A couple months back I lost my OS hard drive to a head crash, and had to start afresh. Choice was between good old faithful stalwart Windows XP, or new fangled Windows 7. Did I stick with the reliable trusty friend I knew so well, or take the plunge into an exciting new world of stupid see-through glass window chromes? Guess!

Naturally, this is going to be a rant, of sorts. 7 seemed fine and dandy at first but the more I tried to do more or less anything with it, the more it got in my way. Why you little!

They Took Our Jobs Dockable Folders!

Imagine you’re an enormous nerd, and you like to make your PC as efficient as possible to use. You have a couple dozen programs and utilities you might want quick access to, out of several more you’ll need now and again, but the Start Menu is too laborious – it’s a whole click away, man! Then there’s probable clicking through a few folders… yeesh.

As far back as Windows 98 (probably) it’s been possible to make a new toolbar, drag it off the start menu bar, slam it into the side of the screen, and set it to auto-hide when the mouse moves away. Bingo! No clicking, just move your mouse to the edge of the screen and your toolbar slides out into view, with room for a couple dozen or so shortcuts to stuff. Ace!

And they took it away. Those fucks. With no good reason. Gnnhh.

An Italian kid made a thing called Seven Desk Bar to replicate the functionality, but it’s buggy in multi-monitor setups like mine. Gnnhh.

Let’s Make Scrolling In Windows Explorer Really Annoying!

I can only imagine this was one of the phrases uttered by one of the fuckups who rewrote Windows Explorer for 7. Sure, it’s very pretty, and “Libraries” are probably neat, whatever they are, but did they really need to break the way it scrolls? Did they really? Really actually?

Hover over the folder pane in XP, move your mouse wheel, and the folder list scrolls. Move mouse to hover the file pane, move wheel, file pane scrolls. Simple. Natural. Entirely as you’d expect; whatever’s under the cursor when you scroll the wheel, scrolls.

BUT NO. Apparently this is too complex for all the “I’m a PC” fucks out there. Now, under 7, you have to click into each pane before the scroll action will be delivered there. Might seem like a mountain out of a mole’s hill, but when you’ve been able to do something with ease for 10+ years, then suddenly have weird things scrolling when you don’t want them too, all for no reason, it rapidly grinds your gears.

Luckily this has a solution – a thing called WizMouse which will return Explorer to a sensible scrolling state. Shouldn’t have to though. Gnnhh.

Sadly WizMouse then conflicts with certain games, and needs disabling before you go into them. Gnnhh.

Let’s Make Viewing Folder Contents In Windows Explorer Really Annoying!

Again, it seems Microsoft devs must’ve gone out of their way to make Windows Explorer (which if you’re a nerd and do any file manipulation at all, you’ll spend a lot of time with) as annoying as possible, all for a few stupid bells and whistles which most people won’t even use.

Used to be, you could sort the files in a folder by modification date, and as soon as you open the folder they’re there, all sorted by date, instantly. Not so under 7! Now if you sort a folder by date, so the most recent ones are at the top for example, it’ll re-sort them every single time you open the folder meaning wasted seconds all over the place. Nice one, Windows 7! That’s progress.

Fortunately this too is fixable by right clicking the folder and telling it to “optimise” for “documents”, although what the fuck ever else they’re presuming to “optimise” for by default which needs a fresh fucking scan every single time you open it I have no idea. Gnnhh.

Let’s Make “File Open” Dialogs Randomly Not Display Icons For No Reason Whatsoever!

Really don’t know what that’s about. Very annoying.

Actually it’s not I don’t really care about that but while I’m here, I might as well write it.

Having Said All That…

For the most part it’s ok. Firefox hangs for no reason whatsoever every time I get back to the PC after power saving’s kicked in, and if I “sleep”or “hibernate” the thing then flash player breaks… but maybe that’s FF and not 7. Hrm…

RANT END

P.S. This was mostly so I have a note about how to fix those Windows Explorer things. I don’t really think you care about what I think of Windows 7, guy. Haha!