7 ms·

The problem is that they are actively removing excellent features from 7. Not sprucing them up or adapting them to their cloud strategy - just outright removing

The problem is that they are actively removing excellent features from 7. Not sprucing them up or adapting them to their cloud strategy - just outright removing them.

swinglock 13y ago
What has been removed from Windows 7?
- edandersen 13y ago
  A decent backup system that rivaled Time Machine (replaced with "File History" nonsense). Loads more listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win...
  - din-9 13y ago
    The point being made is that those features have been removed from 8 and not from 7. > The problem is that they are actively removing excellent features from 7. ... is a little ambiguous in reply to a comment saying they will stay on 7.
  - gebe 13y ago
    To be honest I am not seeing a lot of "excellent features" there. Except for the UI changes the rest seem to be mostly small miscellaneous stuff and some of them for the better.
  - UVB-76 13y ago
    That list reads more like a changelog than a list of removed features. For example: > The Aero Glass theme is replaced by a new theme with a flatter visual appearance in line with the Metro design language. Aside from the taskbar, the new theme uses fewer transparency effects than the previous Glass theme. In other words, unattractive, resource-intensive, usability damaging transparency effects are out and simple, efficient, usable flat design is in.
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      >unattractive, resource-intensive, usability damaging Subjective, compared to what, subjective > simple, efficient, usable flat design is in. subjective, subjective, subjective. I don't know where this utterly moronic "flatten ALL THE THINGS" design meme comes from, but I wish it would die in a fire. Flat UI, at least Microsoft's implementation of it, has a great deal of fail about it. It's hard to tell what's clickable and what's not, things are not organized in a logical or easy to reach manner, and on and on. Have a look at this if you have about 20 minutes to spare. Someone goes into a great deal of depth on the 8 UX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo
      - chinpokomon 13y ago
        The biggest obstacle that tech journalist faced was his own perceptions on how Windows should work. I'll admit that when I started using Windows 8 during the CTP, I had concerns about the UX for most of the same reasons he mentioned, but I took the time to learn how the designers intended me to use the system before I took the plunge. What is interesting to me, is that most of the complaints he talked about were introduced in Windows 7 and even Vista - press the Windows keyboard button and type to search. That was the recommended way to start applications in Vista since the Start menu could be rearranged simply by installing applications. Want to open the Control Panel, [Win] + "control panel". This of course is a problem for everyone who has learned how to use a Windows computer since the Windows 95 era, and can't be bothered to learn new tricks, but as a tech journalist, was this really outside his abilities to learn? Windows 8 and 8.1 (I haven't tried the RTM release yet) are designed to favor a new class of touch enabled devices. Swipe down from the top of the screen to close Windows 8 applications. Swipe in from the right to show the Charms bar. Swipe in from the left to bring up the task switcher. These metaphors have a much more strict design language than previous versions of Windows. Printing is always* in the Charms bar under devices. It has a consistency beyond what Windows has offered in the past. The only problem I have with Windows 8 and 8.1 is the Desktop mode. *Printing in Desktop applications doesn't follow the same convention as the Windows 8 applications use; you don't use the Charms bar, you fall back to legacy patterns such as File -> Print, or [Ctrl]-p. Ripping the band-aid off quickly would have worked better because then everyone would have adopted the new interface out of necessity. Instead, users are forced to compare them side by side on a daily basis, doing little to wean users off the legacy interface. Coming from legacy Windows to Windows 8 presents some challenges, but approaching Windows 8 with new eyes, on a device designed to use this OS from the start, like a Surface RT, there is so much they got right. It is a shame that Windows 8 is holding users back more than it is ushering in a new era of computing. Microsoft would have been better off if Windows 8 was simply about touch... maybe call it something other than Windows, like Microsoft Touch, and then had left Windows 7 to run legacy apps only. Even something like Windows 7's XP compatibility mode that launched from a card would have been better than making users think that the Desktop was a shipping part of the OS. I can certainly appreciate that Microsoft's management didn't want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, but that goose is dying and we'd be better off if it went quickly.
  - m_mueller 13y ago
    If you think that Win7 backup rivals TM, did you ever try to restore from it? - The interface is lying. Last time I had 'system image' checkbox enabled and it only kept the totally useless image of the last backup, probably only a few hours back in the backup itself. All the other images were just stored locally. - The pre installation environment used for restoring has barely any network drivers - you need to somehow come up with your own CD or USB drive for providing your network drivers, often needing to extract the right ones out of some subfolders that you draw from an unzipped setup.exe, since manufacturers nowadays often don't offer them separately anymore. - The interface for logging in to your network drive is totally bugged. If you get a network error you will only recognize after you've hand-typed the location, user account and password (on different windows). It's a total mess.
    - harrytuttle 13y ago
      Yay someone else who had actually used it. This is the same experience i had which is why I'm glad they removed it and promote that fact in other posts.
      - m_mueller 13y ago
        On the other hand I have to say it's still better to have some sort of backup system, rather than bundling a synch and miscalling it a backup. One thing I don't get in this whole ordeal though: Doesn't Skydrive store previous versions and deleted items like Dropbox (I've never used it)? From experiences with Dropbox it's still not what I'd call a backup (too much can go wrong when synching), but I at least expect it to preserve versions and deleted items, such that in normal operation one can undo everything. If MS has omitted that I really don't understand what they're thinking.
        edandersen 13y ago
        SkyDrive's Recycle Bin stores files until you run out of space or until 30 days is up. So you might randomly be able to recover a deleted file.

The problem is that they are actively removing excellent features from 7. Not sprucing them up or adapting them to their cloud strategy - just outright removing them.

swinglock 13y ago

What has been removed from Windows 7?

edandersen 13y ago
A decent backup system that rivaled Time Machine (replaced with "File History" nonsense). Loads more listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win...
- din-9 13y ago
  The point being made is that those features have been removed from 8 and not from 7. > The problem is that they are actively removing excellent features from 7. ... is a little ambiguous in reply to a comment saying they will stay on 7.
- gebe 13y ago
  To be honest I am not seeing a lot of "excellent features" there. Except for the UI changes the rest seem to be mostly small miscellaneous stuff and some of them for the better.
- UVB-76 13y ago
  That list reads more like a changelog than a list of removed features. For example: > The Aero Glass theme is replaced by a new theme with a flatter visual appearance in line with the Metro design language. Aside from the taskbar, the new theme uses fewer transparency effects than the previous Glass theme. In other words, unattractive, resource-intensive, usability damaging transparency effects are out and simple, efficient, usable flat design is in.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    >unattractive, resource-intensive, usability damaging Subjective, compared to what, subjective > simple, efficient, usable flat design is in. subjective, subjective, subjective. I don't know where this utterly moronic "flatten ALL THE THINGS" design meme comes from, but I wish it would die in a fire. Flat UI, at least Microsoft's implementation of it, has a great deal of fail about it. It's hard to tell what's clickable and what's not, things are not organized in a logical or easy to reach manner, and on and on. Have a look at this if you have about 20 minutes to spare. Someone goes into a great deal of depth on the 8 UX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo
    - chinpokomon 13y ago
      The biggest obstacle that tech journalist faced was his own perceptions on how Windows should work. I'll admit that when I started using Windows 8 during the CTP, I had concerns about the UX for most of the same reasons he mentioned, but I took the time to learn how the designers intended me to use the system before I took the plunge. What is interesting to me, is that most of the complaints he talked about were introduced in Windows 7 and even Vista - press the Windows keyboard button and type to search. That was the recommended way to start applications in Vista since the Start menu could be rearranged simply by installing applications. Want to open the Control Panel, [Win] + "control panel". This of course is a problem for everyone who has learned how to use a Windows computer since the Windows 95 era, and can't be bothered to learn new tricks, but as a tech journalist, was this really outside his abilities to learn? Windows 8 and 8.1 (I haven't tried the RTM release yet) are designed to favor a new class of touch enabled devices. Swipe down from the top of the screen to close Windows 8 applications. Swipe in from the right to show the Charms bar. Swipe in from the left to bring up the task switcher. These metaphors have a much more strict design language than previous versions of Windows. Printing is always* in the Charms bar under devices. It has a consistency beyond what Windows has offered in the past. The only problem I have with Windows 8 and 8.1 is the Desktop mode. *Printing in Desktop applications doesn't follow the same convention as the Windows 8 applications use; you don't use the Charms bar, you fall back to legacy patterns such as File -> Print, or [Ctrl]-p. Ripping the band-aid off quickly would have worked better because then everyone would have adopted the new interface out of necessity. Instead, users are forced to compare them side by side on a daily basis, doing little to wean users off the legacy interface. Coming from legacy Windows to Windows 8 presents some challenges, but approaching Windows 8 with new eyes, on a device designed to use this OS from the start, like a Surface RT, there is so much they got right. It is a shame that Windows 8 is holding users back more than it is ushering in a new era of computing. Microsoft would have been better off if Windows 8 was simply about touch... maybe call it something other than Windows, like Microsoft Touch, and then had left Windows 7 to run legacy apps only. Even something like Windows 7's XP compatibility mode that launched from a card would have been better than making users think that the Desktop was a shipping part of the OS. I can certainly appreciate that Microsoft's management didn't want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, but that goose is dying and we'd be better off if it went quickly.
- m_mueller 13y ago
  If you think that Win7 backup rivals TM, did you ever try to restore from it? - The interface is lying. Last time I had 'system image' checkbox enabled and it only kept the totally useless image of the last backup, probably only a few hours back in the backup itself. All the other images were just stored locally. - The pre installation environment used for restoring has barely any network drivers - you need to somehow come up with your own CD or USB drive for providing your network drivers, often needing to extract the right ones out of some subfolders that you draw from an unzipped setup.exe, since manufacturers nowadays often don't offer them separately anymore. - The interface for logging in to your network drive is totally bugged. If you get a network error you will only recognize after you've hand-typed the location, user account and password (on different windows). It's a total mess.
  - harrytuttle 13y ago
    Yay someone else who had actually used it. This is the same experience i had which is why I'm glad they removed it and promote that fact in other posts.
    - m_mueller 13y ago
      On the other hand I have to say it's still better to have some sort of backup system, rather than bundling a synch and miscalling it a backup. One thing I don't get in this whole ordeal though: Doesn't Skydrive store previous versions and deleted items like Dropbox (I've never used it)? From experiences with Dropbox it's still not what I'd call a backup (too much can go wrong when synching), but I at least expect it to preserve versions and deleted items, such that in normal operation one can undo everything. If MS has omitted that I really don't understand what they're thinking.
      - edandersen 13y ago
        SkyDrive's Recycle Bin stores files until you run out of space or until 30 days is up. So you might randomly be able to recover a deleted file.