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Windows 7 — first impressions

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JavaJones:
I agree that UAC is much better in Win7 but I still find it popping up a lot more than I'd like and seemingly unnecessarily (or at least the reason why is not *made* clear, as it should be). I haven't turned it off yet though, as I did in Vista, so maybe that says something...

For Device Manager and a lot more a 'trick' (not really, but surprisingly not everyone knows about this) I learned back in the Win2k days serves well here:
Right-Click on Computer and go to "Manage".
This gives you not only Device Manager, but Disk Managemenet, Event Log Viewers (lots more options in Win7 than before - nice!), System Services, and a lot more. In Win7 the Management Application has actually been further expanded and it's an extremely useful tool. I recommend checking it out it you don't already use it.

- Oshyan

Josh:
Or just memorize the msc shortcuts :) I simply hit the winkey, type devmgmt.msc and launch device manager :) But I am very keyboard savvy.

4wd:
Right now, it's too expensive to buy another copy on a whim. -tranglos (November 29, 2009, 04:51 PM)
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Would it not have been better to spring for the US$149.99 Family Pack and get W7HP for 3 machines?

As an aside, the greedy b*ggers are selling this in Australia starting tomorrow at AU$249.99, (~US$227).

Innuendo:
Whoever still says UAC is a good idea... I just cannot see what you see. Roughly half the shareware apps I use raise the UAC warning on launch - a huge annoyance.-tranglos (November 29, 2009, 04:51 PM)
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Then you need to upgrade roughly half of the shareware apps you use. Properly written apps should not bring forth a UAC prompt unless they are a system utility (spyware scanner, defragger, etc.). I have UAC set on high and rarely see UAC prompts.

But that's nothing. You can't even rename a desktop icon without an "As administrator" confirmation, even though the logged-in user *is* an administrator.
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I don't experience that on my machine, but maybe it's because I have the desktop pointing to my D: drive.

And while I'm at it, what happened to the system tray? Everything is hidden by default there. It may look nicer that way, but is less useful, because tray icons often indicate program state, and it's also harmful, because it makes it easier for vendors to cram your system with autostart applications that run in the tray, and now most users won't even see them, ever.
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You have the power to customize which system tray icons are shown all the time and which ones are hidden all the time. It's a great feature.

All the stupid, ugly, useless, non-standard applications that install with hardware drivers, all the "start Java faster", "Adobe cr*p updater" little pieces of trash you want to disable as soon as you can, will now run unobstructed on most computers.
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It's been my experience that with most computer users it doesn't matter if the little pieces of trash are hidden or not. They run obstructed whether they are visible or not.

Ive managed to open the Device Manager a couple of times, but I still can't remember where it is. And am I the only one enraged by the Control Panel design?
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Do what I do and configure the Control Panel to show as a menu rather than a link on the start menu & all the confusion will melt away.

In "Default programs", all the file associations grabbed by Windows Media Player are grayed out and can't be changed (to the VLC player, say). The workaround seems to be to manually change association for each individual file extension, which is somewhat arduous. I hope this is a bug.
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If you use the file association method inside VLC you'll accomplish your task a lot easier.

I like the clickable breadcrumbs in Explorer windows (it took MS how many years to "invent" those?), but where is the "Up" button? No "Up" button, so now the most common navigational operation requires at least two careful clicks, instead of just one - unless there's some other way I haven't noticed.
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Hit Backspace.

JavaJones:
I think the customizable systray is a good thing, I just think A: stuff shouldn't be hidden by default and B: like the new "Jump menus" they implemented (and the less customized right-click menus before), all systray icons should have standard functions like close, including "don't show this icon anymore" or some such. It would be more convenient and intuitive to do that than have to go into a special settings window to do the same thing as we have to now.

Does backspace go *up* or "back"?

- Oshyan

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