August 19th, 2008
Windows 7 wishes
Today Ed Bott has been furiously rubbing the lamp hoping that the great genie Sinofsky will appear and grant him some wishes. Well, since there’s a chance that Microsoft is listening, here’s my wishlist.
- First off, I wrote a wish list back in January. These still stand.
- Virtualization support out of the box.
- Support for virtual desktops out of the box.
- Choice. For example, do you want the new style Start menu (which I prefer) or the old XP-esque Start Menu (which I know a lot of users preferred)? These kinds of choices should be on offer across the OS.
- 64-bit only. A while ago I wasn’t too sure about this, but I’m no at the point where I firmly believe that it’s end of the road time for 32-bit.
- UI revitalization. Aero is OK, but let’s be honest, it’s little more than a visual refresh of what we had back with Windows 95.
- WinFS …
- Improved multicore support.
- A task bar that extends across multiple monitors.
- Better codec support for Media Center and Windows Media Player.
- Tighter integration of PowerShell with Windows.
- Reinstate the ability to have a custom install of Windows. Having the ability to easily remove (or not install in the first place) unnecessary apps and features would counter claims of bloat.
- Fewer reboots, or a better way to handle reboots (such as restoring apps that were open prior to the reboot).
Now for stuff that I’d like to see but will not appear in Windows 7 for certain …
- Three separate layers to the OS … the OS layer, an application layer and a data layer. Each layer needs to be a separate entity to allow easy migration and repair of the OS.
- On demand sandboxing of applications.
Ideas?
[UPDATE: Ed Bott asks 'Why would you want WinFS?' Here's the TalkBack reply I posted:
I'll give you one reason right off the top of my head why I like WinFS ...
... and no, I've never said or hinted in any way that this was a replacement for NTFS.
The aspect of WinFS I liked was the ability to create schemas that could be used to teach the system different file formats not already understood by the system. So, for example, a schema could be produced to allow indexing of, say, BlogJet files or a directory listing of say 7z files or an ISO file. This would have allowed third parties to extend the quality of search results beyond the limits placed upon it by Microsoft. I'm not currently aware of any system whereby Windows Search can be augmented.
WinFS also, at least on paper, promised a far more organic search experience that didn't rely on keywords of knowing what file extensions you were dealing with.
Another reason that WinFS was promising was that it was more open than what we currently have. The situation as we have it now is that Google Desktop Search beats Windows Search in both speed of indexing, processing speed and the quality of results on every system that I've tried it on. Unfortunately it doesn't work on 64-bit (or at least I've not tried it as the download claims to be 32-bit only).]
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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| 08/19/08
