A Windows 7 Flaw that is easy to fix!

[belardo]

I've been using Win7 on some of my PCs and liked how MS has finally bought most aspects of the OS to the present. Paint & Write look like modern programs now, etc. Then it hit me... I opened it up.. and Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Microsoft is STILL using Windows 95 era Hard Drive Space graph! Google it, if you don't believe me! Its till the 15 year old horrible Blue and Purple!

1 - Make it look kind of Transparent, especially the "free space" with the "filled" data being more solid.

2 - Use different colors. Red & blue or red and yellow.

3 - More 3-D looking.

Anything would be an improvement!

 

[Jonmor68]

Once I install and partition a hard drive, I have no further need to look at it so could care less what it looks like.
On the other hand there are plenty of gadgets available for monitoring hdd capacity that look good and free.

 

[belardo]

When going into HD properties for things like: checking space, tools (defrag, error checking, backup) - Sharing or quota settings, clean-up... you get to see a 15 year old UGLY since 1995 purple/blue pie chart.

I'm not freaking out... having a fun observation to MS's new OS that still looks like Windows95. Afterall, they tweaked pretty much everything since Vista... but not this Drive Properties.

 

[marcellis22]

Do you REALLY need new colors and graphics to visualize your hard drives? Get a grip...

 

[belardo]

Uh.... DO we REALLY need a Face-lift for Windows2000 > XP > Windows7? I mean, IF YOU are using Windows2000 or Vista/Win7 in Classic Mode, then your point is valid.

Afterall... Windows7 is still the same OS, even if its in 1995-look mode. Might as well stick with small 16 color icons for VGA modes.

It inconsistent of the rest of the OS.

 

[tmike]

That is your suggestion for something that needs to be modified in Windows? Seriously?

Seriously?

 

[Scotteq]

Well.. OTOH... If that's all there is to "fix"..

 

[belardo]

That is your suggestion for something that needs to be modified in Windows? Seriously?

Seriously?

Yes. Then Windows7 will be able to rule the computer market!

Why is the concept so difficult?

This is what Windows95 Looks like:

And this is Drive Properties under Windows98:

(Wow! It looks just like Windows7... 15 years later after Win95)

Windows7 is supposed to be the OS for 2010 and beyond. MS finally has an OS that is mostly modern, bringing in some abilities that have been around since 2004.

On certain areas of the Tomshardware, there is a 3D pie chart that looks nice.
Windows7 has some glass-like effects and other modern time-waster effects - like when coping files.

Here is some examples of 3D-charts that could use inspired or used:

Or this one, I think would be nice... have the empty space be lower/below the data:

Or a plain looking one:

A neat feature that would be nice to have standardized in Windows7 (in an SP), besides a glassy 3D translucent look (like the rest of Win7) is that it has a detailed mode.
Simple = Empty & Usage space = 2 Colors
Detailed = Empty, OS (Anything in Windows dir), Programs (anything in Programs fir) and User Data (Anything in User accounts - total) = 4 Colors



Check out this website, it shows MANY popular OS from the past... Windows 1~3, 9x, NT, OS/2, Amiga, Macintosh, etc.
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/firstrun


A neat old drawing of Windows95:

 

[captaincharisma]

why waste time with this when you can improve performance and various other features in windows 7 that are more important than making useless improvements for people like you. its a plain and accurate graph that tells you what you want to know about your disk drives. that should be enough!!!

 

[belardo]

Then why did Microsoft and everyone else bother to make XP, Vista and Windows7 look any different than Windows2000?

The windows operate the same. All that flashy colors, 3D looks, transparencies that has been added in the past 10 years is all a waste of time.

Hell, why bother ever leaving the CLI? All these graphics, icons just suck up memory and CPU resources.

 

[photonboy]

http://www.vizeos.net/

 

[belardo]

Add-ons does nothing to make Windows7 a uniformed-looking OS out of the box.

Theirs is specific to Vista (they have an XP version - which I just tried out) - in which vista/ win7 doesn't really need an overhaul of its visuals and none of them do anything for the drive usage.

For the XP updater, I found the TaskSwitchXP tool to be a nice improvement for XP. Of course not needed for Vista/Win7.

 

[belardo]

Next big problem with Windows 7.

It uses the same stupid screen savers as Vista? Bubbles? One of the lamest things ever made. After 2 years, they couldn't come up with 1-2 new and better screensavers?

 

[mindless728]

<jk> how about the taskbar, think of something else except this bar that goes across the bottom of the screen </jk>

though really? i think it is fine

 

[juncwil]

Have you posted your suggestion to the Win7 forum? This sounds more like request that few people care about rather than a flaw.

 

[belardo]

It really doesn't effect me, as a user. Its an observation to details. Its like the difference between buying a Lincoln and a Lexus. A buddy bought a Navigator - every bit expensive as a Lexus. But it little pieces here and there that said "cheap".

This Win95 code (tech) in a 2010 OS is like... cheap. In that Microsoft with ALL their money and programmers... didn't think of it. Like after years of boring black boxes, Dell, HP and others have realized they needed style in their computers.

When a person spends $50~70 for a car, they want that car to have the parts, features and quality of such a car. The reasons that the 2001+ T-Bird failed was not because of it's looks... but that it was built and designed like a $25K car that sold for $40k+. ie: Some aspects of the car were CHEAP and shouldn't be on such a car especially at that price.

Ever laugh at the "Gamers" who spend $300 on video card(s) like a GTX and wonder why it doesn't work with their "600 watt" $25 PSU.

I'm using Opera 10 beta (Love it), in a revision - the changed the "Home" button from a style that matched the whole look to something from 2000. Gave it color and shadow... it wasn't "ugly", it would look awesome on Netscape/IE from 10 years ago. It didn't belong on the new Opera 10 and a lot of people instantly called them out on it.

The Flaw is not that it doesn't work. The Flaw is that its overlooked and that even someone like Bill Gates didn't notice (I doubt he uses computers much anyways)

PS: I don't really feel like signing up for another forum.

 

[squeenix]

It doesn't honestly matter too much

 

[captaincharisma]

Next big problem with Windows 7.

It uses the same stupid screen savers as Vista? Bubbles? One of the lamest things ever made. After 2 years, they couldn't come up with 1-2 new and better screensavers?

I Vote this Dude for the most anal person on the internet he reminds me about a guy who called HP once and complained about a nano second delay between his mouse click and the sound event that windows played

 

[belardo]

If anyone here thinks its anal... especially those who posted here.

Then have you thought, posted or told someone "XP is looking old, Vista is newer looking" or anything else to that effect. Afterall, what was wrong with the XP look?

 

[mindless728]

i say we go back to command line only and see where people fare

 

[belardo]

I think most people's minds would explode. They'd almost be talking into a mouse!

Here is my first computer desktop... So I think I know what ugly is:

That was kind of high tech for 1985.

But this is what I had on in 1989 - but I changed the colors to grey-shades so my eyes wouldn't burn out:

And then about a year or so later, upgraded to this:

(And in 800x600, it looked a lot better! these screen shots are in LOW-res mode... ugh. But it was very nice looking in 1990)

So you could say... I have been upgrading for a while and do like my OSs to look advanced.

Going from 320x200 > 640x200 > 800x600 in the OLD days... yeah, I love 1920x1200.

 

[croc]

Habitat87 and Belardo are now officially butt-buddies. Fudge packers. Gerbil racers. Anyone else care to add to the list?

 

[gregor]

And this is Drive Properties under Windows98:
http://www.mcg.edu/itss/images/CDrive.gif
(Wow! It looks just like Windows7... 15 years later after Win95)

Admittedly its been a very long time since I looked at anything in Win98, but if the drive properties picture posted is win98 I'll eat my hat

It says the drive is NTFS for a start and has a security taband a quota tab, indexing in 98? was there such a thing?

 

[leo2kp]

lol +1

 

[croc]

@croc

Just because you lost a previous factual debate don't go following me around threads like a lost dog.

No, he had a good point with what he is saying. Shows that MS only wanted to change what people could see up front.

After all those years they couldn't revise the whole interface with a huge company like that? Looks like MS isn't doing so good after they went against Gates.

...And your MCP cert. # is???