XP was my idea: The Standard toolbar in Windows Explorer

Friday, October 23, 2009

The Standard toolbar in Windows Explorer

The Standard toolbar debuted at the same time as Windows Explorer in Windows 95. At that time, its buttons were ugly, non-customizable with 16-color 16 x 16 icons. IE4/Windows Desktop Update/Windows 98 introduced the ability to move toolbars and menu bars to any position, large buttons and text labels. Windows 2000 and Windows Me introduced button customizability and 256-color icons and Windows XP introduced toolbar locking and million-color icons with alpha transparency and drop shadows.

The Standard toolbar buttons: Once in a while some user complains about lack of these

What did Windows Vista do? In an attempt to revolutionize UI and "wow" users, it removed direct access to all buttons except Back, Forward and View, and gave users buttons like Burn and Share which they may not use most of the time. It tried to make the toolbar somewhat dynamic (item/selection specific options) like the Office Ribbon but ended leaving a huge amount of empty space on the toolbar. Critically, it removed the ability to quickly toggle the tree view/left folder (navigation) pane. Windows 7 has gone one step further into degrading the "command bar" by removing icons for more buttons except for the "Open" action icon. Windows 7 does add 2 critical buttons though "New Folder" and Preview pane toggle button. Every now and then on some forum or blog, you see users complaining about the lack of an Up button. Fanboys argue that the Up button isn't necessary with the advent of breadcrumb-style address bar but the Up button allowed users to navigate one level up using a static button, the breadcrumbs style requires users to accurately re-position their mouse pointer every time over the parent folder and then click.

Fortunately, a shell extension partially written in .NET and partially in native code called QTTabBar allowed poor Vista ~~users~~ victims to restore the standard toolbar with full customizability and even more extensible buttons. Unfortunately, the developer of such a critical addon seems to have disappeared and the shell extension does not work with Windows 7. Microsoft will never fix this annoyance as they don't consider to be a problem in the first place. Windows XP FTW! They think they have done users a favor by cleaning up the user interface.

More recently, Classic Shell has become available which does an exceptionally stellar job of permanently bringing the toolbar icons back, well not permanently really, until Windows breaks Explorer toolbars.

Really! What were they thinking? No one would notice & want it back?

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Got Windows 8/7/Vista annoyances?

I am good at usability testing of software and overall User Experience - having a great UX is essential to any piece of software. I imagine, plan and envision it - how to build a great user experience to achieve end-to-end scenarios. I'm a Windows enthusiast since the Windows 3.0 days but I have no official computer science training or qualification. My knowledge of Windows client is self-taught and unofficial. I make mistakes too but I know one thing by common sense: It is TOTALLY WRONG to abandon backward compatibility, drop functionality at random and break all usability like MS continually does. I am a critic of current Microsoft software and culture, because it compromises on existing features people use to give place to new ones. All concept of backward compatible UX is dead at Microsoft. I rebel against this but not necessarily to go against Microsoft or hate on them, but to bring them on the right path. Microsoft's technical prowess of writing stable, fast, secure and innovative software is still excellent but their understanding of usability and good user experience is disgraceful. The importance of a good user experience is underrated in software. I feel they have lost their way after Windows XP. We all know how Vista turned out and Windows 7 only succeeded because of customers' passion for Windows. As much as I still like Windows, the later versions just obstruct productivity, and to the average user, it is a constant process of re-learning for no reason.

So my programmer buddy, Ivo Beltchev created Classic Shell and I gave him feedback on the user experience. I help out in testing and giving ideas and feedback around UX of Classic Shell but I personally use Windows XP. If the user interface of Windows 7 or Windows Vista annoys you, try Classic Shell, the amazing FREE app that fixes dozens of these annoyances with the Start Menu, Explorer and Internet Explorer 9/10.

Want to fix Windows taskbar? 7 Taskbar Tweaker is the perfect utility for the job.

Want to find a decent alternative to the useless Windows Search? Try FileSearchEX (reasonably priced) or FileLocator Lite (free).

If you are struggling to make Windows 7 work the way you want, you may want to look at this eBook detailing the "To Work" options.

Office Ribbons driving you crazy and reducing productivity? Try Classic Menu for Office or UbitMenu.

Yes I know, it's a shame Microsoft software today requires third party fixes to complement and make it work properly. Don't tell me you have ignored the list of features removed in Windows Vista or in Windows 7. Were you foolish enough to believe from the reviews that Windows 7 was good and didn't make an objective comparison yourself? Were you foolish enough to dish out your hard earned cash and didn't miss any XP features in Windows 7? The software I listed above only fixes some of the usability issues and broken features but there are still many features Microsoft must fix themselves.

You may think why is XP still my idea and it is rather foolish to not "upgrade" to Windows 7. XP still rocks. XP is where the UX feels complete and well-rounded. Don't believe the fanboys who are blind, the shills who get paid to write favorable reviews, or the mainstream media which is clueless and just parrots what one "expert" shill says. In many areas, Windows 7 is a downgrade, not an upgrade and you will realize that from hands-on experience. XP hit the sweet spot for sufficiently powerful, customizable yet easy to use computing. I am a power user and if Windows 8 makes you feel that the OS is getting dumbed down to the point of uselessness, I feel pretty much the same about Windows 7, which is also extremely dumbed down from a power user's perspective. The geek in me refuses to accept Windows 7 as a viable replacement for the more-customizable Windows XP. As a power user I cannot make compromises about quality and Microsoft's commitment to quality is decreasing by the day.

I wrote hundreds of Wikipedia articles on Microsoft and Windows topics with over 5000+ contributions before realizing that Microsoft was cheating their users by removing features. I agree that software engineering is about tradeoffs but just deleting features people use and want is just ridiculous. It's all happening in the name of "simplifying" and "telemetry". I want Microsoft to acknowledge these issues which make Windows 7 unusable for serious work and fix them through hotfixes or service packs. Windows Vista and Windows 7 are not all bad, there are hundred different things to like about them, but being good only in part doesn't make the sum of parts better. What matters is the overall experience which is still degraded and sub-standard compared to Windows XP. Why Windows 7 is so successful is because it is sufficiently decent, so it works for the average user who just needs to get this job done and doesn't need perfection. It would be unfair to say don't use Windows 7 at all. I also do use it once in a while because it does have hundreds of nice improvements but it won't touch my main PC. Windows XP may not be as strong on security by default as Windows 7 or Vista are, but XP can be secured properly and is more usable than "simplified" later versions.

I am ready to assist Microsoft in improving Windows client if a certain quality bar is set and agreed upon. I believe I have a unique understanding of how to design the perfect UX without introducing too much complexity while at the same time, keeping it powerful and customizable. My passion and loyalty to Microsoft for great products will always remain but not at the cost of any compromises in quality of the product.