Windows 8 News

[bradavon]

It's very early days but it may arrive in 2011. An early "what's coming" article:

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... now-701764

Before anyone says "already". Remember prior to Windows XP, Microsoft released a new OS every 3-4 years. XP messed that up and it severely hurt Microsoft. They won't be making that mistaken again.

[romerojpg]

I still have not went Windows 7 yet, mainly becuase my PC is buggered badly haha

By the time I have to get a new PC next soon I may well have to go straight to number 8.

[bradavon]

I wouldn't wait, Windows 7 is excellent. The best Windows ever released. Windows 8 has no firm or even rough release date.

[gasteropod]

I'm still on XP and I'm waiting to see what the Chrome operating system turns out like.

[romerojpg]

Ohh I am waiting haha (for how long no idea at the momen) - no point getting anything till I get fixed, or a new PC. Either way its not on the cards in the next few months sadly.

Mind you I did find Windows 7 very cheap if you are student - I think it was £30-£40 with a student card! thats a bargain.

[bradavon]

I'm still on XP and I'm waiting to see what the Chrome operating system turns out like.

WOW! Windows 7 is massively better than XP. I'd only use XP on very old hardware now, which I wouldn't do. I'd miss Windows 7 too much.

Chrome OS will be (probably) excellent on netbooks but otherwise I see it sucking. Even Google say it will be a secondary OS. It has next to no "local storage", which means unless you have 24/7 Internet access (and who has that on a laptop?) you cannot do shit with it. Even then good luck storing any personal files on it. It's a Cloud OS which on paper looks interesting but in reality, no thanks. Give me a cheap Windows XP netbook any day, which is basically as "no frills" as Chrome OS is supposed to be but you can actually use it.

You've upgraded to WinXP SP3 right? SP2 goes out of support next month, which means no more security hotfixes for it. Windows XP won't support Internet Explorer 9 or Windows Live Essentials 2011. Not so bad for many but it shows a growing trend.

Ohh I am waiting haha (for how long no idea at the momen) - no point getting anything till I get fixed, or a new PC. Either way its not on the cards in the next few months sadly.

If it's software not hardware related, a fresh install of Windows will fix the problems.

Mind you I did find Windows 7 very cheap if you are student - I think it was £30-£40 with a student card! thats a bargain.

It's insane how cheap students can get Microsoft software.

[romerojpg]

Ohh I am waiting haha (for how long no idea at the momen) - no point getting anything till I get fixed, or a new PC. Either way its not on the cards in the next few months sadly.

If it's software not hardware related, a fresh install of Windows will fix the problems.

Sadly the worst thing to go bad, The Motherboard it seems, of all the parts haha

[bradavon]

As you've guess, you're basically stuffed then . There's no point replacing that.

[gasteropod]

You've upgraded to WinXP SP3 right?

Of course.

Windows XP won't support Internet Explorer 9 or Windows Live Essentials 2011.

I use Chrome and AVG Free.

[bradavon]

Windows Live Essentials not Microsoft Security Essentials . My point was to show the trend, instead of actual products.

[gasteropod]

OK I've just had to Google it and from that list of things I use Windows Live Messenger.

[bradavon]

Windows Live Essential 2011 (currently it's 2009, which isn't too different than 2008) will be a big upgrade. Especially Windows Live Messenger and v2009 is the last version to support Windows XP. From now on it's Vista or Windows 7 only (+ maybe Windows Server 2008).

The same goes for Internet Explorer, 8 is the last supported upgrade. It looks like that will be a big ugrade too but like you say, who cares with that one? IE will never be as good as Firefox/Chrome/Opera.

Both IE9 and WLE2011 are coming roughly August 2010. Give Windows Live Photo Gallery a try. I really like it. I only use Photo Gallery and Messenger from the suite.

[Shingster]

I hope Microsoft fix all the changes made to Windows Explorer in Win7/Vista as frankly they fucking ruined it. Browsing/Editing files in Win7 is a monumental chore. I would like to meet the dickhead executive who decided that the details view contain a "date modified" column as standard so I could punch him in the face!

[IronMonkey]

Why don't you just set it to the view you like then forget about it?

[Shingster]

You can't, windows explorer in windows 7 is less customisable and tweakable than it was for windows 98. You can change the view for an individual folder and that's ok, but the next folder you open has the standard settings. There's a post about it here which lists a number of problems, the Libraries feature is a step forward but it's accompanied by about a hundred massive steps backwards.

[IronMonkey]

Works for me, I set my folders up to group by none and list view. Saved those preferences for each type of folder, done. It remembers everything I set.

[Shingster]

You've set every folder up individually, or are you saying that all new folders you create and each application you use to open a folder open with the settings you saved?

[IronMonkey]

I've set every type of folder up individually. Not every folder. Works just fine for me, no matter what application I use to open a folder.

[Shingster]

Interesting, how do you go about that?

[bradavon]

I so agree Shing. It fucking annoys the hell out of me. There is no proper fix. It's all about around Microsoft's dumb Media View idea, where it changes the View/Column details depending what files are in the folder but it often gets it wrong. It's better in Win7 but frankly I'd just like to set ONE view and have it display this way for 100% of folders I access. There's also now no Classic Icon size, small is too small and Medium is too big.

I don't see Microsoft fixing it, they consider it a "feature". This registry alteration helps but it's not a 100% fix:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/choosetemplate

I used Explorer from Win95 to XP without problem. Sure it's basic but does the job. When I saw the mess they'd created in Vista I switched to another file manager. I now use Xplorer2 (there's a free Lite version), which is acts like Explorer in Win95-XP but also has loads of other features too.

but it's accompanied by about a hundred massive steps backwards.

What other step backs? Explorer's never been particularly customisable. It still doesn't have Tabs or Dual View (i.e - independent left/right views). Xplorer 2 is miles better, with batch rename etc...

This is a bug brought in with Vista, not Win7 but it's not properly been fixed. I never use Libraries, nice idea but I keep all my Media in \Media\Videos, Pictures, Music etc... It's used by Windows Media Player and the forthcoming Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 though. So I've got it configured for that purpose.

The Burn to CD toolbar icons are also largely pointless. Windows has always been rubbish at burning discs.

I've set every type of folder up individually. Not every folder. Works just fine for me, no matter what application I use to open a folder.

In reality it doesn't work though. It will at some point forget this customisation and revert back to fucking you around.

[Shingster]

Thanks brad I'll be giving that a go at some point, about the steps back: many of them are listed in the link I provided, but a couple off the top of my head is I hate the massive icons that pop up whenever you open explorer in any application (so if I open a folder of images through photoshop I will just get about 15 massive file icons in my little window, etc). Another pet peeve is how they've ruined the dragbox & select function in details view, so you can't simply drag to select the files with the longer filenames whilst leaving the ones with shorter titles, etc (you can do this in list view only now). I REALLY fucking hate how in details view the Dimensions column no longer works for video files at all, I also hate how I can't click to show thumbnails for a folder containing lots of images on the fly with a simply right click > view thumbnails like you could before (very handy if you take a shitload of screengrabs and want to see them all in an instant to choose the best 6 or 7, etc).

Oh and you know how you can select a few files and see their combined filesize at the bottom? Select more than 15 files and see what happens - you have to go to the bottom and "click to see details". Very clever, has no one at microsoft never burned a bunch of files to DVD before (ie: lots of images, videos, MP3s, etc)? Who the fuck needs the total disk space of just 15 fucking files!

[bradavon]

Thanks brad I'll be giving that a go at some point, about the steps back: many of them are listed in the link I provided, but a couple off the top of my head is I hate the massive icons that pop up whenever you open explorer in any application (so if I open a folder of images through photoshop I will just get about 15 massive file icons in my little window, etc).

That annoys me too. It's all the same shite Media View though. So technically the same annoyance. It's just as bad in Vista, leaning to the believe Microsoft like it.

Another pet peeve is how they've ruined the dragbox & select function in details view, so you can't simply drag to select the files with the longer filenames whilst leaving the ones with shorter titles, etc

Oh yeah. I forgot you used to be able to do that. I guess they're thinking, why would you want to skip some but select others?

(you can do this in list view only now). I REALLY fucking hate how in details view the Dimensions column no longer works for video files at all

That's because Dimensions is a Picture tag. There'll be another one for the aspect ratio.

I also hate how I can't click to show thumbnails for a folder containing lots of images on the fly with a simply right click > view thumbnails like you could before (very handy if you take a shitload of screengrabs and want to see them all in an instant to choose the best 6 or 7, etc).

You could never do that on XP, as far as I remember. You can change the View to Medium or Large icons, which creates thumbnails but that's change the View too, which I guess is what you find annoying. There is also the Thumbnail toolbar button. If that helps? It's called "Preview Pane" and is the far right button, next to the help button.

Oh and you know how you can select a few files and see their combined filesize at the bottom? Select more than 15 files and see what happens - you have to go to the bottom and "click to see details". Very clever, has no one at microsoft never burned a bunch of files to DVD before (ie: lots of images, videos, MP3s, etc)? Who the fuck needs the total disk space of just 15 fucking files!

Oh yeah. I never noticed that. Give Xplorer 2 ago. If you like the "general" Explorer look (instead of other file managers that look wildly different) but want something better, you may like it. I now miss it when I have to go back to Explorer:

http://www.zabkat.com/x2lite.htm

That's the free (cut down) version I'm linking too. Pretty much all the important stuff is in the free version though.

How long have you been using Win7? Overall it's miles better than any other version of Windows but I do agree Explorer is a step back. Actually they fucked it up in Vista and simply haven't bothered to yet put it right. Libraries are nice but I've no use for them.

[Shingster]

I've been using windows 7 for about 3-4months now I think and Windows Explorer is my only real beef with it. I upgraded from WinXP and never used Vista and that's why I know that you definitely did have a "view thumbnails" option (as pictured here. The preview pane is completely useless imo as you have to click on the file for it to open in the preview pane, it's the same as simply opening the file in the first place (plus my preview pane never seems to work for some reason, I just get an icon image not a preview).

Thanks for the tip on dimensions, you can get the res of videos displayed by showing "frame width" and "frame height" columns, although it's absurd that microsoft never thought to include a simple "resolution" column to do it in one (in XP Dimensions worked on both image files and videos and worked fine at that).

[bradavon]

I upgraded from WinXP and never used Vista and that's why I know that you definitely did have a "view thumbnails" option (as pictured here.

The Medium, Large, Extra Large Views have completely replaced that. You can now see different thumbnail sizes.

The preview pane is completely useless imo as you have to click on the file for it to open in the preview pane, it's the same as simply opening the file in the first place

Not really, it's much quicker . It's not a thumbnail replacement feature though.

Thanks for the tip on dimensions, you can get the res of videos displayed by showing "frame width" and "frame height" columns, although it's absurd that microsoft never thought to include a simple "resolution" column to do it in one (in XP Dimensions worked on both image files and videos and worked fine at that).

I've not managed to find a tag for both either, just width + height. I'd be surprised if there isn't one though. I seem to recall the Tags were pretty limited in XP though. The selection is much bigger in Vista/Win7.

[Shingster]

Not really, it's much quicker . It's not a thumbnail replacement feature though.

Well I wouldn't know as it doesn't work if you don't have "show thumbnails" activated, but I woiuld have thought it is only a single mouse click quicker than simply opening the files. I'll take screenshots later tonight to show you how it looks for me.

The Medium, Large, Extra Large Views have completely replaced that. You can now see different thumbnail sizes.

I can only view small, medium, large, x-large icons, not thumbnails (unless of course I go into Folder Options and turn on thumbnails, but then that's a universal switch).
EDIT: I've figured out that you can get both icons and thumbnails by turning on thumbnails and making sure the folder in which you want just icons displayed is set to Details or List view. It's neutered by the fact you're still gonna be forced to view the thumbnails when opening a folder with another application though.

The selection is much bigger in Vista/Win7.

Yup a much bigger choice, there's now a hundred superfluous columns rather than the 20-30 or so in WinXP!
Seriously, it's good to have the extra choice but the downside is that it's more of a chore actually sifting through the whole list for the one specific column you may need.