Submission details
Explorer windows have no title or icon
Title bars in all Windows Explorer windows are empty. The space is there, it's just not being used for anything.
Although the breadcrumb bar is close, this doesn't help for complex paths or when only the title bar is visible. The lack of an icon where the control box is supposed to be is also a problem; this icon should be the folder icon of the current path.
Revert to behavior of previous versions of Windows. The existing Aero style can remain, just draw a window icon and title.
The previous option to show just the current folder name or the full path was also helpful. Consider appending " - Windows Explorer" to titles, similar to Internet Explorer.
Medium
Low
Not fixed
Discussion (18 comments)
I don't find sense in this design decision either. The psychology is that we're all accustomed to seeing the name of the current directory/folder in this location of the window; why take it out? The breadcrumb bar is only replacing the previous URL-esque address bar, and when the breadcrumb goes deep down the heirarchy, it becomes difficult to tell if it's an application or a folder, or an action window.
Methinks this is a throwback to the early days of Aero conceptualization, where they threw in as much glass as possible into the UI. I hope they collapse this area, it's just wasted space and tends to distract from the window's contents - and that's very contrary to the premise of Aero, which is to make the user focus on the contents as opposed to the window's decoration.
This annoys me too, one thing that I miss was the ability to get the context menu for the current folder by right clicking on the icon. You also used to be able to drag drop an open explore window's icon to a shortcut (ie. on you desktop).
Annoying as hell indeed. The explorer in Vista is very bad and annoying compared to its predecessor.
I say they should fire the guy who was in charge of the Vista explorer :) Really, it's that bad for me.
Maybe i'm the only one who likes it.
No you're not the only ;)
I like the clean look, but the big gap is strange. Even MS Office lets you right-click the Office Button to show the old window menu and double click it to close.
I actually like it the way it is... You can dentify better what are folder and what are programs.
*identify
The question now is... why do you have a space between the address/breadcrumb bar and the green bar. Like if the Alt menu was there but hidden. I have no gap on my folders.
Odd... it seems to be a sizer. The cursor turns into a N/S resizing arrow, and I can actually grab it and start to drag it. It doesn't actually move, of course.
Anyone know what it is? I have a pretty clean system; I doubt any shell extensions are to blame.
@Guenette: That bug about your "sizer" is because relation between IE and Explorer: http://www.aerotaskforce.com/view/675
Press ALT, View and look for "Lock toolbars" to fix it.
eried: Thanks, that got it. Very strange...
Adding this to this issue, although it might be a separate one: although the Explorer windows have an invisible icon in the top-left corner that brings up the system menu when clicked, right-clicking it to get the context menu for the actual current folder is no longer possible. That's something I used quite a lot in XP. Now I actually have to move up a folder and find the folder in the list instead.
Steven: I agree, although if it helps, you can also right-click the folder in the Folders list on the left, if you have the Navigation pane shown.
This is by design.
This was a terrible design decision. On the ShellRevealed forum, the rationale was "what could we put there? Search folders are complicated".
This is crap, because obviously they found words they could use for the taskbar button. just use whatever the button text is, so windows can be told apart.
I like it as it is - it's clean.
If you add just icon, it looks silly. Add a caption - and now you have two exactly same labels (except for long paths):
[icon] D:\Documents\Something
[arrows] D:\Documents\Something
That seems to me much more stupid and disturbing than titleless windows. Voted down.
talkersoft wrote on June 13, 2008, 1:23am
It's funny that you posted this because i found this site today and was logging in to post this exact same issue.
In the past few years i have gotten into the habit of closing my explorer windows by double clicking the title icon on the top left hand corner. With vista you can still close a window by double clicking in this area as you could with previous versions of windows. Yet there is no icon acknowledging this area exists.
Microsoft, before you take features away or replace them with a feature that trumps the old one you really need to explore how your customers used them in the previous versions.
Vista is so quirky i am considering taking my development machine back to Windows XP.