Comments by user "ui_guy"
Registered since: June 10, 2008
Windows Media Player, WIndows Photo Gallery and now Windows Live Photo Gallery
Windows Media Player needs a complete overhaul. It has staggered and stumbled its way to version 11 and what do we have?
- No native DVD codec - why does the Apple Mac continue to get away with it?
- Stagnated support for popular audio and video formats. Microsoft continues its near blinkered ideology with wma/wmv.
- The interface is a mishmash of old client / new client and the outcome of it is that I still look for the old File Menu over using the slightly updated menu paradigm.
- What about the Zune - a fantastic player (not a bad device but not sold everywhere) but where does that leave WMP, or all the other mp3 players that support WMP? It's ludicrous.
- Poor integration with the OS as has been mentioned with multiple applications doing the same thing with slightly different results. Movie Maker, DVD Maker and Photo Gallery should all be extensions of WMP which should be the core product.
"Hide known file extensions" is still enabled by default.
I used to be a fan of leaving the default option of hiding known file extensions as it provided a cleaner file browsing experience and avoided unintended renames of the file extension for average users. But things have moved so far on and this so called 'help' has definitely become a hinderence in the fight against malware and other security related issues. I think it was originally done partly to make Windows look less cluttered like an Apple Mac where the users are much less concerend about file types.
Disabling of Zip Folders difficult
I agree with tino, if you don't like the built-in feature, chances are that you have already installed your own thrid-party offering. I don't hate it but much prefer to use Winzip and I have set that as the system default. I have never had to worry about the built-in zip feature when Winzip is installed so I fail to see a problem.
Are you really arguing that a newly built OS should have such a ubiquitous feature switched off, hidden in some menu option, simply because you prefer your own third-party tool which you're going to install anyway? That doesn't make sense.
Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed
I do share your frustration with the security message you get when you attempt to connect to resource that is already connected to using differnet credentials. But I have to vote it down becuase this is by design.
In fact, the only way to disconnect all previous connections is to logoff your current 'session' to the local workstation or server you are using and logon again and present the correct credentials to the desired resource.
The issue is that Windows caches your credentials for the duration of your session for each remote server you connect to. I'm sure there are a host of other reasons but the main one I can think of is the scenario that you've mapped a drive to a server share and then a Sys Admin comes along and attempts to map another drive to the same server. If that were actually successful, you would have elevated permissions over your existing mapping, causing a big security breach for as long as you were logged on to that session. Windows would get confused as to which credentials were valid for the resource you were connecting to - it wouldn't be able to properly query the remote ACL's on the resource.
Remember that NTFS is certified to C2 specification, a defacto requirement for Governments and Banks etc, this stuff is as serious as cancer. The dialog could be a little more helpful but simply offering to clear the credentials that are cached might give unintended results, particularly if you had drives already mapped, documents opened, applicaitons running. Also, how would you then release the new credentials without trying to map yet another drive or log off first? It goes on and on.
Where's the "UP" Button Gone?
Er sorry but it you click your mouse on one of the breadcumb folders or drop-down arrows, you get all the functionality of the old Up arrow and much more since you can then hover over any of the other parent folders to see the one you want - it couldn't be easier, once you get used to it.
Unsigned driver security warning doesn't give you any evidence to make a decision on
"Not providing any additional details will make people think twice before they hit: "Install anyway...""
Not providing any details at all won't give anybody any clear indication about which driver happens to be unsigned which is worse as people won't even bother to look any further.
Bring back Win9X defrag!
The question is whether it's enough to know that Vista is doing something good on your behalf in the background or if you should have all the gory details. It defrags by default now and for most people, it's enough because they probably never used it in the past anyway. But if you use your PC more aggressively and your HDD fragments a lot, I think it's only fair to see what's been done to access whether one defrag pass was enough or if you actually require a commercial tool instead. Just getting rid of the UI element has not made it any better or efficient and I don't believe the graphics impaired the experience.
Keyboard Shortcut to Create New Folders in Windows Explorer
Now this is what I've always wanted from way back in the Windows 95 days. There may be a problem with Ctrl + N. In Internet Explorer, this means 'new window'. How about Ctrl + Shift + N?
Improve Windows Notepad - Bug Fixes and New Features
The only improvement I want to see is infinite undo's / redo's
Some of the improvements are really bordering on what's already available in Wordpad, aren't they?
Permissions editor is way too complicated and outdated
I deal with permissions a lot and I find myself going through clicking hell inside the permissions dialogs. I don't pretend to have all the answers, Advanced NTFS permissions are pretty hard core and not for the faint-hearted. They allow for very granular configurations and it’s what makes NTFS rock solid in terms of a security platform.
In fairness, the UI does attempt to display a basic set of permissions that are easy to change in one place. It's all the Advanced button stuff that adds multiple windows.
The problem trying to evolve this is that same interface is used throughout the entire Windows and Microsoft estate wherever permissions are edited or applied. It has to work for everything.
But it does need to change and I just hope they DO NOT opt for a wizard driven menu or an HTML based page.
Unsigned driver security warning doesn't give you any evidence to make a decision on
This is actually a regression from the equivalent XP dialog. It used to give you the name of driver or the device you were trying to install. I understand the desire to simply such things to the end user but if you compare the XP dialog with this one, there's so much more textual information than there ever was and precious little of it is useful. How is that simplified? It definitely looks like a leftover beta placeholder.
Better Multiple Monitor Support for Terminal Services
Wrote on July 7, 2008, 11:33pm
I use TightVNC which does this naitively without having to work out and then type in a massive screen resolution parameter. It still has its own quirks but I don't see why RDP cannot handle this much better than it does currently. Also, the UI for Remote Desktop client is horribly dated and needs a re-think. People that use RDP are likely connecting to multiple computers, sometimes simmultaneously and the 2003 Admin tools version called 'Remote Desktops' tries to address somewhat but this falls short by along way by Vista's standards.