Dec 31st, 2007
The Vista bugs that bug me the most
Vista has had some pretty bad press this year, some people blame Microsoft for initially overhyping but eventually poorly marketing the OS, some blame the “I’m a Mac” commercials, and some blame the security features. As for me, I just find it to be too rough around the edges.
While I am often tempted to ditch it and go back to Windows 2003 or XP, I keep holding out for SP1 and some much-needed improvements.
Here are some things–ok maybe not officially bugs–that annoy me most about Vista:
1. Not responding white-out mode. If a program does not respond after a few clicks, that application’s window takes on a whitish tint and remains so until it responds. While the white-out concept is nice because I can work on something else until I notice the other application’s window return to normal, it seems like it happens way too much. Way, way too much.
2. Computing how long it will take. What really annoys me is when I go to delete a file and a screen pops up saying Windows is computing how long it will take to delete the file. Frankly I don’t care how long it will take to delete a file, just delete it.
3. Finding a solution. When a program crashes, Vista first wants you to wait while it checks for a solution before it lets me move on, which can be really annoying with things like games that change video modes. The fact is that the program crashed and finding a solution won’t make it uncrash. So just let the thing finish crashing and then go find a solution.
4. Double warnings. It is annoying when you perform a privileged operation and Vista pops up a message box saying that what you are about to do will require authorization and once you clear the box you are then prompted for authorization. If they just went ahead and asked for authorization we’d get it; there’s no need to warn us beforehand.
5. Too many message boxes. Seems like I am clicking OK much more than I ever did in previous versions of Windows.
6. Stop trying to be smart. I hate it when Vista guesses that since there are MP3’s in a folder it tries to be smart and changes the Explorer columns to show custom MP3 file info. The problem is that often there are other files in that folder and I would actually prefer each folder to be consistent so I wish it would stop trying to think it knows what I want more than I do.
7. Try being a little smarter. Another thing I find annoying is the box that comes up after some install programs run where the Program Compatibility Assistant wants to know if an install failed or succeeded. Ok maybe I don’t fully understand the value this adds, but it is irritating whenever I cancel a setup program or a setup fails, Vista wants to know if it installed correctly. The problem is that the dialog box doesn’t give any clear guidance or description about what it will do differently if I tell it to try to reinstall, and although there is a cancel button the dialog box doesn’t have an option to just ignore that particular program. And what will it do differently if I say it didn’t install correctly? I just always hit cancel because that seems safe. This feature definitely could be smarter.
8. Even more confusing ACL dialog box. *sigh*
9. Hidden network adaptor properties. Why is Microsoft so determined to hide the network adaptor properties from us? And what happened to the option to show an icon on the system tray for each network adaptor?
10. The Start Menu. Ok, it’s really not so bad in itself, it’s just that Microsoft feels like they need to keep changing it. Is the first thing Microsoft does with each version of Windows, decide how they will change the Start Menu? It’s never been that great but familiarity is a part of usability too.
Ok, well if I thought about it, sure I could come up with a hundred things I like about Vista, but those things aren’t screaming at me every day like the white windows and the message boxes and the confusing user interfaces.
