4 ms·

Windows 7 had a very professional feel to me that subsequent versions lack. Probably has to do with attempting to create a unified tablet / phone / desktop expe

by eeegnu 5y ago

Windows 7 had a very professional feel to me that subsequent versions lack. Probably has to do with attempting to create a unified tablet / phone / desktop experience.

matttproud 5y ago
I had been using Windows since 3.0: Windows 2000 was that stable, professional sweet spot for me, even at times NT 4. Zero fluff, relatively consistent experience, and little visible intergenerational technology accretion. The 2000 scheduler felt reasonably predictable and crisp, like how BSD on a workstation did compared to Linux, for the longest time. Unpredictable interface latency is a dealbreaker for me. I never noticed too much of a stability difference between 2000 and XP, but I really disliked the fluffy chrome overlaid on the XP user shell. As long as we are talking nostalgia, yes, I do miss some extremely consistent UI paradigms from Windows 3.X days (being able to productively drive the shell with a keyboard only though the ALT key accessors). Interface elements were extremely differentiated visually. (Seeing my father trip up on a high-investment hallmark of a touchscreen phone app, because the native widgets were flat and lacking visual differentiation this week was beyond painful. I do not like the direction of modern interface design is heading.)
- kyleee 5y ago
  It's a sad state of things; current design trends frequently punish users and make people fearful to explore and learn on their own how programs and user interfaces work. It hits me hardest too when I see older people frustrated by the ever changing design and functionality churn. It prevents them building confidence and feeling empowered. For me much of the current computing experience is the opposite of rewarding curiousity and it's deeply sad, IMHO
martin_ky 5y ago
That might be the original motivation, but post-7 Windows UI is anything but unified or consistent. New and legacy UI toolkits are mixed in the system shell itself. There are still parts of the good old Control Panel that haven’t been ported to the new “immersive settings” app. Already in a clean Win 10 installation, you can spot at least 3 different styles of context menu, depending on which part of the desktop you right-click.
hnlmorg 5y ago
I don't want a unified tablet / phone / desktop experience. I want interfaces that are optimised for the device rather than optimised for encouraging vendor lock ins. Also it wasn't Windows 7 that first attempted that. PDAs back in ~2000 ran Windows CE with a Windows 95 / NT4 era UI. That also wasn't well optimised for smaller screens touch screens, hence the requirement to use a stylus. Then what followed was Windows Mobile 6, which looked more like XP, and 6.5 that had a vista / 7 type home screen but with classical Windows widgets. It wasn't until Metro (Win 8 / Mobile 7) when Microsoft really united the look and feel of Windows across all their platforms again, Xbox included. Personally for me, XP was the decline of Microsoft's professional shell design. Windows 2000 was when Microsoft peaked. It was free from fluff but still had some minor tweaks of visual flair. XP was ugly, Vista and 7's widgets were poorly optimised for screen estate. And there after everything has taken a massive step backwards in usability.
- Const-me 5y ago
  > That also wasn't well optimised for smaller screens touch screens, hence the requirement to use a stylus The reason for the stylus wasn’t software. Capacitive touch screens didn’t really existed, at least not in consumer devices. Apple did that. They haven’t invented that of course, acquired other company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks but it was them who brought the tech to mainstream in 2007.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    What you've posted is a very common misunderstanding of what happened in the mid 00s but unfortunately not at all accurate on any point you've raised. Pre-capacitive touch screen technology worked perfectly fine with fingers. People had been using their fingers on kiosks and PDAs with infra red and resistive touch screens (respectively) for years before capacitive touch screen technology hit the market. In fact I personally had several PDAs from ~2000 onwards and would often use my fingers for simple operations (ie when precision wasn't required). Ironically capacitive screens actually have greater limitations over capacitive screens in terms of general usability, as quoted on Wikipedia: > Unlike a resistive touchscreen, some capacitive touchscreens cannot be used to detect a finger through electrically insulating material, such as gloves. This disadvantage especially affects usability in consumer electronics, such as touch tablet PCs and capacitive smartphones in cold weather when people may be wearing gloves. It can be overcome with a special capacitive stylus, or a special-application glove with an embroidered patch of conductive thread allowing electrical contact with the user's fingertip. Also capacitive throws a fit if the surface gets wet, which resistive screens didn't, and resistive screens offer greater precision when used with a stylus. Capacitive screens look nicer though (greater contrast etc). Which is why they eventually won out. As for the whole finger-orientated UI thing, well that happened around the same time as capacitive screens hit the market (resistive screens can also be made to support multi-touch by the way) and thus would have happened with or without the invention of capacitive screens. So no, the reason for the stylus wasn't a limitation of resistive touch screens. It was the UI and that would have changed regardless of the introduction of capacitive screens. Also can we drop the bullshit that Apple were the inventors of multi-touch UIs. There were 3 companies working on the same technology in parallel: Apple, LG and Google. LG even beat Apple to market and then accused Apple of stealing their idea, much like Apple like to claim others did with the iPhone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada Suffice to say, the industry was changing and would have changed with or without Apple's involvement. They certainly were a big catalyst but where absolutely were not the only players in the game.
DoingIsLearning 5y ago
Best example for me is in windows 10 professional, the blue screen shows you a sad smiley face. Someone designed this and thought it was a good idea to have this in a 'professional' distribution of an OS.
- Kwpolska 5y ago
  I wouldn’t consider a smiley face unprofessional. What makes a smiley face worse, or less “professional”, than a big red X?
  - hulitu 5y ago
    Compared with windows 95/NT BSODs the 10 one looks very unprofessional.

by eeegnu 5y ago

Windows 7 had a very professional feel to me that subsequent versions lack. Probably has to do with attempting to create a unified tablet / phone / desktop experience.

matttproud 5y ago

I had been using Windows since 3.0: Windows 2000 was that stable, professional sweet spot for me, even at times NT 4. Zero fluff, relatively consistent experience, and little visible intergenerational technology accretion. The 2000 scheduler felt reasonably predictable and crisp, like how BSD on a workstation did compared to Linux, for the longest time. Unpredictable interface latency is a dealbreaker for me. I never noticed too much of a stability difference between 2000 and XP, but I really disliked the fluffy chrome overlaid on the XP user shell. As long as we are talking nostalgia, yes, I do miss some extremely consistent UI paradigms from Windows 3.X days (being able to productively drive the shell with a keyboard only though the ALT key accessors). Interface elements were extremely differentiated visually. (Seeing my father trip up on a high-investment hallmark of a touchscreen phone app, because the native widgets were flat and lacking visual differentiation this week was beyond painful. I do not like the direction of modern interface design is heading.)

kyleee 5y ago
It's a sad state of things; current design trends frequently punish users and make people fearful to explore and learn on their own how programs and user interfaces work. It hits me hardest too when I see older people frustrated by the ever changing design and functionality churn. It prevents them building confidence and feeling empowered. For me much of the current computing experience is the opposite of rewarding curiousity and it's deeply sad, IMHO

martin_ky 5y ago

That might be the original motivation, but post-7 Windows UI is anything but unified or consistent. New and legacy UI toolkits are mixed in the system shell itself. There are still parts of the good old Control Panel that haven’t been ported to the new “immersive settings” app. Already in a clean Win 10 installation, you can spot at least 3 different styles of context menu, depending on which part of the desktop you right-click.

hnlmorg 5y ago

I don't want a unified tablet / phone / desktop experience. I want interfaces that are optimised for the device rather than optimised for encouraging vendor lock ins. Also it wasn't Windows 7 that first attempted that. PDAs back in ~2000 ran Windows CE with a Windows 95 / NT4 era UI. That also wasn't well optimised for smaller screens touch screens, hence the requirement to use a stylus. Then what followed was Windows Mobile 6, which looked more like XP, and 6.5 that had a vista / 7 type home screen but with classical Windows widgets. It wasn't until Metro (Win 8 / Mobile 7) when Microsoft really united the look and feel of Windows across all their platforms again, Xbox included. Personally for me, XP was the decline of Microsoft's professional shell design. Windows 2000 was when Microsoft peaked. It was free from fluff but still had some minor tweaks of visual flair. XP was ugly, Vista and 7's widgets were poorly optimised for screen estate. And there after everything has taken a massive step backwards in usability.

Const-me 5y ago
> That also wasn't well optimised for smaller screens touch screens, hence the requirement to use a stylus The reason for the stylus wasn’t software. Capacitive touch screens didn’t really existed, at least not in consumer devices. Apple did that. They haven’t invented that of course, acquired other company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks but it was them who brought the tech to mainstream in 2007.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  What you've posted is a very common misunderstanding of what happened in the mid 00s but unfortunately not at all accurate on any point you've raised. Pre-capacitive touch screen technology worked perfectly fine with fingers. People had been using their fingers on kiosks and PDAs with infra red and resistive touch screens (respectively) for years before capacitive touch screen technology hit the market. In fact I personally had several PDAs from ~2000 onwards and would often use my fingers for simple operations (ie when precision wasn't required). Ironically capacitive screens actually have greater limitations over capacitive screens in terms of general usability, as quoted on Wikipedia: > Unlike a resistive touchscreen, some capacitive touchscreens cannot be used to detect a finger through electrically insulating material, such as gloves. This disadvantage especially affects usability in consumer electronics, such as touch tablet PCs and capacitive smartphones in cold weather when people may be wearing gloves. It can be overcome with a special capacitive stylus, or a special-application glove with an embroidered patch of conductive thread allowing electrical contact with the user's fingertip. Also capacitive throws a fit if the surface gets wet, which resistive screens didn't, and resistive screens offer greater precision when used with a stylus. Capacitive screens look nicer though (greater contrast etc). Which is why they eventually won out. As for the whole finger-orientated UI thing, well that happened around the same time as capacitive screens hit the market (resistive screens can also be made to support multi-touch by the way) and thus would have happened with or without the invention of capacitive screens. So no, the reason for the stylus wasn't a limitation of resistive touch screens. It was the UI and that would have changed regardless of the introduction of capacitive screens. Also can we drop the bullshit that Apple were the inventors of multi-touch UIs. There were 3 companies working on the same technology in parallel: Apple, LG and Google. LG even beat Apple to market and then accused Apple of stealing their idea, much like Apple like to claim others did with the iPhone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada Suffice to say, the industry was changing and would have changed with or without Apple's involvement. They certainly were a big catalyst but where absolutely were not the only players in the game.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago

Best example for me is in windows 10 professional, the blue screen shows you a sad smiley face. Someone designed this and thought it was a good idea to have this in a 'professional' distribution of an OS.

Kwpolska 5y ago
I wouldn’t consider a smiley face unprofessional. What makes a smiley face worse, or less “professional”, than a big red X?
- hulitu 5y ago
  Compared with windows 95/NT BSODs the 10 one looks very unprofessional.