texupport

Things that should have been better in Vista

I’ve been working with Vista x64 for about a month now and while my experience has been surprisingly positive, there are a few very simple things that could have and should have been much better.

1. Since Windows ‘95, Microsoft has earned a lot of bad publicity by making it way too easy for grandma to double click on things like README.txt.vbs when file extensions are hidden (which I believe was the default in 95,98,ME, NT4, 2k, and XP). With security supposedly being a top priority of Vista, this would have been such an easy change to make, but, by default, extensions are still hidden.
2. There are now dozens of available columns in windows explorer, but there still isn’t a column for “extension.” If I want to sort by extension to find *.PAT in a particular directory, I naturally look for *.PAT, not “AutoCAD Hatch Pattern Definition.”
3. The smallest unit in Windows Explorer is still a kilobyte. I don’t care how large hard drive capacities are now or how large they will be in the future – there should always be an option to show file sizes in bytes.
4. It’s incredibly difficult to make “Remember Folder Settings” work. I like details view. For everything. Really. Don’t try to outsmart me. Luckily, this article seems to have a fix which actually works.
5. Shift-RightClick / “Open Command Window Here” only works in explorer’s right pane.
6. Windows Explorer’s status bar no longer shows the total size of files in the current folder. It used to in 95,98,ME,NT4,2k and XP. Now it doesn’t. To get the total file size, you have to ctrl-a to select all and then the status bar shows you the cumulative total size of the files.
7. In previous versions of windows you could log out with just the keyboard. CTRL-ALT-DEL followed by “L” would log you off. Vista has removed this functionality. CTRL-ALT-DEL gets you to a purely point and click page where you must then use your mouse to hit “log off.”