Win7
Sooo... I "upgraded" to Windows 7, right? Well, I'm still a bit torn about this. As Aki pointed out, XP is a decade old, and is losing support entirely this year. Not to mention it currently doesn't support the newest versions of many Windows/Microsoft programs. Which in the case of Live Messenger, even though I like the old version better, will eventually mean compatibility issues as folks upgrade to the point that I won't be able to chat with *anyone*.
However.
Win7.... is driving me CRAZY. *sigh*
A lot of things are hard for me. I know it doesn't show as obviously as with some - you think, hey, she's socialized and acclimated. I have a job, I have friends, I'm a people person and I handle myself well when challenged or faced with new situations. None of these things particularly screams "Aspergers!" ...so it's hard for people who haven't known me long to remember that. People like David, who just don't quite *get* the problems I would be having with this new OS. When I say I might go back to XP if I don't like it, his solution is that there is a an XP Mode - which amounts to a compatibility mode *for* XP - I can use. Because he thinks, oh, on a practical level, she'll maybe have old programs that she'll want to run that are too old for Win7, but that's what compatibility mode is for, and presto, he thinks all my problems are solved.
But as far as I can tell, there are many many ways in which Win7 does not *operate* like XP did, ways that the UI differs, and these ways are distracting and confusing to me, and because of that slight difference in the way I think from most people, they're just *not quite right*. Unsurprisingly, one of the only people so far who understands exactly what I'm talking about when I mention most of these problems is Shad - because he had the same problem with most of the same things. He loves Win7, though, so I donno.
Let's play a little game. I'll list out some things that I don't like about Win7, and if someone/anyone can point out a way to fix each thing, then they become a non-issue. But if nobody can argue me out of them, they become points against Win7. If the points against outweigh the non-issues, then maybe someone can suggest a good alternative to just completely reinstalling again and going back to XP? I could set up an XP partition at least, though that would take some figuring out how, I guess. I just can't imagine ever changing over to Win7 for anything, unless at some point I wanted to make a mostly permanent move to it for compatibility reasons.
Anyway. Have a list:
*The task bar is driving me crazy.
1. I miss my shortcuts - I realize that "pinning" programs to the taskbar is supposedly more efficient, but I don't like the way that the little icons get spaced out. It just seems cluttered. I liked it when I had a little space with shortcuts - kind of like a "favorite apps" list - and they'd tuck themselves away when I wasn't using them.
2. I can't get tasks in the task bar to stop grouping themselves. Example: Chat programs. The parent chat windows, I like to have on the left... then programs and applications I've got open next... and then individual chats on the right. The new task bar has the amazing capability of *letting you drag and drop to sort* - which I would be IN LOVE WITH - if it weren't for this damned grouping. Thing sticks my chat windows next to the parent programs and I cannot separate them. MY CHAT WINDOWS ARE ALL GROWN UP OKAY SO LET ME MOVE THEM AWAY PLX.
3. The notification tray - I may just not have enough things in it yet or haven't found the option, but it seems to me that I can only customize it on a one-and-one basis. I actually *liked* XP's smart-hiding system, where everything was just *in* the notification tray and it would auto-hide all but the most recently used/active things. Again, much like my favorite shortcuts over on the list, this gave me quick access to programs that were running but that didn't need their own windows open - secondary chat programs, computer maintenance and security programs, etc. Yes, I know there's a fun arrow I can click to get to the hidden ones. But I still have to tell them to hide as I open/add them. Of all the things to give me total customizable control over, why was it the notification tray? The one thing I *didn't* need control over because it was doing a fine job of sorting itself? ><
3b. Oh, and why doesn't Windows Live Messenger have a notification tray icon anymore? It has *always* had that. It's something that I feel every chat program should have, because sometimes you want to be logged in so that people can say hi to you, but you don't need the parent window actually up and running. But I can no longer close Windows Live Messenger and reduce it to the notification tray - it stays stuck on my task bar, where it just takes up space and makes me annoyed. And what if I want to CLOSE close the program? I can't just x it out anymore? If I got no notification tray icon, why can't I just x the damn thing out? I gotta actually tell it to close. Stupid stupid.
4. Windows Media Player's taskbar widget/mini toolbar seems to be missing. It's neat that the taskbar lets me hover over tabs on it and see extra options for that tab - if I hover over a parent chat program tab, I can set my status, for instance. That's cool. However, I feel like because of this extra capability, they have removed the toolbar for WMP. You might say "You don't need it! Hover over the WMP tab and you can pause/play/skip!" Uhhh... what about all the other awesome functionality of the mini-player widget? Like, volume control, and being able to see what song I'm listening to and how far into the track it is at a glance?
Also, as neat as the hover-and-click thing is in concept, it's practically quite inefficient. I miss turning things into toolbars and being able to control them right from the task bar. That's what a taskbar is FOR - for managing tasks. All this new one seems to be doing for me is dictating how I should organize my tasks and taking most of the control right out of my hands. WHICH I DO NOT LIKE.
*Navigation is driving me crazy.
1. The menu bars on everything - but *everything* - is auto-hidden. Every program now has its own little "settings" button and they're all in different places, so even if I can figure out how to display the menu bars, it often pops up in a random, awkward place. Like Internet Explorer - why is it *under* my open tabs? Why? I want it at the top. Is this too much to ask? I guess hiding the menu bars is the new, hip, "streamlined" way to do things... but I want my options to be all right there. A menu bar makes *sense*. If I can't find a setting on the menu somewhere, I know it's probably not there. If I am looking for something, I can go through the menu one option at a time and eliminate things systematically. But when there's just random settings buttons and customization links and properties and... ugh, it's just a mess.
2. "My Computer"/folder browsing navigation. Um. Where do I begin. For one thing, I *do* like the root menu list at the top, so that if you want to go back six folders ago, you can just do it with one click. However, WHY ISN'T THERE A FOLDER-UP BUTTON ANYMORE. It makes. No. Sense. "Oh, but Dana, you can just go to the root menu list and click the second-to-last folder on it!" ...yes, yes, I can, which requires me to look at that list, identify the last folder (which would be the one I am currently viewing), then move my cursor one over and click there. So, the place I'm clicking to go one-up is going to be placed differently based on something as arbitrary as the length of my folder names, and how deep I am into them. Again, it's about efficiency. With a folder-up button (which is always in the same place), it's just a muscle memory action - move cursor to here, click. Navigating based on a root menu list is useful sometimes, but most of the time, for the simple things, overcomplicates it. I'm not saying they shouldn't have introduced it - but why get rid of the button, too? Urgh.
3. On a similar note to 2, but separate because of how long this is, folder browsing view options. If I can even choose to display things in a list (which some folders don't seem to have that option), they become a long list I have to scroll down to see all of, instead of scrolling across, which was more efficient (as I very rarely had to scroll, because I could maximize a window and see two or three columns, and if a folder became that full, I'd often break it down into smaller folders). Oh, but Dana, you might say, you can just search for things! Yes, yes, I get that searching helps you find things faster if you know what you're looking for. But even if I do know what I'm looking for (sometimes I like to browse, okay?), searching is just not natural to me. It's faster/easier for me, if I know where to find things, to click through the folders to get there, seeing everything else along the way. I can't really explain, I guess, but searching for things/getting there by hotlinks/jumping around is jarring and confusing and doesn't help me to remember where something is located in the future. It makes me feel chaotic because every single task or file or application that I go looking for becomes a separate entity in my brain, rather than something that is neatly filed in an overall system that makes sense to me. And if there's one thing I don't want when I'm on my computer, it's to feel chaotic and lost. That's the reason I like having my OWN computer, because I need to feel comfortable in my own space.
*The start menu is driving me crazy.
1. I don't like the layout. I can't find an option to switch to the classic start menu, the way XP let me do. Barring that, there are some layout features I wouldn't mind, except... Well, I would tolerate the extra panes and the most-recently-used-programs list, etc, if when I clicked on the "all programs" button it would actually bring up *all programs* - like the classic menu. I liked the classic menu. It would bring up everything - and I had the option to autohide things I hadn't used recently, effectively making it its own built-in "most recently used programs" list - and I could see it all *at a glance* and knew where everything was...
2. This scrolling bullshit is just ridiculous. Not only is it making me click *twice* to get to my list of programs (first on the start menu button, then on the "all programs" button), but I have to now *scroll* to see the rest of the list, and if I want a subdirectory, I have to click on the parent directory, rather than being able to hover with the cursor through directories until I got to the thing I wanted to click on. What the hell is the point of a start menu then? If I'm going to have to scroll and click, I may as well just open "computer" and navigate to the program executables and open them. It's almost as efficient.
3. Search box. See my above notes about searching for things. I don't want my start menu to be so confusing that I have to search for things. There's something fundamentally wrong with that! I'd love to be able to turn the search box off, especially since every time I open the start menu to look at it, just clicking the button again doesn't seem to close it - three times now in trying to type this entry, I keep getting redirected to the search box. I AM NOT TRYING TO SEARCH I AM TRYING TO LJ.
4. Miscellaneous complaints: Why are some things highlighted? I don't get it. What is the yellow trying to tell me? It's visually confusing. I don't know how to make it go away. Why are there arrows for tasks there? I don't want to manage tasks from the start menu. It's a START menu. It's for starting things! Not managing them. Why do my "recently used programs" seem to be so random? I haven't used PDA connect since a few days ago, when I was tethering my phone, and it wasn't on the list yesterday. Yesterday what was on the list was something called "Reset VLC preferences" or something, which isn't a program at all, I don't think. I didn't click on it, I didn't know what it would do. But why was it there? A "most recently used programs" pane should do exactly one thing: give me a hotlink to the programs I have opened most recently. And this one doesn't seem to be doing that with any kind of efficiency. (Oh, and I tried to turn it off, and guess what it did? Left a big fat empty space with nothing in it. I may try turning it off again and simply "pinning" things to the start menu, and see if that's where it will put them, in which case I could hijack that space for an ad-hoc "favorites" list.)
There are little things that I do like. A lot of the features of Win7 would be fantastic, if they weren't *replacing* all the manual controls and little things that I loved about XP. Some things are just cosmetic beefs, and as soon as I can sit down and figure out how to customize some things, maybe it'll be better. I usually ran XP in classic themes/modes, which was visually simpler for me - I tried the Classic theme for Win7 and it just looked clunky and outdated and didn't change how things were organized, just how they looked. I like that Windows Update is integrated instead of being something I have to remember a website for and look up online. Some of the little things driving me nutty may just be a byproduct of still updating everything - like WMP, IE, and WLM constantly asking me to set them up or for permissions for things. But, overall, I feel rather lost in my own space and it makes me sad. It makes me really just not want to be on my computer. Which isn't the end of the world, I guess, I can go do other things - but I know there are going to be days when I just want to zen, with some music and some WoW/chat/mindless games, and do something that makes me feel less chaotic, and I'm going to sit down and just go, urgh. This is not helping. :(
So yeah, I am really considering reinstalling XP... unless I can figure out an efficient way to add XP as a separate partition, and a reason to keep Win7 installed.
Aki suggested maybe I should look into Mac - which sounds like it might be what I need, just with the way things are changing/have changed in the last ten years. But it's not a particularly viable "right now" solution, since I can't just buy a Mac OS to play with and I can't afford a whole new computer. But I may go back to XP, then start saving up for a simple Mac laptop, just to see how I like it, and if I do, then I could buy a new Mac desktop by the time XP craps out on me entirely. We'll see.
However.
Win7.... is driving me CRAZY. *sigh*
A lot of things are hard for me. I know it doesn't show as obviously as with some - you think, hey, she's socialized and acclimated. I have a job, I have friends, I'm a people person and I handle myself well when challenged or faced with new situations. None of these things particularly screams "Aspergers!" ...so it's hard for people who haven't known me long to remember that. People like David, who just don't quite *get* the problems I would be having with this new OS. When I say I might go back to XP if I don't like it, his solution is that there is a an XP Mode - which amounts to a compatibility mode *for* XP - I can use. Because he thinks, oh, on a practical level, she'll maybe have old programs that she'll want to run that are too old for Win7, but that's what compatibility mode is for, and presto, he thinks all my problems are solved.
But as far as I can tell, there are many many ways in which Win7 does not *operate* like XP did, ways that the UI differs, and these ways are distracting and confusing to me, and because of that slight difference in the way I think from most people, they're just *not quite right*. Unsurprisingly, one of the only people so far who understands exactly what I'm talking about when I mention most of these problems is Shad - because he had the same problem with most of the same things. He loves Win7, though, so I donno.
Let's play a little game. I'll list out some things that I don't like about Win7, and if someone/anyone can point out a way to fix each thing, then they become a non-issue. But if nobody can argue me out of them, they become points against Win7. If the points against outweigh the non-issues, then maybe someone can suggest a good alternative to just completely reinstalling again and going back to XP? I could set up an XP partition at least, though that would take some figuring out how, I guess. I just can't imagine ever changing over to Win7 for anything, unless at some point I wanted to make a mostly permanent move to it for compatibility reasons.
Anyway. Have a list:
*The task bar is driving me crazy.
1. I miss my shortcuts - I realize that "pinning" programs to the taskbar is supposedly more efficient, but I don't like the way that the little icons get spaced out. It just seems cluttered. I liked it when I had a little space with shortcuts - kind of like a "favorite apps" list - and they'd tuck themselves away when I wasn't using them.
2. I can't get tasks in the task bar to stop grouping themselves. Example: Chat programs. The parent chat windows, I like to have on the left... then programs and applications I've got open next... and then individual chats on the right. The new task bar has the amazing capability of *letting you drag and drop to sort* - which I would be IN LOVE WITH - if it weren't for this damned grouping. Thing sticks my chat windows next to the parent programs and I cannot separate them. MY CHAT WINDOWS ARE ALL GROWN UP OKAY SO LET ME MOVE THEM AWAY PLX.
3. The notification tray - I may just not have enough things in it yet or haven't found the option, but it seems to me that I can only customize it on a one-and-one basis. I actually *liked* XP's smart-hiding system, where everything was just *in* the notification tray and it would auto-hide all but the most recently used/active things. Again, much like my favorite shortcuts over on the list, this gave me quick access to programs that were running but that didn't need their own windows open - secondary chat programs, computer maintenance and security programs, etc. Yes, I know there's a fun arrow I can click to get to the hidden ones. But I still have to tell them to hide as I open/add them. Of all the things to give me total customizable control over, why was it the notification tray? The one thing I *didn't* need control over because it was doing a fine job of sorting itself? ><
3b. Oh, and why doesn't Windows Live Messenger have a notification tray icon anymore? It has *always* had that. It's something that I feel every chat program should have, because sometimes you want to be logged in so that people can say hi to you, but you don't need the parent window actually up and running. But I can no longer close Windows Live Messenger and reduce it to the notification tray - it stays stuck on my task bar, where it just takes up space and makes me annoyed. And what if I want to CLOSE close the program? I can't just x it out anymore? If I got no notification tray icon, why can't I just x the damn thing out? I gotta actually tell it to close. Stupid stupid.
4. Windows Media Player's taskbar widget/mini toolbar seems to be missing. It's neat that the taskbar lets me hover over tabs on it and see extra options for that tab - if I hover over a parent chat program tab, I can set my status, for instance. That's cool. However, I feel like because of this extra capability, they have removed the toolbar for WMP. You might say "You don't need it! Hover over the WMP tab and you can pause/play/skip!" Uhhh... what about all the other awesome functionality of the mini-player widget? Like, volume control, and being able to see what song I'm listening to and how far into the track it is at a glance?
Also, as neat as the hover-and-click thing is in concept, it's practically quite inefficient. I miss turning things into toolbars and being able to control them right from the task bar. That's what a taskbar is FOR - for managing tasks. All this new one seems to be doing for me is dictating how I should organize my tasks and taking most of the control right out of my hands. WHICH I DO NOT LIKE.
*Navigation is driving me crazy.
1. The menu bars on everything - but *everything* - is auto-hidden. Every program now has its own little "settings" button and they're all in different places, so even if I can figure out how to display the menu bars, it often pops up in a random, awkward place. Like Internet Explorer - why is it *under* my open tabs? Why? I want it at the top. Is this too much to ask? I guess hiding the menu bars is the new, hip, "streamlined" way to do things... but I want my options to be all right there. A menu bar makes *sense*. If I can't find a setting on the menu somewhere, I know it's probably not there. If I am looking for something, I can go through the menu one option at a time and eliminate things systematically. But when there's just random settings buttons and customization links and properties and... ugh, it's just a mess.
2. "My Computer"/folder browsing navigation. Um. Where do I begin. For one thing, I *do* like the root menu list at the top, so that if you want to go back six folders ago, you can just do it with one click. However, WHY ISN'T THERE A FOLDER-UP BUTTON ANYMORE. It makes. No. Sense. "Oh, but Dana, you can just go to the root menu list and click the second-to-last folder on it!" ...yes, yes, I can, which requires me to look at that list, identify the last folder (which would be the one I am currently viewing), then move my cursor one over and click there. So, the place I'm clicking to go one-up is going to be placed differently based on something as arbitrary as the length of my folder names, and how deep I am into them. Again, it's about efficiency. With a folder-up button (which is always in the same place), it's just a muscle memory action - move cursor to here, click. Navigating based on a root menu list is useful sometimes, but most of the time, for the simple things, overcomplicates it. I'm not saying they shouldn't have introduced it - but why get rid of the button, too? Urgh.
3. On a similar note to 2, but separate because of how long this is, folder browsing view options. If I can even choose to display things in a list (which some folders don't seem to have that option), they become a long list I have to scroll down to see all of, instead of scrolling across, which was more efficient (as I very rarely had to scroll, because I could maximize a window and see two or three columns, and if a folder became that full, I'd often break it down into smaller folders). Oh, but Dana, you might say, you can just search for things! Yes, yes, I get that searching helps you find things faster if you know what you're looking for. But even if I do know what I'm looking for (sometimes I like to browse, okay?), searching is just not natural to me. It's faster/easier for me, if I know where to find things, to click through the folders to get there, seeing everything else along the way. I can't really explain, I guess, but searching for things/getting there by hotlinks/jumping around is jarring and confusing and doesn't help me to remember where something is located in the future. It makes me feel chaotic because every single task or file or application that I go looking for becomes a separate entity in my brain, rather than something that is neatly filed in an overall system that makes sense to me. And if there's one thing I don't want when I'm on my computer, it's to feel chaotic and lost. That's the reason I like having my OWN computer, because I need to feel comfortable in my own space.
*The start menu is driving me crazy.
1. I don't like the layout. I can't find an option to switch to the classic start menu, the way XP let me do. Barring that, there are some layout features I wouldn't mind, except... Well, I would tolerate the extra panes and the most-recently-used-programs list, etc, if when I clicked on the "all programs" button it would actually bring up *all programs* - like the classic menu. I liked the classic menu. It would bring up everything - and I had the option to autohide things I hadn't used recently, effectively making it its own built-in "most recently used programs" list - and I could see it all *at a glance* and knew where everything was...
2. This scrolling bullshit is just ridiculous. Not only is it making me click *twice* to get to my list of programs (first on the start menu button, then on the "all programs" button), but I have to now *scroll* to see the rest of the list, and if I want a subdirectory, I have to click on the parent directory, rather than being able to hover with the cursor through directories until I got to the thing I wanted to click on. What the hell is the point of a start menu then? If I'm going to have to scroll and click, I may as well just open "computer" and navigate to the program executables and open them. It's almost as efficient.
3. Search box. See my above notes about searching for things. I don't want my start menu to be so confusing that I have to search for things. There's something fundamentally wrong with that! I'd love to be able to turn the search box off, especially since every time I open the start menu to look at it, just clicking the button again doesn't seem to close it - three times now in trying to type this entry, I keep getting redirected to the search box. I AM NOT TRYING TO SEARCH I AM TRYING TO LJ.
4. Miscellaneous complaints: Why are some things highlighted? I don't get it. What is the yellow trying to tell me? It's visually confusing. I don't know how to make it go away. Why are there arrows for tasks there? I don't want to manage tasks from the start menu. It's a START menu. It's for starting things! Not managing them. Why do my "recently used programs" seem to be so random? I haven't used PDA connect since a few days ago, when I was tethering my phone, and it wasn't on the list yesterday. Yesterday what was on the list was something called "Reset VLC preferences" or something, which isn't a program at all, I don't think. I didn't click on it, I didn't know what it would do. But why was it there? A "most recently used programs" pane should do exactly one thing: give me a hotlink to the programs I have opened most recently. And this one doesn't seem to be doing that with any kind of efficiency. (Oh, and I tried to turn it off, and guess what it did? Left a big fat empty space with nothing in it. I may try turning it off again and simply "pinning" things to the start menu, and see if that's where it will put them, in which case I could hijack that space for an ad-hoc "favorites" list.)
There are little things that I do like. A lot of the features of Win7 would be fantastic, if they weren't *replacing* all the manual controls and little things that I loved about XP. Some things are just cosmetic beefs, and as soon as I can sit down and figure out how to customize some things, maybe it'll be better. I usually ran XP in classic themes/modes, which was visually simpler for me - I tried the Classic theme for Win7 and it just looked clunky and outdated and didn't change how things were organized, just how they looked. I like that Windows Update is integrated instead of being something I have to remember a website for and look up online. Some of the little things driving me nutty may just be a byproduct of still updating everything - like WMP, IE, and WLM constantly asking me to set them up or for permissions for things. But, overall, I feel rather lost in my own space and it makes me sad. It makes me really just not want to be on my computer. Which isn't the end of the world, I guess, I can go do other things - but I know there are going to be days when I just want to zen, with some music and some WoW/chat/mindless games, and do something that makes me feel less chaotic, and I'm going to sit down and just go, urgh. This is not helping. :(
So yeah, I am really considering reinstalling XP... unless I can figure out an efficient way to add XP as a separate partition, and a reason to keep Win7 installed.
Aki suggested maybe I should look into Mac - which sounds like it might be what I need, just with the way things are changing/have changed in the last ten years. But it's not a particularly viable "right now" solution, since I can't just buy a Mac OS to play with and I can't afford a whole new computer. But I may go back to XP, then start saving up for a simple Mac laptop, just to see how I like it, and if I do, then I could buy a new Mac desktop by the time XP craps out on me entirely. We'll see.