do get in the way. Every...fucking...time. Never found a way to fix it.
- I *like* XP's Quick Launch panel. I don't want my shortcuts scattered around with my running tasks. If I wanted my computer to look and act like a fucking Mac I'd use a fucking Mac (Why MS imitates an OS that has a fraction of Windows's marketshare, and for damn good reason, is beyond me). Never found a way to fix it.
- On XP, I always have the taskbar set to a height of two-rows. Works great. On Win7, you can technically do it, but it's clear it was a completely half-assed attempt. Hell, the system tray outright ignores the extra row. Never found a way to fix it.
- Vista-style "All Programs" list. Another on my list of "Things that sounded great until I actually used them." Never found a way to fix it.
- Drag-select files is borderline broken. I always use "detail" view (and for good reason). But in Win7, you can't drag-select group of files in detail view unless you start from all the way outside the entire table. Incredible pain in the ass for such an incredibly basic operation. Especially-so if you have a lot of columns or files in a given directory. Never found a way to fix it.
- Where the hell are damn tree-view expand/collapse icons? Oh, there's one of them...and now it's gone...now there's another...shit, now it's gone too...Could Microsoft really not figure out it's a pain to click on something that's not fucking there until you're already over it? Their famed usability lab somehow didn't clue them in? Useless invisi-expansion icon. And it sure takes its damn time fading in, too. Never found a way to fix it.
- In XP, I quite like being able to expand a directory in the tree-view by clicking the label. Win7 mandates that I use the useless never-there mini-invisi-expansion icon. Yea that's right Win7, slow me down for no reason. And make me shell out money for the privilege. Never found a way to fix it.
- Explorer's tree-view seems to be starting to take a cue from GTK in "how to needlessly waste screen real-estate." Never found a way to fix it.
- The open/save dialog is gimped. And by "gimped" I mean "It's visually-bloated and slows me down in a way reminiscent of GIMP's notoriously shit open/save dialogs." It's not as bad as GIMP's dialogs, of course, but that sure as hell ain't saying much. The primary problem seems to be the large GTK-style-excess-padding favorites section inserted above the real directory-tree. Problem is, I don't use the favorites much. But Win7 expects me to. Fuck them. And guess what? Never found a way to fix it.
I'll admit, I do like how renaming a file automatically selects just the filename without the extension (even though there's still no reason not to at least have a way to turn that off for anyone who might not like it). And I like that Win7's explorer actually obeys my "always show the tree-view instead of that useless task pane" setting, unlike XP. But those aren't remotely enough to sell me on the "upgrade".
Oh yea, and then there's the RIAA/MPAA reach-around with the driver-level restrictions on A/V output quality without passing DRM checks. And the driver-revocation-for-the-protection-of-DRM system. Did I mention "Fuck DRM"? No? Fuck DRM, and fuck all who use or create it, no matter what their reason or intention for doing so. (And no, I'm not talking about Palladium. Hell, Palladium's not even what the Slashdotter kids claimed it was anyway.)
So yea, compared to WinXP, Win7 is nothing more than another Vista. Better than Vista? Maybe in some ways. XP-killer? Not fucking remotely.
I'll switch to either Linux or BSD before I upgrade to Win7. (But not OSX. Fuck OSX.)
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