My Top 5 Complaints on Windows

2008-04-08 | Mike Acker

[Mike Acker]

my personal top 5 gripes about windows

1. INEFFECTIVE SECURITY
2. CAP LOCK KEY
   • should be context sensitive: hold setting when we switch windows
   • should implement the DOS TSR CAPSLOCK function: if the user holds SHIFT and presses a letter turn off the Cap Lock key and output a capital letter like the user wants
3. SCROLL WHEEL DOES NOT SWITCH WINDOW CONTEXT
4. LACK OF STICKEYNESS (products reverting to "My Documents when the should remember where you were working)
5. MS Word trying to guess how you want to format a document
6. Access
   • using banker's rounding instead of half-adjust as everyone expect it to do
   • incorrect handling of NULL strings

[jdm]

I’m pretty sure there’s ways to change those defaults you mention, so that they won’t be a bother any longer.

[Woodman]

That would require learning how to set properties in MS Word.

FWIW My Documents does not need to be the default for anything and can be changed in the Registry.

[Mike Acker]

some,— like in Word you can switch a lot of the autmaticc guessing off but you have to go into an endless menu and find all the switches. wouldn’t be so bad if ya had a button to ban all wizards on 1 click

[Woodman]

Also #4 can be solved by doing a ‘Save As’ instead of ‘Save’.

[Woodman]

Right Click on ‘Clippy’ and tell him to go away. Problem solved.

[aft_lizard]

Ineffective security? What version are you using? If it’s Vista then you should know that recently it came in second place to Ubuntu on internet security, Apple was hacked in minutes while Vista took three days.

[MarineBrat]

Windows’ biggest letdown for me.... no multiple desktops like in most Linux distros.

[Mike Acker]

remember: these are on-going aggravations:

open an Excel spreadsheet; right click on a tab you need a copy of; select move/copy and create a new book. It will dump you back into "My Documents ( or whatever you have set as default ) instead of figuring out the most likely place is the PWD ( present working directory -- when the source document came from ) .

[headsonpikes]

Whoa, dude - chop some firewood, dig some dirt.

Go outside, at least.

[Mike Acker]

good. we’ll ad that to this list!

[Mike Acker]

when no remarks are posted then the purveyors of the Status Quo win by default.

that ain’t our way around here

[Petronski]

MS Word trying to guess how you want to format a document

Just turn it off.

[Mike Acker]

security must win by a SHUTOUT. there is no such thing as pretty good. like sayin' "I didn't get hit for 3 days"

3 days ain't long next time they have it in 300ms

Security must SHUTOUT the attackers

[cspackler]

So, most of your problems with Windows are actually problems with Office, right? (That aren’t even really problems, just a lack of user knowledge...)

[Mike Acker]

yeah go ahead there's about a dozen or more little switches ya gotta find and set. it's a PITA which is why it's on my gripes list.

Wordperfect was a pleasure to work with; Word is a PITA

[Petronski]

Curse the darkness or light a candle.

Yes, I know that involves finding the candle, standing it upright in a safe place, opening the matchbook, tearing off a match, striking the match, moving it toward the wick, igniting the wick and extinguishing the match.

But when you’re done, you have light.

[aft_lizard]

It isnt quite as simple as you are saying, no matter how much you dream it to be. Those three days also had a year of preparation and the best they could come up with was a third party app that had to be used in such away that 99.9999999999% of all users would never be effected by such an attack. A shutout is a nice dream however.

[kidd]

Word and Excel are very powerful programs that try to satisfy both the casual user and the power user.

Those on the border of both type of users will often be fustrated.

I urge you to subscribe (for free!) to each of the following websites. As a subscriber, you will get an e-mail every Monday with tips...some for power users (such as Macro usage), some for casual users (how to turn borders on and off) and those in-between (like how to work with Styles).

http://excel2007.tips.net/
http://word2007.tips.net/

[Mike Acker]

==>A shutout is a nice dream however

A shutout is the minimum acceptable

whatever was or was not found during HackerFest doesn't tell us that much. Experience tells us what is real and what is wishful thinking