XP was my idea: Why Windows Explorer sucks in Windows 7: Obsession with hiding things

Friday, October 23, 2009

Why Windows Explorer sucks in Windows 7: Obsession with hiding things

The left pane of Windows Explorer has fugly triangular arrows replacing the simple plus and minus signs. Why are they there in the first place, let's remind ourselves of that first. They are there to indicate that there are subfolders inside a certain folder. But why is the behavior in Windows 7 extremely annoying? At the first opportunity it gets (the moment the mouse pointer leaves the navigation pane), the arrows disappear. Now imagine if I have to drag something from the right pane into some folder in the left pane. How am I assured that the folder I am dragging to has a subfolder? Why can't the damn arrows in the left pane be set to always show? Why do they disappear when dragging and dropping if the user clicks in the right pane before starting to drag to the left pane?

And while we're on the subject, why not get rid of arrows and bring back the + and - signs? The developer division did that in Visual Studio 2010 when lots of developers complained. No one's complaining about this one, people are still drunk with the Windows 7 kool-aid. Oh well, Windows XP FTW!

And btw this annoyance also applies to Windows 7's evil cousin and is also mentioned on the excellent Windows 7 Taskforce created by Long Zheng.

Fortunately, a fastastic open source shell extension called Classic Shell fixes this problem in Windows 7 and in Windows Vista!!

Update: Despite Classic Shell, Windows Explorer still needs a lot of fixing in Windows 7 and Windows 8. See the more up-to-date post for Windows 8 for a list of things that need fixing and send your feedback to Microsoft to fix these.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: thx man, i just upgraded to w7 on a lappy and hoe they F***ED UP explorer is soooo dumb..this has eased my life, thank you!; July 15, 2011 at 5:21 AM
Anonymous said...: Glad i am not alone. Explorer seems to have gotten worse and worse and it's functionality has been crippled with changes while retaining legacy criplement. I've so many bug bears with the new version of Explorer that I try and use the command line as much as possible now.; August 1, 2012 at 1:52 AM
Unknown said...: This is really good. I am very glad to know about these things for windows explorer problems. Thanks a lot!; September 4, 2012 at 4:54 PM

Post a Comment

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.

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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.

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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.