A few more changes from Beta to RC…

Cikk
03/13/2009

Hey folks, just wanted to provide another update (building on the recent post on some changes since Beta) on some of the changes you will see in the Release Candidate. Again, there are many and this is not an exhaustive list. Of course we continue to gather telemetry from the large number of people running the Beta full time. Just a reminder, the Beta is the only official build from Microsoft. Chaitanya compiled this list from a broad set of feature teams focused on visible changes based on feedback that go beyond “bug fixes”, though we included some of the more widely reported bugs on this list as well. –Steven

Desktop Experience

1. Improved taskbar thumbnail overflow

Our customers are enjoying how windows are grouped and revealed on the enhanced taskbar. Some enthusiasts who have a significant number of open windows for a program encounter our scaling mechanism; the thumbnail view turns into a list view. Although this UI is virtually identical to experience in XP and Vista, customers still want to enjoy new functionality of the thumbnail view. Bentronic wrote, “It's nice that there's a little close button on the thumbnail previews--why not have a similar button for when it's showing as a list? Being able to run down the list clicking the close button instead of right-clicking would be great.” For RC we’ve made the list view architecturally the same as the thumbnail view, just sans thumbnails. Customers will now enjoy close buttons and the menus open on hover (in Beta one had to click to open them).

Fig 1.

List View of running windows appears on hover and supports close

2. Control Panel Jump List

Right-clicking on the Control Panel icon on the taskbar in Beta revealed a noticeably sparse Jump List. A few people such as Britney told us “Should most recently used items be displayed in the Jump List of the CPL when pinned to the taskbar? Something should be shown and nothing is there right now”. In RC the Control Panel Jump List offers quick access to recently used items.

Fig 2.

The Control Panel Jump List now surfaces recently used items

2. PowerShell Jump List

By default PowerShell in Beta launched a streamlined console. Customers could load optional modules via distinct shortcuts in the Start Menu. We heard from you that this was a confusing experience. Additionally, PowerShell did not surface a way to launch related tasks such as the Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) from within their console experience. PowerShell now has a robust Jump List that affords a method to load modules, launch the ISE and open documentation.

3. Remote Desktop Jump List

Rajeev made us smile with his comment, “Being able to add my Remote Desktop shortcut to the taskbar—good. Saving settings and showing them in the Recent items section—awesome. Being able to pin the connections in the Jump List, so they always appear—priceless!” Well, Rajeev and others who shared this request, you will be enjoy this functionality in RC.

4. Applying taskbar settings

Have you ever customized the taskbar, only to find your changes were not saved across sessions? Has the taskbar ever inexplicably moved on you after you log in? For a variety of reasons, previous versions of Windows saved taskbar settings only after Explorer exited at the end of a session. However, if the OS is not shutdown properly these settings did not persist. Based on the bugs we saw from Beta, we decided to change our architecture and write these settings within 30 seconds (providing enough time to batch a group of changes) during the session. This means settings will now be more reliable.

Touch

5. Multi-touch zoom

One of the pieces of feedback we heard from the Beta was that customers enjoy the new multi-touch zoom feature, but wish it was supported in Windows Explorer. In response to this feedback we have added support for the zoom gesture in Windows Explorer. Using the zoom gesture you can switch between view modes in Explorer such as zooming from Small Icons to Extra Large icons.

Windows Explorer and Libraries

6. Invert Selection

In an effort to make improvements to performance, network bandwidth and memory footprint for various scenarios (e.g. libraries, search and search federation), we rearchitected the implementation of the view code in Windows Explorer. As part of this we did not to port “Invert Selection” since this rarely used feature is pretty complex to implement in the context of virtualized lists. Despite the small percentage of usage we’ve recorded, those who missed it have been pretty vocal :-) On one of the blog posts, GGreig summarized what we heard from several of you—“Invert Selection; that's a useful - sometimes absolutely invaluable - little piece of functionality, and I definitely don't want to see it go…Please reinstate Invert Selection.” Given the feedback from enthusiasts, we added back the functionality for RC.

7. Going up?

We’ve heard feedback, especially from those on this blog, that in Windows 7 moving up in the folder hierarchy often requires multiple clicks since longer folder names in the address bar often bump the parent folder into the overflow dropdown.

For RC, we’ve improved the overflow algorithm so that the parent folder’s button will appear in the address bar at all times and therefore going ‘up’ will always be a single click away in a predictable location. When there isn’t enough room to display the parent folder’s full name, it will appear truncated instead of going into the overflow. If space is especially tight, then the current folder’s name may appear truncated too, but in all cases the parent folder’s button will remain as a click target in the address bar.

In addition to making the address bar an even better tool for navigating ‘up’ in Explorer, this change also makes it easier to tell where your are as you navigate around since you can now see at least part of the parent folder’s name. It also avoids introducing any more redundant buttons to the Explorer frame and hence taking away any more screen space from being able to see your address. Also, it goes without saying that if you navigate into a folder, you can still use the back button to go back up. And the keyboard shortcut is also available.

Fig 3.

In Beta, a parent folder would collapse into an overflow dropdown

Fig 4.

In RC, parent folders always remain within single click access

8. Finding music by artist

We covered several of the improvements to arrangement views in the last post, but one we did not mention is that the “Artist” view in the Music Library now accounts for album artists and compilation albums. ShadowChaser summarized some feedback we heard from a number of customers in a comment: “The only concern I still have is with the ‘Artist’ view… it groups by ‘Contributing Artist’, not ‘Album Artist.’” Grouping only by contributing artist results in too many artists showing up and tracks from the same album getting split up in cases where customers didn’t expect. In RC, the “Artist” view in the Music Library groups together multiple tracks from an album by the common “Album Artist” property when it is available, groups tracks from compilation albums together into a “Various Artists” group and finally resorts to grouping by “Contributing Artist”. This reduces clutter when browsing music collection by artist, in addition to improving consistency with artist views in other applications and devices.

9. New folder is always available

We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback during Beta about adding a top level “New folder” button in Explorer, freeing customers from digging into submenus. A common complaint we received, however, was that the button only appeared when nothing is selected. For RC, we’ve changed this so the “New folder” button will always appear, regardless of selection.

10. Right-click in Windows Explorer

For RC we’ve changed the behavior when right-clicking items in the view to address concerns customers were reporting with the Beta. We heard feedback that it was too hard to find space and get to the view’s background context menu for items such as New and Paste. Previously if one right-clicked over any portion of an item she would get the item’s context menu. We now show the view’s context menu when one clicks on any large white space, including the space between a files name and its properties.

11. Content view for search results

For RC we’ve adjusted the behavior when right-clicking items in the view to address concerns customers were reporting with the Beta. We heard feedback that it was too hard to find space

Content view is the new view mode we’ve added to Windows Explorer for Windows 7. It’s especially useful for search results where it surfaces the most relevant properties for each kind of file (e.g. documents, email, pictures and music) as well as a contextual “snippets” of the file content where the search term match occurred. There are a few changes here in the RC build. One thing we heard feedback on is that customers want to know exactly which properties were being shown for each item, so all properties now appear with labels. The text layout and colors have been updated in response to feedback to make each item even easier to parse and to avoid confusion with the colors used for encrypted or compressed files. We heard loud and clear that many found snippets very useful and wanted to see more of them, so in the RC we’ve allowed longer snippets and we’re using them in more places. In response to feedback we heard from customers when resizing their Explorer window or toggling the preview pane, we’ve made the transitions smoother as additional columns of information about each item are revealed when you make the view larger.

12. Intelligent re-indexing after application installation

In RC the Windows Search service now keeps the index up-to-date whenever support for new file types are introduced to the system. We know that in the past customers have sometimes had difficulties searching for files on their computer after new file handlers are installed. (File handlers govern how content and metadata is made searchable and are typically installed with applications such as Microsoft Office or updates such as the Microsoft Filter Pack).

In Win7 Beta (and previous versions of Windows), customers were required to rebuild their index whenever a new file handler was installed to ensure that any existing files were indexed with the newest functionality. Few customers knew to do this and it was an unnecessarily time consuming operation. Windows Search is more efficient in RC by automatically re-indexing the specific files affected by new file handlers. Rest assured that when one installs support for a certain kind of file, she can search for those files without doing any additional work.

Performance

13. Trimming sound schemes to help performance

We know our customers care about performance. We discovered that by just trimming the shutdown and logoff WAV files, we could save up to 400 ms. Every little bit counts.

Device Stage

14. Baseline Device Stage experience

Device Stage continues to enjoy positive reviews. For example, we saw this post on on a blog: “I have to be honest this works very well, it worked with my MP3 player in showing how much charge it had and other details as well is able to display the manual and offer me everything I needed to do with it effortlessly, including having the correct icon and image of the product.” However, we occasionally hear “too bad , my N70 aint supported either :-( …hopefully they are gonna support a ton more device by the time windows 7 get released”.

We took feedback like this to the devices makers and they too would like more integration given the interest from our customers. Several manufacturers are implementing custom experiences, but a large number have also opted to support their older devices in what we call the “baseline” Device Stage experience.

This UX works exactly like full Device Stage; the device image appears on the taskbar whenever it is connected and tasks are exposed in the Jump List. On first connect, the shell Window containing all of the built-in tasks appears automatically and is always just one click away from the desktop icon or device image in the Devices and Printers folder. When the device maker implements a custom Device Stage experience for a device, it gets posted on the Web and the baseline experience gets upgraded when the device is later reconnected. The core functionality is the same, but all of the branding, imaging and vendor-specific tasks are now available automatically in the same convenient UI.

Fig 5.

Baseline Device Stage experience for a mobile phone

15. Devices and Printers enhancement

PC and laptop makers such as Lenovo, were very interested in doing more than just showing the machine’s icon in Devices and Printers. They told us they wanted to leverage Device Stage to help them better customize the experience for our mutual customers. In RC double-clicking on the PC icon now offers a Device Stage UX. Like the other Device Stage devices, Device Stage for PC will be enabled when the PC maker has chosen to participate with their system.

Fig 6.

Device Stage experience for a PC

Devices and Printers

16. Unified experience for removing devices

One of the tasks customers perform in Devices & Printers is removing devices that are no longer in use. We received feedback that the remove action varied across different device classes. For example, removing a printer only removed the print queue and for Bluetooth devices it only removed the pairing of the device to the PC. We have changed this action to always completely uninstall the device across all device classes – which is the action that most customers expect.

17. Hardware properties

We know enthusiasts use the Device Manager’s property page to check the status of a device. We heard feedback that this wasn’t convenient and so we now also surface the property page directly from the Devices and Printers experience. Simply right-click on the device and one has one less reason to visit Device Manager.

18. Improved eject experience

The Safely Remove hardware functionality enables customers to make sure that their device is ready for removal. During the Windows 7 Beta, customers still had the Safely Remove Hardware functionality available on the taskbar as well as an Eject option on the context menus of applicable devices in Devices and Printers. Based on feedback, we have integrated these two separate pieces of functionality in RC and have changed its name from “Safely Remove” to “Eject”. The tool Notification Area icon still appears, but its context menu now has the option to open Devices and Printers. Also, we have simplified the options by eliminating the drop-down submenu and made the semantics for eject functionality more consistent across the different kinds of media. For example, ejecting an optical drive now ejects the media instead of the drive and ejecting a USB flash drive ejects the entire device instead of an individual volume.

19. USB device reliability on resume

We got feedback from a number of customers that their USB devices (e.g. keyboards, mice and drives) stopped working after a suspend/resume cycle. We worked with a number of customers to get traces and isolated the causes to address them post-beta builds. The work around in Beta was to unplug and replug the device to get it functional again—easy for external devices but not possible for internal devices. This workaround will not be needed on RC builds.

20. FireWire camera support

Some customers informed us they were unable to connected their 1394 HDV camera and stream its contents to their Beta machine. With the help of customers, we were able to identify a fault with our core 1394 stack and we’ve validated the scenario works in RC. This is another good example of the combination of telemetry and more “manual” follow up on the part of our test team.

Device Installation

21. Add Legacy Hardware functionality restored

The Add Legacy Hardware action was provided in Device Manager on past Windows releases to install non-Plug and Play devices. We removed this functionality for Windows 7 with the belief that this was rarely used. Aaron blogged, “You might have noticed that the old 'Add Legacy Hardware' option seems to be missing. I tend to use this quite a bit whenever I need to add in a Loopback adapter or some piece of hardware that is not quite installing correctly.” As a result, this functionality has been restored to Device Manager for RC to help add non-Plug and Play devices.

22. Increased responsiveness of Add Printer Wizard

There are some situations with legacy network printers in which Plug and Play cannot automatically identify the appropriate driver even when it’s available on Windows Update. For these situations, the Add Printer wizard allows customers to download a list of all the printer drivers available on Windows Update so they can manually select the driver for the specific printer being installed. The process of retrieving the list can take a few minutes and we received beta feedback that many people felt their machine was hung since there was nothing in the UI to let them know that it could take a few minutes. We have made some UI changes to indicate that process of retrieval can take some time. Additionally, we have also improved the overall performance of retrieving the list from Windows Update.

System

23. Partition size reduction

In Windows Vista, configuring features such as Windows Recovery Environment and Bit Locker required significant customer interaction. Also, a significant amount of drive space was reserved. The Windows 7 System partition enables features to be configured to work “out of the box” so very little customer interaction is needed to configure and utilize them. Based on feedback and telemetry data received through the beta, it became clear that we could cut the drive size in half (from 200M to 100M).

24. Reserved System Partition naming

The system partition is created automatically by Setup when installing on a machine with no existing partitions. During the Beta the existence of this partition on default installs confused many people and feedback indicated that a label telling them that this is space reserved for the system would be helpful when browsing disk configurations, and further help prevent it’s accidental deletion by enthusiasts. We will now label is “System Reserved”.

25. Dual Boot partition drive letter assignment

For a dual boot configuration for the Beta, the other Windows OS wouldn’t get a drive letter and therefore wouldn’t show up in explorer. We heard overwhelmingly from Beta customers that the lack of a drive letter was confusing and even caused some to believe that their secondary OS was lost. Assigning the drive letter makes it visible in explorer and aids in navigation across OS installations.

26. Pagefile reduction

Through extensive use of Beta telemetry data, we have determined we can slim down the Windows disk footprint further by reducing the default page file size to be 100% of the available main memory. It used to be “Memory + 300MB” so on a 1GB RAM system there was an extra third allocated that is no longer required. The pagefile on some occasions will increase in size if required, but we just pre-allocate less.

Network

27. Improved driver support

Based on telemetry data received from the beta, we identified networking drivers that were not available inbox. We worked with ecosystem partners to achieve increased inbox driver coverage across wireless and wired with significant coverage for some of the new ATOM-based laptops.

We hope you enjoyed yet another sneak peek into what’s coming in RC.

Comments

Anonymous
March 12, 2009
Awesome TEAM!!!! Pls Go to RC GO GO GO!!!! :D We're Ready !
Anonymous
March 12, 2009
Invert Selection - I did not know that this existed on Vista. Why? Because it does not have shortcut. It's been at least 5 years since I last opened the Edit menu in Windows. Please shortcuts (And display next to the menu item) for everything. Wonder what happened with the Window clock. Does W7 have support displaying UTC date-time as addition to other date times.
Anonymous
March 12, 2009
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Anonymous
March 12, 2009
How about a Minimize ( – ) button as well next to Close ( X ). This is necessary because when button combining is enabled, one can't minimize any window just by clicking on the taskbar icon, it's either the minimize caption button in the title bar or right clicking a thumbnail preview and then clicking Minimize. Also, showing size either on the status bar OR details pane when nothing is selected and a simple option to disable/enable autosort/autorefresh and all issues with Vista/Windows 7's Explorer will be gone! If I am currently in a folder with say, 100 files and I paste 100 more into them, since they're automatically arranged/sorted, the newer 100 get mixed with the earlier 100 and if I have to another operation of them again, it gets really cumbersome. Same logic applies to showing size on the status bar OR details pane. Currently, I've to select all files or go to the Folder properties to see the total size, in XP, it was intuitive since it showed the total size regardless of selection. Lastly, how about bringing back the network activity animation and quick access to "Network Connections" from that icon? This is another feature highly requested by many users.
Anonymous
March 12, 2009
Great news. :-) I use the Beta from the beginning full time and can't wait to see the RC.
Anonymous
March 12, 2009
Currently List View in Windows Explorer truncates even a slightly longer file name. Can you make the List View show the full file name?
Anonymous
March 12, 2009
I second anonymuos' request for network activity animation and quick access to "Network Connections". The minimized button in (opened items from the) thumbnails/lists would be nice indeed, though I can personally live without it. An off-by-default option somewhere would suffice for me. #10 is especially annoying for Vista users. In 9/10 times, when people tell me "Vista annoys me" and I have the cahnce to watch them, THIS is the moment when they're annoyed. If you could backport this to Vista - JUST THAT, you'll make old XP folks digg it quite much more. They may not admit it directly (heck, I've tried to explain that to them, at which they say "oh, I don't care", yet when it happens, they do), but it's one of those "minor" things that build up the "first" and "often".
Anonymous
March 12, 2009
OK !!! WINDOWS 7 TEAM BUT PEOPLE, WANT A YOU SAY DETAILS OF THESE API: NUMA???? DIRECT2D-DIRECT3D-DIRECT WRITE-WARP ???? MULTICORE AND MANY CORE STRUCTURE API??? ALL OF THESE API WILL BE PRESENTS IN WINDOWS 7 RC BUIL???????????????????? ANSWER , PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I REPEAT THIS QUESTIONS TO ANNOYANCE TEAM, IF YOU NOT ANSWER !!!!! THESE API ARE IMPORTANT , FOR WINDOWS 7 PERFORMANCE AND COMPONENTIZATION!!!!!!!!!! ANSWER PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
great set of changes, windows7 is shaping up to become a great new OS release. here's a few changes I'd like to see.

drag & drop to the breadcrumb bar to the selected folder
in Alt-Tab the ability to close applications by adding a [x] similar to the taskbar previews, and with the middle click.

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Still no DFS Support for Libraries? (== Ability to incluse DFS Shares to Libraries) Would be of upmost importance for Enterprise Customers!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Please, in Library create grouping by composer - for classic music.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Chaitanya Or Steven, I have a very simple question. Will be notified on the Engineering Windows 7 blog, when Windows 7 is officially forked away to the Release Candidate Escrow builds? I know many of us would love to know, as some people are suspecting that leaked build 7057 has been forked off as a potential release candidate escrow build. I think it hasn't yet. Thanks for all the reponses. Jose.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Re: #13 I've always wondered why Windows seems to do nothing else while the start and shutdown sounds play. Why do the sounds have to delay startup and shutdown at all, no matter how long they are? 14 years since Windows 95, can't you make Windows do two things at once?
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
In Control Panels that use Property Sheets instead of dialog boxes, backspace key should consistently take users back. It doesn't work in most of them, works in some of them. Also, I second anonymuos' request to bring back network icon lights which were of some use instead of the useless wireless signal icon or static wired icon.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I have a problem with Windows Explorer (still exists in 7057) - try to expand Libraries, User's folders, Computer,... in Navigation Pane and leave it expanded. Close Explorer and open - for example - Computer shortcut on Desktop. That folders which I expanded before are still expanded in Navigation Pane! I hope this isn't "by design". (I have "Show all folders" and "Expand current to current folder" turned on)
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Some really useful improvements again. Like others here I am really excited about the RC. One question, will we be able to update to the RC or will it be a clean install? Another: I am not sure if this is a bug or by design, I use the Links bar a lot in IE, I have all my favourites in subfolders of the Links bar so that in the browser interface I have a row of folders that if I click, then I get a drop down of the favourites that are in that folder. This allows me to have instantly accessible favourites grouped into common topics. I also have the Links folder as a Toolbar on my taskbar, I scrunch it up so it just says "Links" and I get a vertical menu showing each of the topic folders and then I have a nice little menu I can call up from the task bar. I can use this to take me directly to a page rather than going to my home page first and then going to the page I want. This saves me time and a bit of internet bandwidth is saved. I have noticed that after I have visited a page these links show the site's FavIcon, but if I visit it again sometime later the favicon has gone?? Other than that I think you have a great OS on your hands!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Wow, this is great news. Improvements like 7 and 10 ("Going up?" and "Right-click in Windows Explorer") are very valuable to me. I'm looking forward to the next build. There isn't much going on on MS Connect right now. No status changes on my bugreports, no answers... Does anyone know why?
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I think the best way to describe this is, AWESOME! I'm really glad to see that the beta feedback is really making impactful changes. I can't wait for RC!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Thank you for all your responsiveness - but especially for reinstating "Invert Selection" and giving me a name-check! ;-)
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Many of the design decisions in the beta still mystify me, buy I am overjoyed to see that the devs are finally listening to the masses (and hardware designers). The addition of the fixed "parent folder" breadcrumb and re-enabling file inversion are the kind of common sense revisions we [b]desperately[/b] want more of (and I still dream of the Up One Level button returning! Disabled by default, even, but available). I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of "date modified" being a default detail column. I also have to say that I don't understand how these basic, common-sense UI elements represent horribly complex coding tasks: tiny freeware file managers routinely have more functionality than Explorer. But..this is still a good move in the right direction. Kudos! P.S.: still dying for fully expandable file system from start menu.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Wow. Some of these are MAJOR usability improvements. Especially making the parent directory always visible in the breadcrumb bar. This is something that has bugged me for a long time. THANK YOU Microsoft! Any word yet on whether we'll be able to pin the Recycle Bin to the taskbar? Many people want this.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Wow, thanks for listening to users - almost all new features are 'I wouldn't have thought of it, but now that I see it, I like it very much'!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009

Right-click in Windows Explorer Too bad. I preferred the Beta behavior. On Vista I find myself constantly getting the wrong context menu becuase I right click on the mouseover highlight thinking I'll get a menu for that item. With XP and earlier I didn't have this problem because the highlight only extends across the filename. Frankly I'd be happiest if I could turn off the full row higlighting (and the mouseover effect).

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
parent folder? aka "The up arrow." That's cool. Whats next icons for the power bar? Sorry I've always been a sarcastic little (edited for content) Now if you would only add the option of adding "Programs" to the right hand pane of the start orb, why for the same reason you placed the parent folder, you have to use numerous clicks to go to the program file as appose to a fly out menu you just move the mouse. This is possible now by just pointing towards the program file under C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu and adding it as an option to say the video folder. I just don't understand why you just will not make the option official. It would appease a lot of the classic menu people out there, It might be deemed a little redundant because you have two ways to show the program menu, but I think the benefits and good will it would create would far outweigh the detriment's Actually I can not even think of one detriment, I'm being honest I can't see how it would hurt Windows in any way, except for some egos, but that's not a real good reason for a denial. Come on Steve, would that option really Hurt?
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
With the new Windows 7 taskbar layout, especially the new application icons, it is far more prudent to move the taskbar to the left or right side of the screen. Many users with widescreen displays would prefer this for, when a user browses the internet, more height is preferred over width on these screens. Yet, when the taskbar is on the left or right side of the screen and when the Windows Orb is clicked, the start menu pops up over the taskbar under the Orb. I do not know the design semantics of the Orb and start menu. But I think the only logical design of the Orb and start menu would be for the start menu to dock onto the rim of the taskbar and to the edge of the screen where the Orb is located, just as it would when the taskbar is at it's default position. Is the way it works in the Beta right now a conscious decision? Would you not agree that it breaks with what users have come to expect esthetically? Is this going to change in the RC or the RTM? If this is not going to be changed by default I stronlgy suggest to make an easily changeable setting out of this or an optional update. Peace.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Maybe I'm wrong, but despite my years of user experience under Windows, I never found a keyboard shortcut to create a folder via the keyboard. Scenario : Windows+E to open Explorer, select the HDD with arrow keys, press enter Under c: hit a shortcut to create a folder without having to use the mouse ! I never found a way to achieve this 100% keyboard from w95 to Vista... Maybe seven will fill this gap :)
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
"13. Trimming sound schemes to help performance Another sound event that would be great to see (or is that hear?) trimmed is the Start Navigation sound. Something that fires everytime you navigate to a new folder must require some CPU time.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Yannick "but despite my years of user experience under Windows, I never found a keyboard shortcut to create a folder via the keyboard" Use the context key on your keyboard. It has a picture of a menu on it. This displays the right-click menu where you can select New Folder.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
> MJMatthew Yeah of course you can always achieve this with the context menu, but I think (and I am not the one around me) that always need to create some directories and it is really slower to use contexte menu than to press 4/5 times a shortcut and then F2 to rename them. Am i the only windows user to wonder if it would be possible to achieve this ?
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I don't think Microsoft should make it a habit to remove features just because many people don't use it. But I do appreciate bringing back the invert selection feature.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
@ dotnet@sivill.com thanks for the feedback. Out of curiosity, is there a reason you use the collapsed Links toolbar on the taskbar and not IE's Jump List?
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I bet you still haven't fixed the schizophrenic font situation, have you? MS Sans Serif, Tahoma, Segoe UI: all over the place, without consistency, rhyme or reason.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Great changes! Fantastic job so far, team. One enhancement to the taskbar thumbnail overflow. Would it be possible to add the regular Aero Peek to the overflow when you hold the cursor over an item in the list? Just have it pop out to the right (or left if you have enough taskbar items). Again, great job, looking forward to RC and RTM!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
@mattvogt the list view already supports Aero Peek. Simply hover over an item, just like you do when a thumbnail is present, and you'll see the corresponding window on the desktop.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
@mdtauk, your post really made me register and say what I feel. No OS can get as long as XP. Windows XP was the best ever of a decade, an era, XP was the pinnacle of computing, sure it's fallen behind in lots of areas but still triumphs over Vista and 7's usability and UI, if not features. Computer users of today who say 7 is the best ever don't really understand the classic desktop computing paradigm, UI designs of the 90s. Just my two cents. The awesome Windows 2000 really laid the foundation for the exceptional XP. Microsoft has fallen behind and will succeed to a limited extent with Windows 7 because it changed the UI and features of XP too much, they simply did'nt add features to make it feel like Windows, they changed everything around to make it as good as an entirely different OS with Windows compatibility. 7 has been overwhelmingly well received because users the world over love Windows and the media has played its part in showering praise on Windows 7 in the aftermath of Vista. The people who themselves created OSes like Windows 2000 and XP have forgotten some things. 7 isn't much different from Vista, and Vista is totally different from the eXPerience. Microsoft is once again successful in winning over the ones who were all lost and really followed the media in bashing Vista. It'll all show when XP remains dominant even years after 7's launch. Longtime Windows people refuse to support their apps on Vista or anything later than it. Windows 7 is not a bad OS, it'll be successful, but not overwhelming and unanimously as the success previous Windows versions saw.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
@ URGENT Although what you request should solve this accounting problem in particular cases. But it is not a complete solution. Two simple counter examples I can think of are when your modem or w/e device is not synced. You still get outbound traffic. Secondly, if you are running virtual machines which share the network connection, their traffic does not show in task manager at all. What you need is an even lower level solution for book keeping, something which can plug in networking stack like Windows Firewall.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Good post, good comments so far. I agree with hdw - removing features is hardly a good move to make things easier. I understand the need to not confuse first-time users, but for instance, removing an entry from a drop-down menu (that by default you must push "Alt" to get to in the first place) is really pushing it. Some of the "obscure" features are often the favorites of long-time Windows users. As for it not appearing on your metrics; do keep in mind the potential for correlation between people keeping the "Experience Improvement Program" turned off, and those who use these off-the-beaten-path features. #10 - Mixed feelings. It is very hard to drag-and-drop, say, a file to a folder full of other folders, if the view is "details" and the detail fills the window. While still performing the drag operation, I sometimes need to find a 2 pixel tall region at the bottom before letting go of the mouse button. More whitespace for "dropping" is needed. However I'm not sure if opening up all the whitespace between columns is the right approach (if I am to understand this correctly) since it then becomes necessary to be more precise in clicking/highlighting items. Enforcing a mandatory "header/footer" (a footer of 10-20px of white in every folder even) or "far-right margin" might be a better solution. Your improvement is definitely a good step though.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I completely agree with Mike Williams: WMP12's behavior is currently broken. When you edit the Album Artist Field, the Contributing Artist field gets automatically overwritten. We can't do it properly with Advanced Tag editor, because that's now gone. We could do it in Windows Explorer, but I don't want to back and forth between WMP and Windows Explorer because my music details get out of sync (if WMP is using the Library, why not save edits directly to the file?)

Please please please, let us index network shares. My photos and documents and such are on a NAS, and even if I do some hackery to get those folders to show up in Library, they're slow. Please, even just for home users!

The keyboard shortcuts added for switching on the taskbar are very good, but sometimes we're only using a mouse. We can switch to an app window with a single click, so please allow us to do the same if that app has a group of windows (currently a click just brings up the preview thumbnails, which is already a hover action). Focus can be given to the last used window, but bring all windows of that app forward when I click the taskbar icon. That, or cycle through the app's windows with repeated clicks.

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
@MJMatthew: Yes I agree, creating new folders with a keyboard shortcut would be great. And PLEASE I'd like to see one tiny little feature. Make the environment variable dialog resizable! That dialog has annoyed me so many times...
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Please, please give us more options with multiple monitors. We should be able to set different wallpapers for each monitor, and extend the taskbar to other monitors without third-party applications that may or may not work properly. Also, when restarting a machine after disconnecting a monitor, anything you moved around between windows will be forgotten the next time you reconnect. Which is fine, except Windows will think a monitor has been disconnected when it is only turned off--so if a monitor goes to sleep, all your different monitors' content will get squished into one window. That's a big hassle to come back to in the morning or after lunch. One last thing--shouldn't it also be possible to allow a program to maximize across all monitors, assuming you have the same resolution across them? I'm not saying it should be the default behavior, but it seems like this would make a multi-monitor setup more usable. Right now it feels like Windows only marginally acknowledges that multiple-monitor setups exist, and I'm not sure why that's the case.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Good job, I'm sure Windows 7 will be a nice release. But there are a few things I find very annoying:

Middle (wheel) click and drag doesn't work anymore in some programs (Notepad, Total Commander). The strange thing is that it seems I'm the only one complaining.
Sometimes Windows 7 likes to start from hibernation just to run some scheduled tasks (at 4 AM? great!). This might not be a bug, but it's a change of behavior from Windows XP that I didn't see anyone talking about.
#10 might not be such a good idea. Also, it reminds me of a bug that appeared in Vista: sometimes dragging a file (or icon) draws a selection rectangle, even if the click point was over the file name (or the icon).
Double-clicking the vertical border of a window should expand it horizontally.

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I've been using Windows 7 for quite a while now, before I was stuck with Vista (not out of choice - my laptop didn't have XP drivers). I had a problem with Vista which I'm not sure is in 7, but I can't have a FireWire network connection. I used to use it loads in XP, but I was gutted when Microsoft didn't identify a "need" for it in Vista. Please reimplement this.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
"13. Trimming sound schemes to help performance We know our customers care about performance. We discovered that by just trimming the shutdown and logoff WAV files, we could save up to 400 ms. Every little bit counts." Speaking of every little bit counting. How needed are the 16 color and 256 color versions of the icons? If they aren't needed then why not get rid of these versions and compress the 32px and 48px versions of the 32-bit png icons? That should cut down the amount of hardrive space that icons take up by about half shouldn't it?
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Sorry to post again but I forgot to mention this in my last post. I'm really enjoying WMP12's Now Playing mode but I really dislike that if I'm in the Library view and I try to play a video it goes into Now Playing mode. I sort of consider the Library view to be the Advanced View and the Now Playing View to be the Basic view so it's sort of wierd that the Now Playing view as functionality that the Library view doesn't. Please allow Pictures and Video to be viewed in the Library view as well. I know my brother, another Beta tester, wants this, too.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I think you guys are doing an amazing job. I just have one humble suggestion concerning the folder icon. I believe the current look is outdated and boring compared to the rest of the UI. Maybe change that terrible yellow, make it glassy or just some improvement in general. thanks for listening and I can't wait for the release
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Speaking of important things to add to jump lists - you forgot to mention:

recent solution files and projects for visual studio (along with the option to open a solution as administrator)
notebooks / recent sections within OneNote
new emails, tasks, appointments, etc. for Outlook. There's no need to make us wait for VS2010/Office14 - you can add them. Pleeeeeeeeeease

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Thanks for posting these sorts of updates, they are very useful. Has the issue been address in W7, where in Vista's Windows Explorer, it will randomly and arbitrarily change your view? For example, my C: drive is always getting reset to a media view, so it tries to show artists, and stars and such, which is ridiculous. No matter how much I reset it to detail, normal view, it resets itself constantly. This happens everywhere throughout the file system while using Windows Explorer, and appears random and arbitrary. For example, in a folder with nothing but java source code files, it will periodically (but not all the time) change it to a media view, or change it to Large Icons view. The changes appear to be random and arbitrary, and the system does not remember your settings. This was one of the worst mis-features in Vista, and hopefully it was looked at for W7. Thanks. Andrew
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I'm really happy to see all these active changes. I really hope something is done to the start button so that it stands out a bit more, it really looks out of place, I'm speaking more in respect to it's normal state, the hover/active state is stunning, keep it that way, something needs to be done to the actual normal state to make it stand out rather than looking like a pinned program, if you pin Media Center to the taskbar, it will look a bit like having two start buttons but only different colours. Keep up the good work!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Hi, is there finally an easy way to display the USB versions a device supports? I.e., USB 1, 2, 3? Regards, Kurt
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I agree with many of the thoughts provided in the comments above, notably the return of a Network icon that shows activity. However, my largest concern is another already mentioned, namely Explorer making assumptions about how I want a folder to be viewed. I prefer Details for every directory on my computer and this alone was the reason I used Windows 2000 SP4 Rollup until Vista was released and hardware support for Win2K became problematic. Many of the improvements in Win7 are welcome, and I find it to be an extremely stable beta, given that I've been testing since Chicago (also NT5, so I used 2K in some form for about a decade). I understand that many users want a photo directory to display as thumbnails, but the only option available (apply to all folders OF THIS TYPE) takes control of what a "type" of folder is away from the user and makes assumptions that aren't welcome. Despite the numerous advances Win7 provides, I'd still be running Win2K for this reason and this reason only, if it were feasible in the current software and hardware ecosystem. Thanks for your time, Pete
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Great news so far Win7 Team! Loving Win7 so far! However, I'm still quite disappointed that NONE of my ideas have been implemented...

Taskbar Thumbnails: When hovering over a thumbnail (when Aero Peek enables itself) there should be the three main operator buttons as in the normal Window GUI: Close (closes that window), Maximize (bring that window to the foreground if it is minimized, or else actually maximize it if it is in the foreground) and Minimize (minimize that window). Now, I know you're all thinking "why would you want the maximize command, that's what happens when you just click the thumbnail!" WRONG. When you click the thumbnail, it maximizes that window and then CLOSES the thumbnail display. This means that if you wanted to open, say, three explorer windows, you would need to re-open the thumbnail preview display three times! This is simply a time waster when you need to reopen these explorer windows multiple times each session (as is the case with my work). As for the minimize command, I agree with previous comments that this would simply save users time. This could even be disabled by default (so as to not confuse casual users) but at least have it as an option for power users! Also, I still support my original idea of having a small bar (full vertical length, about 1/4 horizontal length) to the left of your thumbnail previews. On this there would be four options: Plus (opens a new instance of that program - useful on a laptop where you don't have a middle click button, etc), Minimize (this would minimize ALL of this type of window), Maximize (this would bring to the front ALL of this type of window - often something I wish I could do to save time), Close (Which would close ALL of this type of window). You could argue that you can already close all through the right click menu, but it would be nice to be able to do it via the preview thumbnail display as well. Again, you could simply have this as an option for power users.
Taskbar Itself: Users should be able to pin the Recycling Bin to the Taskbar! If you drag the recycling bin down onto the Taskbar, it shouldn't pin itself to the explorer's Jump list, it should simply stick to the Taskbar, which would allow for immediate access to that folder at a click, and its Jump list could have functions such as Empty Recycling Bin. Maybe that doesn't make much sense, as it is simply an extension of the Explorer process, but it would just be nice to see this work! Furthermore, having a "quick launch" icon on the Taskbar, which the User could pin any app to, would simply save time going through the Start Menu, and save space on the Taskbar. You could pin semi-frequent apps (that don't warrant a constant place on the Taskbar) to this icon, and access them via a Jump list. If you clicked the icon, it would just open the most recent app. The icon itself could be the most recently used non-pinned app in the list, with a simple overlay (like the shortcut overlay) to show the user that it is the quick launch icon.
Window Functionality: Quite a simple fix I think: being able to right click the title bar of a window and select "pin to top" would be extremely useful to me, and it seems a logical extension to Aero Snap.
Start Menu: My only real complaint with the start menu is the spacers on the right side: It has my User folders /spacer/ Games, Computer /spacer/ Networks, Control Panel. I personally think that Computer and Networks should be next to each other, and that Control Panel and Games should be by themselves. Being able to change the order of the links, and the spacers, simply by dragging them, seems like a good step in the "more customization" direction! As well as this, you should allow Uses to place their own shortcuts - I would personally like a Program Files link. Also, having read that you are changed the USER link back to the USER home folder (a VERY good thing!) I would like to see a Libraries link now, as I do sometimes still wish to go to the libraries folder. Further, you currently have the right side links as either static links (display as a link) or forced menus (display as a menu). I would like to be able to click the Text to open the folder directly, or click the arrow (which is displayed when display as a menu is selected) to open the menu. So, having BOTH options available to me, depending on which is more convenient. Lastly, you have made everything in the Start Menu look elegant, except for the Shut Down extension menu (the menu with Restart, Log-Off, etc). This menu simply looks out of place, and it would be nice if it had a glass effect or such to keep it looking nice and consistent.
Explorer: I expect you have received a lot of requests for this, so I am unsure why it has not yet been implemented, but one of my single greatest wants from Win7 is Tabbed Explorer Window functionality! It would work exactly the same as in IE7/IE8 (including with the thumbnail functionality to switch between tabs), and it would just make my life far more productive! At the very least, this should be an option for power users. 5 down, maybe more later... Thanks all for putting up with this rant! Seriously though, I'm sure many other uses second many of these requests, so it would be nice if at least some of them are implemented in RC1 and beyond!

AeonSlayer / Simon

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Hello, Am really tired of the driver for "NETGEAR WG311v3 54Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter" still being missing. It was available in the WINHEC build but not after that. Have to install an older driver, then once it connects, Windows Update wants to "upgrade" the driver. Hopefully it can be included in the build again!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Awesome, great job, especially "7. Going up?". This is terribble in small "Open" or "Save File" dialogs on Vista - now with the new parent folder button everything is fine. As an alternate you could add the old up button to the end of the breadcumb bar beside the refresh icon.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I suppose all of these "experience" issues are easier to talk about, but I'd feel better if you would address the hard questions. Questions like: Which applications are going to work correctly in the RC that don't work now? When will the system stop changing screen resolutions spontaneously and moving all my icons around? Will we be able to get networking after every reboot without having to disable/enable the network card every time? Yes, I care about Windows explorer options, but only as a distant second to reliability and compatibility.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Thank you so much for taking the Beta users' input and making Windows 7 better! This makes me trust and like Microsoft more when you listen to your users and let them be a part of the development process. I like Microsoft more now!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Please, please, please add folders to the favorite shortcut area of the file explorer... then it would be great like XP. See this video: http://tinyurl.com/MyWin7Wish
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
When I click in taskbar on IE task with several tabs it pops up to choose which tab to open. But why? IE8 has 1 window and it has it's own tab selector. So clicking on task should open IE with current tab. I would agree if it would do that on hovering, but not on clicking!!! It's not logical
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Hey guys, Just wanted to say you're doing a great job with Windows 7 and user feedback. But what's left for Windows 8 if Windows 7 is so awesome? That makes me scared... ;-)
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Suggestion 1

Add toggle option: Direct TreeView in folder icon in MacOSX / LinuxDesktop, you can direct TreeView in folder icon. (of course, also can disable this function.) this function can help some people. so, support for Windows. Add toggle option: Direct TreeView in folder icon screenshot: http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/389320

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Suggestion 2

automatic remeber last EDIT/READ state for every documents. in LinuxDesktop. Editor can automatic remeber last EDIT/READ documents state. When you mouse cursor stay in Ln 32, Col 7 with some documents, Colse this documents. Next time open this documents. It will automatic go to Ln 32, Col 7... It can automatic remeber state for every documents. screenshot: http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/389324

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Suggestion 3

"Toggle Document icon show content preview thumbnail" in linux gnome desktop environment, every text document icon can show its own content preview thumbnail. On desktop, you unneeded one by one the open view (Preview pane not on desktop) add custom option by user to toggle show text document preview thumbnail look screenshot: http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/383184

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Suggestion 4

"audio-preview function" (unneeded open wmp) in LinuxDesktop/MacOSX environment. When you move the mouse pointer stay at music file icon. It will auto playback audio-preview (icon show a symbol as the tip). When you move the mouse pointer without icon,it will stop playback. on Desktop, you will unneeded one by one the open view. "unneeded open Windows Media Player". Many people don't like Windows Media Player. and European Union Edition no WMP. ps. Desktop can't use Preview pane, and Preview pane is a stupid function. look screenshot: http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/385783

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Suggestion 5

Improve Start Menu and Appliaction Menu color layout (suggestion consistency) to improve Appliaction Menu color layout. (discriminated Appliaction Menu color very difficult) There is no consistency between the Start Menu and the Appliaction Menu. To keep Start Menu and Appliaction Menu color layout consistency, like Windows XP. All use white color for background, light blue color for selected item. screenshot: http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/387397

Anonymous
March 13, 2009
I usually have a folder of shared greenware (programs that do not need to be installed and can be run from dual boot OSes on all my computers) in a folder on C:). Win7 behaved weirdly when I tried to install on what I thought was D: (drive 1 or partition D). It changed it to C: and my original C: disappeared. I do not like the new way.
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
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Anonymous
March 13, 2009
As well, I agree with Velo Steve. I have had my screen resolution randomly drop to 800x600 out of no where on Windows 7 - and I have yet to get any feedback as to what has been causing this issue. If its the driver, I get no error of it crashing (isn't there suppose to be a tool-tip pop-up?)
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
"One big element of concern to me, that I haven't heard discussed: The details columns were always visible, no matter what view you were in--this is INCREDIBLY useful for me when I'm browsing photos, say, in medium icons view, because now I'm two clicks away from sorting by date modified ascending and descending, back and forth again. Now, as soon as I click out of Details view, it's a six click process to alternate between the two, as I have to right click, choose sort by, and then date modified. This is incredibly annoying." I miss it too, I really want it back. Thanks!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
Device Stage for PC seems cool -- I wonder how if you've considered combining it with My Computer? (Well, Computer, formerly My Computer...)
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
[Intense Suggestion] keep theme style consistency for Windows 7! keep theme style consistency for Menu bar, Tool bar. like Windows XP theme style's consistency. screenshot: http://www.windows7taskforce.com/thumb/style_consistency55.png/x/900 http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/389383 [Intense Suggestion]
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
The most annoying Vista issue is still not fixed. What issue? Let me try to explain Microsoft. a) click a file inside a folder b) now click on the name of that folder (the originally selected file name will now have a gray background) c) now move the cursor over the file but don't click; selected file name will now have a light blue background I want to delete to file, I see the blue background, so I think the file is selected, press delete and quickly quick on "yes" and voila, the whole folder is gone! Now imagine doing this with shift+delete... In previous Windows versions the file name background would just keep its color, even if you would move your cursor over it. I've been using Windows for 22 years now since Windows 2.03 and deleting a file has never been an issue, but has cost me in Vista files on 3 occasions. Coincident? I don't think so. I tried solutions like check boxes in front of file names or a registry change that makes only the background color of the filename turn gray and not the whole row, but I still had one situation in which I again lost some files. If you think I'm the only one, do some research, I've seen more people mentioning this issue. Many who have lost files this way often don't even know that this caused it!
Anonymous
March 13, 2009
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT There features are still missing:

Week numbers
Windows is using words kilobyte, megabyte, etc. incorrectly
Seconds and Swatch Internet Time are missing
Custom install is missing
16-bit applications do not work in 64-bit Windows 7 IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT

Anonymous
March 14, 2009
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Anonymous
March 14, 2009
I "third", "four" or "x" the demand for the size/status bar/details pane problem and making auto arrange optional. If anyone else agrees with these suggestions, tell Microsoft to do these changes otherwise they're done with RC/RTM. These are critical Windows Explorer issues ever since the release of Longhorn.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT Let me give some further tips:

Week numbers are missing from the Windows Calendar - the Calendar which shows up when you click the Taskbar's clock. We use week numbers here in Europe very much. Please, it only takes a couple of hours to code that feature. It's really simple.
Windows is using words kilobyte, megabyte, etc. incorrectly. Yes, it is. A 500 GB hard disk drive is not a 500 GB drive according to Windows. Why is this? Because Windows is speaking about gibibytes (GiB), not gigabytes (GB), although Windows lies that it is speaking about gigabytes (GB). This is very very frustrating and misleading. Please, fix this immediately! See my blog for further info...well, you won't publish my links anyway, so here is the info: "Windows Explorer should speak about kibibytes, mebibytes, gibibytes, and tebibytes instead of kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes or it still could speak about kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes, if it shows the numbers correctly. Make this a user-changeable setting. There could be four different modes: A. legacy mode: This mode uses the words kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, and terabyte INCORRECTLY like today. B. binary mode: This mode uses the words kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte, and tebibyte CORRECTLY. C. decimal mode: This mode uses the words kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, and terabyte CORRECTLY. D. binary&decimal mode: This mode shows (CORRECTLY) both presentations at once. For example: "3 objects selected, size: 2.23 kibibytes, 2.28352 kilobytes". The default mode should be B, C or D, not A."
Seconds and Swatch Internet Time are missing from the taskbar's clock. Why cannot a user customize taskbar so that one can see seconds and maybe also Swatch Internet Time (@-time) from it? It only takes a hour or two to code and implement this simple feature.
Custom install is missing. Why do I have to install all those printer drivers (800 MB) and games (100 MB), if I do not want to use them?
16-bit applications do not work in 64-bit Windows 7. Why not to include virtualization for 16-bit software? Why must a user bother to find a 32-bit/64-bit alternative of the program or install VMware or Virtual PC. It's annoying. Why not to just double-click the 16-bit binary and use it like in the good-old days? There are MANY 16-bit games and software that have never been converted to 32-bit/64-bit. IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT

Anonymous
March 14, 2009
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Anonymous
March 14, 2009
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Anonymous
March 14, 2009
If Windows 7 will contain (finally) a keyboard shortcut for creating a new folder after all these Windows years I can say I'm totally satisfied with the engineering's team efforts. Finally. Great job, but at least if you don't add this shortcut please explain why. Does anyone have copyright for this and you don't get a deal ? or what ?
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
About change 7, I cannot stress enough my wish to add the ability to use the address bar with drag and drop as suggested in http://www.windows7taskforce.com/view/220
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
I hope this was already the original plan; I think after all the important things are fixed someone should review the entire OS and make sure all xp-era icons and dialog boxes are updated to the new stlye. No icons should be pixelated etc, just QC kinda stuff. Consistency throughout is very important, at least to me anyways. Also, colors should be consistent. Would be nice if right click menus were white again and light blue when highlighted, just a suggestion. Great job though, just thought I would throw in the little things that bug me.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
What really gets me is that I CAN'T SEND FEEDBACK. It keeps saying that I don't have permission to submit bugs for the Connect feedback form, blah, blah, blah.... even if I uncheck the setting for Connect. :(
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
I actually registered just to suggest this. I love the way windows snap to use half screen when dragged left or right edges of the screen, and has already saved me hours of adjustments. How about if, by using a modifier like CTRL, you could get the window to snap to use one half of left side so you could snap to top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right? For example, CTRL-drag to top half of left border would make window use half height and half width of available space. Same for CTRL+drag to bottom half of left side and, of course, applying to right side as well. Hope i could make it clear, if not, i can elaborate if needed. Very nice OS you've got here.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
I totaly agree with "sevenflavor" "I "third", "four" or "x" the demand for the size/status bar/details pane problem and making auto arrange optional. If anyone else agrees with these suggestions, tell Microsoft to do these changes otherwise they're done with RC/RTM. These are critical Windows Explorer issues ever since the release of Longhorn." IT really, really annoy me! We need file sizes and the option to turn off the autoarrange in explorer. Besides, I ask for more consistency in Start Menu. When you hover the mouse in a application, like Notepad, it expands the last used itens, and this behavior is very nice. BUT, when you want to acess the "All Programs" area, we are stuck with the horrendous need to scroll in a limited space. I would like to see a option to "All Programs" expand itself, consistentily, like ALL other options in the start menu, and let me acess ALL PROGRAMS in a much easier to acess floating menu who expands from "All Programs" to the space in the right of Start Menu.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
I totaly agree with "sevenflavor" "I "third", "four" or "x" the demand for the size/status bar/details pane problem and making auto arrange optional. If anyone else agrees with these suggestions, tell Microsoft to do these changes otherwise they're done with RC/RTM. These are critical Windows Explorer issues ever since the release of Longhorn." IT really, really annoy me! We need file sizes and the option to turn off the autoarrange in explorer. Besides, I ask for more consistency in Start Menu. When you hover the mouse in a application, like Notepad, it expands the last used itens, and this behavior is very nice. BUT, when you want to acess the "All Programs" area, we are stuck with the horrendous need to scroll in a limited space. I would like to see a option to "All Programs" expand itself, consistentily, like ALL other options in the start menu, and let me acess ALL PROGRAMS in a much easier to acess floating menu who expands from "All Programs" to the space in the right of Start Menu.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
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Anonymous
March 14, 2009
Can you please not forget to view a few of my suggestions here (???): http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/26/some-changes-since-beta.aspx#9464315 Thanks
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
Excellent work to the Windows team! Keep up the great work and looking forward to the RC build :)
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
RAR is a very common format and WinRAR is the only programs able to pack RAR file because it is Proprietary format. Many free programs are able to unpack RAR and it became so common that Windows 7 should also be able to unpack it. All to often, I sent a RAR file to one of my friends and they are annoyed and insist that I use a zip file instead. I however still prefer RAR because it provide much better compression.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
Excuse me team Accelerators for Windows toolbar is removede from Windows 7 ? http://tinyurl.com/byxs3v
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
Internet Explorer 8 is the only thing realy lagging behind in Windows 7 in terms of quality. I get random anomilies in it all the time, crashes, performance issues, etc. I realy hope the development work for IE8 gets some higher priority soon.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
Internet Explorer 8 has a lot of potential, but as of the Beta build of Windows 7, I realy don't feel like it reaches it. I experience all kinds of random, unexplainable anomilies in it all the time. For example, NBC.com thinks my laptop is a "mobile" device. Or in other words, that it can't display full web pages. This was not the case with Vista. When I try to visit it, it just redirects me. Even worse, there isn't even an option on the NBC Mobile site to go to the full version....so it's extremely frustrating. I have tried resetting all IE settings to factory defaults, etc. but it didn't help at all. But even more peculiar is that I have a desktop running the exact same Beta build of Windows 7 (even used the same install disc) and it handles NBC.com perfectly fine, no mobile version redirect or anything. The hardware in that desktop is years behind what is in my laptop (which shipped with Vista). So, if anything, shouldn't it think my desktop is the lesser of the computers? The whole thing is just very strange, and I've yet to find a solution. So, for now, I just use Google Chrome. Sorry guys....love the new OS, but when it comes to browsers, you just lost some market share.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
On a clean install, why is my event log for any build always flooded with messages like Possible memory leak-Svchost, Dotnet Runtime Optimization Service failed to compile xyz, WMI errors and "Windows detected your registry is in use, apps or services that hold your registry may not function properly after unloading"? I tend to follow the event log to keep the system healthy and it appears broken on a fresh install itself.
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
I've become a (left) side docker since installing Win7 on my machine. But old habits die hard and I find myself moving the mouse to the bottom left of the screen before realizing that it should be the top left. Maybe there is some hidden feature I've missed that lets you rotate the bar 180 degrees? At least then the start pearl button/icon would appear on the bottom left (where it should be ;-) -krish
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
My Belkin N1 802.11n Wi-Fi NIC doesn't have built-in drivers, so it's impossible for me to go online to download other drivers. Also, the Microsoft USB optical mouse can't wake my laptop from sleep (No Power Management tab) but my internal trackpad which also shows up as attached by USB can!).
Anonymous
March 14, 2009
First a suggestion: Now, when you do a CTRL click on a icon in the taskbar, you cycle trough the open windows of a given program. You can also do a WIN + # cycle for the first 9 icons in the taskbar. Could you please add a relative way of cycling trough open windows of the current program? Based on CTRL being used with the mouse, I suggest CTRL + ALT + TAB for changing only between windows of the current program. There is also a problem with closing windows with ALT+F4, because if you previously clicked on a desktop gadget it gets focused after all windows are closed and the next press closes the gadget without a warning and you lose all of the gadgets settings. The problem also lies within the fact, that you don't even know the gadget has focus.
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
whay not have a live thumbnails preview for windows showing in list?? just like vista and also to keep the close button which was added to RC.
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
A couple of comments from what I've read. I believe that Microsoft should consider taking the Zune Player and adding what the Zune Player is lacking to become a full-fledged media player. Instead of having WMP in Windows, the new Zune Player should become apart of the Windows Live Essentials Suite. The Zune player has the potential to completely replace Windows Media Player. Instead of trying to overhaul WMP again, you can start from scratch with Zune. I think that virtualization will eventually be apart of Windows 7. However, virtualizing 16 Bit applications is pointless. There are so many security issues with 16 bit and many poorly 32 bit apps/software. It is really time to either re-write them as 32 bit with security in mind or 64 bit ones with security. Holding on to these legacy software and 16 bit is more of a threat to Windows security than moving foward in my opinion. I believe it is time to re-develop 32 and 64 bit to better tackle security issues. I do agree that Windows needs to be distinguish between kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes correctly. Any issues with IE 8 might be that many websites have not properly coded and tested their website with IE 8. Unfortunately, many do not participate in Beta testing, RC testing, and wait until after the browser is out to make changes. Those who have are rendering properly. A lot of websites have not been updated. Please keep that in mind. I'm using a much more updated version of IE 8 and Windows 7 Build 7057. It works a lot better than the beta build 7000. IE is 3 times better than the beta and RC builds. I have some friend who has access to the updated builds. You guys are really going to love the RC.
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
I have thoroughly enjoyed the simplicity and lean functionality of the Windows 98 start menu on XP and Vista for many years. However, withe '7' Beta 1, the Classic Start Menu is not an option when right clicking on the taskbar. This is one of the few reasons why I am hesitant to upgrade when this product comes out. I want to be able to use the windows 98 style start menu on Windows 7. One more thing, under Power Options in Control Panel, with '7', it is no longer possible when pressing the power button on one's laptop or desktop, to have it bring up a menu of what the user wants to do (Sleep/Hibernate/Restart/Shutdown/LogOff). The "Ask me what to do" option is not available for the list of possible responses Windows 7 gives when one presses the power button of the computer, from the list under "Power Option" in Control panel when configuring the button reaction the OS gives. I would like both of these features re-implemented and then I will as happy as a duck! Thanks!
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
As writen, it could be extremly useful to have a new folder shortcut!!! Is it possible to desactivate in an common explorer the Ctrl+Z shurtcut (undo). I use to work in multi display environment with several applications opened, and sometimes I do Ctrl+Z into the wrong windows, I know it's a mistake, but this command into explorer is useless for me. Great work on RC!
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
Couple points. Show desktop...why in the world is it glued to the left. Please put it back where it belongs. Search. Please fire whoever created the new search. Then, zip over to Google, learn what search otta be...return and redo, properly. As it stands, you've taken a poor system, and made it horrendously worse.
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
I must applaud, as 7048 has been an overall big improvement. The annoying Start Menu "File is in use" bug that plagued me in 7000 is gone (every time I tried to MOVE a folder from my User's Start Menu to the ProgramData one, I would get denied due to the files being "in use"). A few other little quirks in gadget rendering have been fixed (I can now finally use the Weather Channel gadget again). And I've noticed that I've had less Sleep->Crash accidents than before (down to one from one a day). The downsides? Well, a nice feature of Explorer got yanked: persistent browser windows. Like Invert Selection, it's just gone. I hope it comes back, but since nobody else is clamoring for it, I assume the community cannot change the Windows team's mind on this. Also, the taskbar STILL looks atrocious when put on the side of the screen. The icon tiles are over-wide in large icon mode. And in small icon mode? The bar doesn't shrink at all, the icons just get smaller with a TON of wasted space on their sides. I still think that 24 pixel icons would be more aesthetically pleasing for the small icon mode, but do understand that most programs don't contain the size since Windows never really used it before.
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
[Intense Suggestion] all View Mode can adjust icon size (for Touchscreen) if you need view 'Details' mode, when you use Touchscreen, these icons very small in 'Details' mode... Mac v10.6 will support all View Mode can adjust icon size. Linux's desktop system already supported. Why not support for Windows ? View Mode: Icon, List, Details, Tiles, Content icon size: Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small screenshot: http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/386653 http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/386661 http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/386662
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
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Anonymous
March 15, 2009
Intense Suggestion ============ keep Details Columns style consistency... Details Columns has two styles in Windows 7. Please keep style consistency for Details Columns. screenshot: http://www.windows7taskforce.com/thumb/Details_style.png/x/999 http://uploads.bizhat.com/view/389702
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
Guys, what about a problem with DirectSound3D hardware mixing in Vista? Does this annoying developer's mistake is fixed? I've Creative X-Fi Platinum, so why i have use dozens of wrappers (trash like ALchemy) to get hardware mixing (btw, ALchemy works properly in very rare cases) under Vista!?!? (XP hasn't such problem) Please, fix problem. Software-mixing only is the past century and must not be a part of upcoming OS.
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
Hi, I would like you to make this path window re sizable and please, implement the same functionalities for file copy as the one made by SuperCopier. Your file copy options have always been insufficient. Thanks in advance
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
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Anonymous
March 15, 2009
I too had problems with my mouse and keyboard in windows 7. I hope the bug you fixed is the same I encountered. I am using a ThinkPad R61 and the mouse, when connected to the dock, intermittently stops working for a second or two, but only when other devices are also connected to the usb ports of the dock. I think it was my printer which when connected messed up the mouse. Also, yesterday the keyboard stopped working after leaving windows 7 idle for an hour (it didn't go to sleep). A sleep/resume cycle made it work again.
Anonymous
March 15, 2009
The icon for the Start Menu should be much more prominent like it was in Vista. It's not just another program.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
@All user 7057 http://tinyurl.com/djlcva :D CIAO
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
Are not you going to add the Advanced Tag Editor back to WMP. This a clearly visible loss of functionality in the player. This will lead many users to migrate to iTunes (which has already majority of music enthusiasts). Details pane is not enough. I can't edit the language. I can't add manual lyrics too. All of the above, editing Album artist in details pane overwrites the contributing artist content. which didn't happened in Advanced Tag Editor.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
Hey guys. Nice job! But, please 1: Make the ability to change thickness of that ugly wide window borders - I can't find out how to change it. According me it is too wide. Via Advanced appearance - it is not possible. 2: Add maximize button/ability to resize to the msconfig window because services and startup settings are very uncomfortable in such small window. Thanks
Anonymous
March 16, 2009

New folder is always available This is nice to see, thanks! How about also creating a keyboard shortcut?

Anonymous
March 16, 2009
I too think the changes are very useful. However, I still use Windows XP on my main machine. Windows 7 is on my spare laptop and I like most of it. One reason I like XP is because I can make small, but to me, incredibly convenient changes in how Windows looks and behaves. I hope you can eventually make a took like Tweak UI. Among Windows greatest attributes is the ability for uses to fine tune it. Make changes to the look and "feel" we find comfortable. I don't believe Apple can say that. So please give us the ability, as much as possible, to let users define how our systems look and operate. Thanks for allowing us to provide this feedback!
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
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Anonymous
March 16, 2009
@ #26. Pagefile reduction OK, to be fair - your logic and telemetry is worthless on this point, and has always been. Sorry, I'm not that mean usually :) Here is the reasoning... If I get new X58 MBO and i7, and plug in 12GB of RAM I'll have swap (page file) of 12GB? I never figured out who made those decisions.. but it's dumb. RAM is cheap these days, it's not Win95 era, so when I need more page-file, I go and buy some RAM. Here is a proposition: Windows should be monitoring user expirience all the time since the first boot, and set page file to the peak value of that Windows install (ever). So if I have 4GB RAM, and I never used more than 3GB it should stay zero (and force RAM-only). Or if I constantly use 3GB, and once upon a time I've peaked to 5GB, swap should be 1GB.. ok, maybe +100MB to make things safer. And for those trying to run Win7 on 512MB RAM machine, make a minimum swap of 1GB. Even this is overly generous IMHO, but much better than having office computer with 2GB RAM that never gets over 1GB, and yet still having 2GB swap for nothing. Not to forget that somehow Windows uses swap even when there is still free RAM, instead never using swap untill RAM is filled completely. Dooh! You want a scheme? OK, here: <1GB RAM - swap has to be 1GB minimum >1GB RAM #1 - Windows monitors peak memory usage and does calculation "peak_memory_used - available_RAM + 100MB = page_file_size" >1GB RAM #2 - when peak memory is never over RAM available - use RAM only and make page file ZERO OK, now this solves the problem, doesn't it? Much nicer than having the "one rule to fit them all", specialy since those people with 512MB RAM will have no use of having just 512MB page file anyway. And I trully believe that people with 4GB RAM rarely need 8GB total for runing their applications. Cheers!
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
The only things my customers and me need is: The possibility of expand "All Programs" in Start Menú like in XP. Searching programs without expanding it, its very frustrating, and using the keyboard is so slow for experience users or users who have the Start Menu ordered by own. The possibility to customize the Windows Explorer toolbar, like in XP. Why Vista and Windows 7 have less options and customizations than Windows XP? A media library with at least the options and versatility of Windows Media Player 10. Its imposible to catalog music and other media in Windows Media Player 11 or 12. Or the posibility to install Windows Media Player 10 in Windows 7. Why PowerToys Powercalc not run on Vista or Windows Seven? Why remove the tabs controls in overall Windows? Remember the versatility and 'quickly' "Appearance" option with tabs in Windows XP. Thanks!
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
I could not agree more with JaviAl: "The possibility of expand "All Programs" in Start Menú like in XP. Searching programs without expanding it, its very frustrating, and using the keyboard is so slow for experience users or users who have the Start Menu ordered by own. The possibility to customize the Windows Explorer toolbar, like in XP. Why Vista and Windows 7 have less options and customizations than Windows XP?" And, more, the possibilty to customize Windows Explorer statusbar AND/OR Details Pane. There is lots of unused space there, and I want to see file sizes and drive free space. Other users can have other needs, and the option to customize is what we need. Its funny to see Windows Explorer, a core windows utility doing much less in Windows 7 than it did back almost a decade ago, in XP.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
Great, But really if I add folder to the music library, Why files like pdf and zip appear?? There must be a way to filter out only the files types that i want in this library. Hope you can do it!! :)
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
Also please note that search won't show any files that is blocked because it's download from the internet. this is frustrating and make me download things twice!!!!! Please fix it.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
@Chaitanya_Sareen Sorry, what I meant was a thumbnail preview for items in an overflow task icon list, like when you hover over an icon that's not 'full'. I know in essence it's a thumbnail preview of a thumbnail preview, but it would make it a little richer of an experience.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
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Anonymous
March 16, 2009
In Meida Center when using a mouse, to navigate albums/etc, I liked how in Vista you could just move it to the side and it would move without having to click. I also liked how you could push the mouse off to the side and it would move on its own to browse. The new "double letter" way you cycle through it always shows the same albums over and over it should at least show the next one each full cycle. All my friends who have used both Vista, and 7 MC in my house, prefer the Vista browsing better. One even asked me to please but Vista ack. Also sometimes you need to click "Back" and sometimes you need to "Click Behind" It would be better if it was more consistent. Prehaps either way should work. Album Artist and Artist should switch places. Album Artist should be the default. After closing WMP/MC it should default back to Shuffle off. It is annoying when you had a shuffle going. You close the program, then go to play something later and it is shuffled automatically. I use remote desktop a lot throughout my house. When signing in to remote desktop MC closes and the WMP starts the same song from. the beginning. If you minimize MC, it does not close, but it still starts from the begining. Also the remote should still work even if the computer is locked from RDP session. Volume in MCE does not work on Digital out only analog. I liked the play all/Shuffle all better in Vista. Now it appears you have to turn on shuffle fisrt before, playing all versions and "shuffle all" button A way to edit or repair the Windows Media Database. Also I liked the recently added in WMP 11. I have a very large library, and use it a lot and would love to see these changes.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
The Command Prompt can't go full screen. DOS programs don't work on 64-bit Windows. Come on guys, there's a lot of good stuff for DOS that people still use. Remember, while gamers love the latest in graphics technology, a lot of people also like legacy games. Who doesn't love playing Pac-Man or Tetris, etc.? I for one like a game called Descent, it's an awesome game. But it does not work well on Vista or 7. Please bring back support for legacy stuff. Stuff like this is where real innovation can come from, finding ways to make everything compatible without making small adjustments to code just so that a few specific applications can work. I know you guys can find a way to support legacy stuff, whether it be through a "safe-mode" type of thing, virtual machine/emulation, etc.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
@Ardmore "WMP/ Media Center Improvements - Album Artist and Artist should switch places. Album Artist should be the default." I brought this up early in the comments stream and several other people have commented on this. The proposed changes in WMP do not fix the underlying problem with Artists, they simply build on top of the flaw. Since WM say it is by design to write over the top of multiple independent data fields (Contributing Artist) when you correct another (Album Artist), one must ask where the oversight is Microsoft management. WMP doesn't even offer one level of undo to fix this when it happens. It's zap and your data is gone. Add this to WMP's "by design" efforts to overwrite user's album art with low resolution, frequently mismatched album art, and you can reasonably build an argument that Microsoft (through this product) is wilfully mismanaging user data. Perhaps it is time for it to be brought to account through an external regulatory authority.
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
@AeonSlayer Tabbed Explorer Bowser - Brilliant idea!!!!
Anonymous
March 16, 2009
I see very little on the blog from the Team about keyboard shortcuts. I assume that the shortdcuts we are used to are still in 7, but are there new shortcuts in 7 and will there be documentation for shortcuts?
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
Here are what I'd like to see in Windows 7: The 64-bit driver for the wifi adapter (Intel 4965AGN) of my Dell Inspiron 1520 does not work upon resume from hibernation Ability to load .ISO files Switching between 32 and 64-bit versions of Win7 clears the Readyboost cache. Can we have each OS leave the cache alone unless specifically tied to it? When copying files to a usb stick, I might drag files that already exist in the destination and would be happy to select either replace/skip when appropriate. However, if the total size of the selection exceeds the free space on the destination, I can't even start the copy/move operation. Some assurance that there is an easy migration from the Beta to RC and to the full release versions so I can install the Beta on my parent's computer without another laborious install and customization when the newer versions come out. I second the suggestion to have the option to flip the start bar vertically when it is docked on the left side of the screen. Also, as has been suggested, have an option to allow new files in an Explorer window to stay at the bottom of the file list (or add a stack view that uses LIFO (last in, first out)). Also, occassionally I need to safely remove a usb stick/HDD but Windows still says I have a file open when I have already closed everything. Can windows specify what is being held open and allow a force close? I've tried to send feedback using 3 Passport accounts (including a Technet and Live.com logins) and none worked. Thanks and very happy with the beta so far.
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
Hello. I am using beta 1 of windows 7 and I was wondering if the problem with the unreadable text in superbar is fixed in the new builds. I am talking about when not using the group option and showing the window caption in the taskbar. The superbar task buttons always use white font for the caption and when I set brighter desktop background I can't see the text itself. You can see the the problem here: http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2870/windows7s.png I suggest that when using brigher background superbar should use black font for the title text. Still I don't know if that's already fixed.
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
Great news for "7. Going up?" It would be awesome if key combination "Alt + Up Arrow" simulate the click on Up button to navigate up directories.
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
You re doing great about everything, I just still miss the WMP mini player. It would even look great in the new taskbar. Please bring it back.
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
There is a bug here. The folder is added to the right but not to the left. Would be nice to have it add to the left. See image: http://tinyurl.com/MyWin7WishImage Also, it is confusing to navigate to the favorites folder to discover it is not the favorites folder but the web favorites folder. To get to the favorites folder one has to go to the links folder. ,,,Bydia
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
please please please make listview show the full filenames in explorer. when dealing with tens of thousands of files in a single folder it really makes a huge difference. thanks
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
Imaulle: Why don't you just turn on display of file extensions in Folder Options?
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
a suggestion for explorer.. Since explorer by default does not expand the directory tree when, for instance, reaching a directory via a favorite-link, it would be great if it was possible to drag&drop files/directories to items on the breadcrumb bar, like the parent folder in order to duplicate a folder! best regards & keep up the great work, lukas
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
Mike Williams, I agree with Imaulle. He is talking about the list view now having fixed size of the column and thus, cannot show entire name of files if they have long file names. This really need to be corrected. Is impossible to use list view now. AND, it have NOTHING TO DO with file extensions.
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
What is really missing is the ability to install windows 7 on dynamic disks. You can install on a basic disk, and convert it to a dynamic disk without any problem. You can even mirror the boot / system partition. However for some unknown reason you do not allow me to install on an dynamic disk. Without this possibillity i have no way to upgrade to windows 7. It's you're own design for crying out loud....
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
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Anonymous
March 18, 2009
I really want to understand why I can customize Start Menu, and in the options, I can select Computer, Control Panel, Documents, Games, Pictures, Music, Video, almost EVERYTHING and put them to be "SHOW AS MENU" and I CAN´T do it with the All Programs! A option to show All Programs as a MENU is a MUST, so we have all the space in the screen to go to our programs, instead of scroll scroll scroll scroll scrool eternaly! We need more consistency. About everything in the new start menu can be show as a MENU, but the MOST IMPORTANT, can´t!
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
Warel: It's hard to read Imaulle's intent from what is written. S/he did say the ENTIRE name of files, so that would include the extension. Why not just use the Details view? What is the "huge difference" made by using List view with resizeable columns and Details view?
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
Regarding the idea of new folder shortcuts, i'm glad to see that some others users are pointing out the same idea I wrote a week ago. I'm thinking about this for one week and maybe we could use : Win+Insert -> Create New Directory in current location Win+Shift+Insert -> Create a new file Both shortcuts should create the directory/file and automatically set the focus on filename in order to let the user rename it (if he wants to create multiple directory in one shoot, he can still press again the shortcuts) Drawback of insert key >> Laptop users will have to locate the key first. it is not placed all the time to the same location. Else we could use : Win+Shift+D -> Directory Win+Shift+F -> File Drawback : if user forget to press shift, it will triger desktop shortcut or open a search window. Please team, listen to your fellow users and add one of the solution to 7. As you said, the smallest things are sometimes making the differences !!! Anyway i'm looking for the RC next month ! Keep us the good work :)
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
Mike Williams: For me it was not hard to read, because I was suffering with the same issue in the list view, and I already sent feedback about it a while ago. Plus, even said "entire" file name, including extension, s/he just complained about the listview, so, was easy to figure it was not the file extension, but the listview, the problem. Well, for me, there is a very huge difference using list and details. I have a widescreen monitor, so, plenty of horizontal space, then, in list, I can see more than 100 files in one single screen. And a LOT of vertical scrolling is needed to see even half of this.
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
Warel: OK so List view resizes columns automatically up to about 44 characters (which is possibly governed by a reg key). How often do you need to manually discriminate between files in a single folder over that length? What's the scenario? Scrolling through a long list of files without reason isn't very compelling.
Anonymous
March 18, 2009
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Anonymous
March 18, 2009
Please add the possibility to search into Microsoft Management Console plugins (like Group Policy Editor) :D.
Anonymous
March 19, 2009
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Anonymous
March 20, 2009
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Anonymous
March 20, 2009
I would really like to see a change in how codecs are supported in Windows 7. If I have trouble playing back a file, it would be nice to have the Media Player or Media Center send an error report to detail the audio and video codecs with which the file was encoded, so that the next time I use Windows Update, a codec will be downloaded that will enable me to play the file. This would be a great help to users who are a little less codec-savvy, and simply want a file to play without worrying how it was encoded.
Anonymous
March 20, 2009
Please restore the Advanced Tag Editor in Windows Media Player 12; that is the one feature of WMP12 that I use frequently to add missing information to my mp3s. Aside from setting a separate podcast section on the navigation pane, that is my top request for WMP12.
Anonymous
March 20, 2009
I too would like to know why the Advanced Tag Editor is gone from WMP12. It is such a handy little tool; it never caused harm to anyone. Please rectify this situation. Please
Anonymous
March 21, 2009
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Anonymous
March 21, 2009
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Anonymous
March 21, 2009
Oh, sorry, I forgot to say about the "auto arrange" Please, I need some option to turn this thing off, to. Its really annoying for me, and a option to turn it off is a MUST, and should be really easy to acomplish.
Anonymous
March 21, 2009
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Anonymous
March 21, 2009

Initially I was confused to see different colors of windows (in taskbar), some were blue, some were red, maroon, green, white... I was lost. Thought depends on CPU/diskIO/memory usage, UAC, security, kind of app and what not. Then I realized its nothing but the highest intensity color taken from Application icon. What does it make sense? For those who didnt undertand: Open notepad, it would be light-blue (notepad icon), open resource monitor it would be maroon/dark-red, open spider it would be purple! It's good! But what does it make sense??

Anonymous
March 21, 2009

Very much liked Paint improvement - excellent! Liked the improvement in WordPad, but how can I launch 'Font' dialog? No option, but only through toolbar! 5. Common dialog boxes improved - Font, File -fantabulous. Print dialog is not much of importance. But why Color dialog disregarded for ages (no improvement since '95/'98) ?? When you can put office-derived 'Ribbons' in few apps, why not Color dialog??

Anonymous
March 23, 2009
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Anonymous
March 24, 2009
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Anonymous
March 24, 2009
I totally agree with ScorpioKing1990. I also like to play Descent. It's a great game. Maybe still the best game ever made. :) It seems that they are not going to support 16-bit software. Not now, maybe never. ScorpioKing1990: Luckily, it is possible to run Descent in 64-bit Vista using a free program called DOSbox. I got it working. Even the sound effects work! I can also play Descent on Internet using DOSbox's own IPX server! :) I haven't tested Descent/DOSbox on Windows 7, but maybe it will work. Cons: I do not know how to enable full-screen in DOSbox. Maybe it's not possible. :(
Anonymous
March 25, 2009
Excellent changes! Especially the New Folder button and Invert Selection. But to echo everybody else here, please:

Add a keyboard shortcut for New Folder (maybe CTRL+N?)
Restore the network activity lights
Give us an option to make Backspace work like in XP and before (not to go backwards but up one directory level)
Make CTRL+Backspace work throughout the OS uniformly (in random text boxes and applets, e.g. Notepad, it does not delete the preceding word but instead inserts square characters)
Create a new common Color dialog that adds support for hex as well as decimal color entry (needed for web design!), an eyedrop color picker (would save us from opening graphics editors to get the same function), and and the ability to use system-wide themes like in the Office 2007 suite (great for consistent corporate design)

Anonymous
March 25, 2009
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Anonymous
March 25, 2009
I fully agree with JaviAL. Vista and Seven are not for me (and lots of friends I talked to) because the lack of basic functionality. Windows explorer is a total MESS. I´m tired of changing my downloads folder to be LIST. All the time I open it, explorer "THINKS" its "BETTER" to show me details. Ok... I CAN THINK, thanks. Im asking, no, Im COMMANDING to MY explorer NEVER change the view mode of my folders. Oh! Sorry, I CAN´T do that. Because I don´t know whats is better for me, no... EXPLORER KNOWS! let EXPLORER decides for me. No, thanks, I still have a brain, and I can use it. I want to see my files the way I want it. Not the way explorer wants. I want to customize my explorer toolbar. I want to be able to choose wich pictures I want to import from my digital camera. I want to be able to use a quick launch. I want to expand my "All Programs" I want to "go up" a folder in explorer. I want to choose what to see in "Details Pane". But, even if this is all very basic things, I just can´t do any of this. And it happens to a lot of users. We feel stuck with a unfriendly interface, that we CAN´T change to be friendly. It is write in stone, because "Its better for you, belive, you don´t know what is good, WE KNOW." ok. But no, thanks.
Anonymous
March 26, 2009
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Anonymous
March 26, 2009
The Windows 7 is awesome but the thumbnail of WMP is wrong. The image appears flipped.
Anonymous
March 26, 2009
Nice, Mike... thanks a lot.. Lets see... Image importer was fine in xp, broken in seven, and I need to just find a replacement? Ok. Explorer too, was fine in xp, and lack features in seven.. again, need to find a replacement? Ok. Lets see... maybe while searching for a lot of "replacements" I find a linux or mac to replace the entire "feature/customization lack system"? If I´m talking here about annoyances, is because I want the system to be better when released, not to find replacements. I know there are a lot around, I´m currently using ACDsee and Total Commander, but it really is not the point. When Windows 7 goes RTM, I want a system "mature" enought to be able to do such lets see.. "dificult" tasks, like file and picutures manager WITHOUT looking for other softwares.
Anonymous
March 26, 2009
Please can you also consider changing the way Libraries work in Media Center. I would like to be able to have Media Center only use certain folders within my Library and changing the folders in Media Center shouldn't change my Library. I have a Pictures Library that contains various folders, I have a folder that stores the originals of all my Photos (Original) and another folder that shows the edited versions (Fixed) and yet another folder which smaller copies of the photos I actually want people to view through Media Center (Show) which is certainly not all the photos I have taken. In Explorer I want to see the full library: ->Pictures ---->Original ---->Fixed ---->Show In Media Center I only want to display photos from PicturesShow In Windows 7 if I go and change the Pictures folders in Media Center to PicturesShow it changes the Library to contain only PicturesShow. This is unintuitive and stops me using either using Media Center or the Library. The folder selection lists should be separate or in Media Center you should be able to select a folder within a Library without changing the LIbrary itself.
Anonymous
March 27, 2009
I ONLY HAVE TWO MORE WISH TO WINDOWS 7:

UPDATE GRAPHICS LIKE DISK USAGE GRAPHICS, IF MICROSOFT BUY DUNDAS CONTROLS, CAN YOU USE THIS CONTROLS INSTEAD OF OLD GRAPHIC (SAME FROM W2000 O XP), THIS LOOK SO OLD.
INCLUDE FEDERATED SEARCH WITH SKYDRIVE, THIS MAKE A LOT MORE USEFULL SKIDRIVE.

Anonymous
March 27, 2009
@julianwood: Another annoying/scary feature of the Library/Media Player interaction is that you cannot divorce Media Player's indexing and rearranging from what is in the Library. So if you just use Media Player for playing audio and video files, you CANNOT escape it indexing (and otherwise interfering with) all image files that are linked to your Pictures Library. This is done redundantly in addition to the system indexer. There are also no user controls for what goes on with image files unlike for audio files. It's also rather insane that some Video files get their own Library ie TV Shows, whereas you cannot separate out podcasts and other spoken word audio files into a separate Library from Music. Half-baked libraries combined with half-baked Media Player management only results in a feature set that is quarter-baked at best.
Anonymous
March 29, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
April 02, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
April 02, 2009
a 'delete' button next to the 'new folder' would be a big plus and obvious because how do I explain to my parents that they have to release the mouse and find the delete button on the keyboard or use the contextmenu for it (clumsy)
Anonymous
April 09, 2009
On almost every one of these posts I see comments calling for the return of the Classic Star menu. It's all over the user forums... it's been blogged about... but it all seems to be falling on deaf ears. Seems this is one issue Microsoft intends to completely ignore its users on. Very disappointing.
Anonymous
April 10, 2009
Is there will be a new Color Picker in Windows 7? Default system color picker is 10+ years old. It's very hard to use. Can we have a new one in Windows 7?
Anonymous
April 16, 2009
hm, which one is better? Beta or Rc?
Anonymous
April 17, 2009
There is a serious usability flaw in W7 Beta. When I open multiple windows of the same program (Word, for instance), it takes me click + looking for the right window + mouse movement + click to switch back to the window I just worked with. So, if I have a typical 1280*1024 display and work with 2 documents - an Excel spreadsheet and a Word document - it take a lot of time and attention to switch between these two! How about changing the default icon behaviour: click to open the last used window, hover to see the list of open windows.
Anonymous
April 19, 2009
I haven't installed my Windows 7 yet and have a couple of quetions is all. I have Vista Ultimate on my computer so I am depating what to do. I have the following programs, not installed yet, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V and Virtual PC 2007. I have been thinking about installing Windows 7 as a virtual PC on a seperate hard drive, usb. I have 4 PC's at home here that are networked. I just finished my BSIT/software engineering and am now going for my masters in information systems. My question is, which one of the above would be the best to use to accomplish this? Ideas please, thanks, Ken
Anonymous
April 20, 2009

Finding music by artist Could you please add id3v2 (and possibly also apev2) support to explorer?

Anonymous
April 26, 2009
Microsoft should do something to make a NAS work better!
Anonymous
April 26, 2009
@joaocorreia Instead of holding Ctrl one idea would be to drag the window to the corner of the screen to get the Aero snap window to occupy that particular quarter (rather than half) of the screen.
Anonymous
April 27, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
April 30, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
May 01, 2009
Windows 7 is great. I'm a windows fan boy. Though, i work on Linux platforms also. If Windows 7 provides some way to mount ISO images without any third party tools, that would be GREAT !!! It is one of the lovable features in Linux too. This will definitely be useful to many people. So i request you to consider adding this feature to Windows 7
Anonymous
May 01, 2009
I am anxiously awaiting the RC and noticed today that the RC with debugging symbols is available for download on the MSDN site. What exactly is the difference between versions with debugging symbols versus w/o symbols?
Anonymous
May 05, 2009
This new one look like has more features
Anonymous
May 09, 2009
this new one has great design and feature...
Anonymous
June 16, 2009
On RC (7100), Windows stopped using "folder.jpg" as a preview for folders. It was a great feature since Windows XP, which was improved in Vista with larger thumbnails. Please, guys, you have to fix it.
Anonymous
June 16, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 16, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 16, 2009
I have the following programs, not installed yet, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V and Virtual PC 2007. I have been thinking about installing Windows 7 as a virtual PC on a seperate hard drive, usb. I have 4 PC's at home here that are networked. I just finished my BSIT/software engineering and am now going for my masters in information systems. My question is, which one of the above would be the best to use to accomplish this?
Anonymous
June 18, 2009
I'm using RC, and I just went to use Invert Selection, and it wasn't there at all. I hope it makes RTM... :-)
Anonymous
June 20, 2009
I am not sure where to post this, please direct me to the appropriate forum if this is not the right one. The Autoplay feature is not working. I observed it with a SD card and a blank dvd. The Autoplay options for all devices are set to Ask me everytime. I am running Windows 7 RC 64 bit as the only OS on my system.
Anonymous
June 23, 2009
If Windows 7 provides some way to mount ISO images without any third party tools, that would be GREAT !!! It is one of the lovable features in Linux too.
Anonymous
June 23, 2009
but since I've grown up in a PC-House and all of my my computers are PC/Linux Hybrids [Aside from my old green iMac G3 333Mhz running OS X Tiger] As long as Microsoft doesn't make Ultimate way too expensive like the worst OS ever, vista. Windows 7 has come a long way and I'm Really anticipating the RC!
Anonymous
June 30, 2009
Good to see things coming together, I'm just upgrading to the latest RC to test (I've been using the beta for month & it's expired now). Looking forward to seeing the improvements so far & have already pre-ordered a release copy :D Great to see windows bouncing back.
Anonymous
July 05, 2009
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
July 17, 2009
is the safely remove hardware bug fixed.... coz i connected my nokia N73 to my pc via mass storage mode....and when i clicked on the eject button on the task bar...a message popped up saying the the hardware can now be removed.......but my phone displayed error message saying that "the device was not removed properly and data might have been lost"....
Anonymous
August 09, 2009
Good to see things coming together, I'm just upgrading to the latest RC to test (I've been using the beta for month & it's expired now). Looking forward to seeing the improvements so far & have already pre-ordered a release copy :D Great to see windows bouncing back.
Anonymous
August 24, 2009
Those that tried the Beta and weren't impressed should check out the RC, it's so much better. All the little bugs have been ironed out and it works great for my online games now :P
Anonymous
November 06, 2009
I like the fact that you focus so much on the taskbar... we spend a lot of time there, so it should be a priority.
Anonymous
February 27, 2010
I am running Windows 7 RC 64 bit as the only OS on my system
Anonymous
February 28, 2010
Good to see things coming together, I'm just upgrading to the latest RC to test (I've been using the beta for month & it's expired now). Looking forward to seeing the improvements so far & have already pre-ordered a release copy :D Great to see windows bouncing back.
Anonymous
March 03, 2010
Great changes! Great job, looking forward to RC and RTM!
Anonymous
March 04, 2010
I think you have a great OS on your hands! I have noticed that after I have visited a page these links show the site's FavIcon, but if I visit it again sometime later the favicon has gone?? I have a question, will we be able to update to the RC or will it be a clean install? <a href="http://www.helpprofitonline.com/">Profit Online</a>
Anonymous
March 04, 2010
I also miss it and really want it back. Thanks!
Anonymous
March 05, 2010
You just click on the text: "Mail Classic". You find the link just under your Yahoo ID (top left)
Anonymous
March 12, 2010
You just click on the text: "Mail Classic". You find the link just under your Yahoo ID (top left)
Anonymous
March 18, 2010
siirt haber siirtliler ve guncel konular
Anonymous
April 03, 2010
Great changes! Great job, looking forward to RC and RTM!
Anonymous
April 03, 2010
ciao I am running Windows 7 RC 64 bit as the only OS on my system...
Anonymous
April 06, 2010
Windows 7 is great. I'm a windows fan boy. Though, i work on Linux platforms also.
Anonymous
April 08, 2010
güvenli donanım hata .... sabit kaldırın coz i yığın depolama moduna .... ve ne zaman i görev çubuğunda çıkarma düğmesine tıklandığında ... bir mesaj yoluyla benim nokia benim pc için N73 bağlı donanım şimdi ...... kaldırılabilir söyleyerek attı . ama benim telefon hata mesajı "bu aygıt düzgün ve kaldırılmış değildi veri ".... kaybetmiş olabileceğini söyleyerek görüntülenir
Anonymous
April 08, 2010
I have the following programs, not installed yet, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V and Virtual PC 2007. I have been thinking about installing Windows 7 as a virtual PC on a seperate hard drive, usb. I have 4 PC's at home here that are networked. I just finished my BSIT/software engineering and am now going for my masters in information systems. My question is, which one of the above would be the best to use to accomplish this?
Anonymous
April 08, 2010
s the safely remove hardware bug fixed.... coz i connected my nokia N73 to my pc via mass storage mode....and when i clicked on the eject button on the task bar...a message popped up saying the the hardware can now be removed.......but my phone displayed error message saying that "the device was not removed properly and data might have been lost"....
Anonymous
April 09, 2010
Thank you for this information about engineering Windows 7. I have learned very much from you thanks
Anonymous
April 27, 2010
Instead, he and Sebastian were simply used as shapers for comments directed onto the BIG Celebrity, Neil. Not that the latter was a bad guest (except for the long, E-r-r-rms, which plainly signalled, "I have nothing to say on this, but as a Celebrity you must wait for me to finish"), it's just that this hagiographic format and Dvorak seem at opposite ends of the spectrum. Or so I once believed
Anonymous
April 30, 2010
So I have bought Windows7 home premium 64 bit. I have over 6Tb of hard drives and am doing a major data sort. I do a search for folder names, find say 3 or 4 copies. I right click on the folder names it finds and open in a new window. I go to each window and it shows me the path that I came from - a search. I need to open the parent folder, which cannot be done from the search. Is the only way to do this to navigate to the locatioon of each search result manually? This is the only frustration I have had with Windows7 so far. Please, tell me how to navigate to the parent folder ofa folder that is found from a search. Please??
Anonymous
May 06, 2010
After reading this post, i guess it might be time to switch to Windows 7, but i'm so satisfied with Vista, no blue screens like in XP, that i just might stay on it. Also a customer asked me yesterday for a HP printer drivers, which aren't supported in W7. This may sill be the problem, i guess?
Anonymous
May 13, 2010
After reading this post, i guess it might be time to switch to Windows 7, but i'm so satisfied with Vista, no blue screens like in XP, that i just might stay on it. Also a customer asked me yesterday for a HP printer drivers, which aren't supported in W7. This may sill be the problem, i guess?
Anonymous
May 27, 2010
Well, those of use that were used to the "safely remove" context menu in vista are disappointed that is has been removed from win7 for external hard drives. Instead of going to my computer, right click on the external drive and click safely remove I now have to go to the task bar eject icon. Much more time consuming and more hassle than it was in vista....
Anonymous
June 16, 2010
http://www.travestiilan.com Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner.
Anonymous
July 08, 2010
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 10, 2010
Like to know how to boot to "safe mode" in Win7?
Anonymous
August 14, 2010
Please make it possible to CTRL-click on the breadcrumb bar to open a folder in a new window. There is no way to do this in Win 7 w/o the keyboard since the up button was removed. Also, put back the up button so people can navigate one level above C:UsersUsername, which is currently impossible without the keyboard.
Anonymous
December 06, 2010
I agree you guys have done a great job. However, one small item (that, based on the forums, was important to many) remains overlooked... This is the removal of the up button for Explorer. I read through the above document and note that, while the author appears confident all bases are covered in with this change, there remains an oversight. You can not now open a parent directory in a ‘New Window’ unless you have the navigation pane showing. While [sic] “And the keyboard shortcut is also available”, there is no shortcut I can find for the previous Ctrl-Up (i.e. open parent in new window). The only way to do this now is to have the Navigation Pane open. The problem with that is (a) the navigation pane consumes desktop real estate, (b) is now more cluttered than is was (thereby has become less navigable) and [hence] (c) is only useful if you are unfamiliar with the folder structure being explored (which is not true for most people, most of the time). The Up button allowed one to open the parent in a new window (with Ctrl+ click Up) and then one could navigate to wherever very quickly. This is very useful if you don’t want to loose the view of where you started. The best of both worlds would be to add Ctrl-click in the address bar to ‘Open in New Window’ or (at the very least) a right-click in the address bar that offers the same options as are available in the navigation pane.
Anonymous
May 30, 2012
(msdn.microsoft.com/.../bb757005.aspx

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