Most recent submissions by user "Turbo"
Registered since: June 3, 2008
"Connect to a network" wizard is interrupted with a dialog
When using the "connect to a network" wizard, if the username/password is incorrect or missing (ie.: the user chose not to save the password and be asked everytime) the old "connect network" dialog from XP pops up, where the user can (more...)
Navigate the wizard to a page asking for credentials, instead of showing the old dialog.
Medium
Low
Not fixed
UI stops redrawing in WMP ActiveX control
The Media Player ActiveX control for Internet Explorer stops redrawing it's content area while it's caching a video, causing visual glitches reminiscent of the bad old days of XP when the user switches between tabs.
Keep redrawing a black background.
Low
Low
Not fixed
Out-dated music visualizations in WMP
The bundled viz are the same since, what, WMP 8? They are aliased, un-appealing and simply look amateurish. Clearly no designer was involved in their creation (As far as I know, they are simply pet projects of some programmers).
The Battery (more...)
The Zune player (the soft) is visually offensive, but the wall of albums easily outclasses any viz I've seen in WMP. Simple and effective.
Low
Low
Not fixed
Screen saver when playing a video in WMP
There is an option to prevent the screen saver from running (and the monitor from entering stand-by) when the user is playing any kind of media. This effectively prevents the screen saver from interrupting a video or a picture slideshow, but also from (more...)
A more sensible case would be to never run the screen saver when the player is full-screen (either video or a music visualization or a slideshow), and never run the screen saver when a video/slideshow is being showed on screen (ie: if a video is playing (more...)
Medium
Low
Not fixed
Network credentials in a workgroup
Disclaimer: I present this issue from the perspective of a simple, domain-less, home user with a number of networked computers.
There is no easy or discoverable way to set or change the username and password used to log into a network file (more...)
'Homegroups' would be a good start.
Add various links to re-enter credentials, in the aforementioned error dialog, in the command bar of the explorer, in the open/save dialogs, etc.
Additionally, I imagine it would (more...)
High
Low
Not fixed
Task Manager's "End program" dialog is vintage
The "This program is not responding" dialog (the one that show when an application is not responding and you try to kill it through the Task Manager) uses an old design:
- The font is not Segoe UI.
- The buttons use Windows (more...)
Medium
Low
Not fixed
File operations halting on errors
When performing operations over multiple files, if one file needs some kind of confirmation, the whole batch is paused until the user responds. If the operation is large and the user is away from the keyboard, a *lot* of time will be lost.
(more...)
Continue operating on the other files. Present the user a list with the questions and errors. If the user decides to cancel, rollback the whole batch (that's what Transactional NTFS is for, right?).
Medium
High
Not fixed
Applications stealing focus
I'm doing something. Another application decides I shouldn't, so it bumps to the front and grabs keyboard focus, to ask me something irrelevant to what I was doing (Usually an installer or some other long-running process asking me something (more...)
The complete cure is two-fold.
The easy part: continue redesigning your applications that steal focus. Lead with the example.
The hard part: deprecate (and later remove) the mechanism that allows such behavior. If an application wants your (more...)
High
Medium
Not fixed
Explorer guessing the type of content in a folder
The explorer has several templates that set how and what to show about the files. These can be found and manually set in Folder Properties->Customize (which is arguably too clumsy and un-discoverable).
When you open a folder for the (more...)
Stop trying to guess. *All* folders should default to the "All items" template, using the detail view with some relevant columns. Or the tiles view, pick *one*. Only use other templates if the user chooses them, or for pre-configured folders (more...)
High
Medium
Not fixed
Menu Bars
Every single application, framework, etc has it's own way of drawing menu bars. Some have animations (ie: File Explorer), some don't (Internet Explorer). Some do mouse tracking painting the background blue (both Explorers), most apply a bevel (more...)
Set a single design in stone, and use it everywhere.
Yeah, it's a huge task. You buried yourself there.
Medium
Low
Not fixed
Legacy control panel applets
Many of the control panels options are XP-style applets (called "property sheets", ie: Windows Firewall Settings, Sound Settings), living side-by-side with the new integrated pages, which provide a familiar navigation pattern and help guide (more...)
Redesign the legacy property sheets in the control panel as task flow pages.
Low
Medium
Not fixed