Unable to delete files with even a 90% success rate.

For example, I had shared a folder for someone else to grab a file, granted it was vista to vista so that didnt work either, not even a login prompt just a flat out “denied”, I FTP’d it. Went to delete the folder – BOOM – “Folder In Use”. Its not shared, now actually its empty. Its not open anywhere, but it is in use… Rebooting is the only way I have found to fix this. This gets terrible with really large files (4gb or so), try coping them over a network. Always in use….

WTH is going on with File sharing anyway? I have public sharing on so “Anyone” in the network can view. But when a machine connects they get flat out denied. NOT EVEN A login prompt. Now, if I make an account with the same name as their username on the other computer, they do get a login prompt. THAT IS STUPID. Over protective….

Secondly, and maybe more important, MS must realize there is more than one way to accomplish a task/function and let the user select/modify/replace the they set as the default – I’ve too many users that moved back to Office 2003 “cause the ribbon was just too hard to use.

OSX has a much nicer side bar, it has many more ways to view the content, it also has the quick preview thing which is really really nice. Although I think that iTunes album animation look is just dumb. But again, the quick preview thing is not, that rocks. So quick! I can view all my pictures one by one before Vista even gets a slideshow of pictures started. (wth is going on there anyway, screen flashes, pauses, etc then the pictures start – should just start up instantly).

Also OSX has and uses native support for drive images, dmgs. Very very useful.

The only thing that I personally really like about the vista explorer is the new address bar, and how the breakcrumbs can be dropped down – that is fantastic.

If there is a search box on the upper right of a window and a list of items in the middle – it should always begin by filtering that list. In some places it does this, in other places, well it doesnt. Take the control panel for example. Search boxs helps you find the right applet. Good, but say you pick on that has a ton of tiems? Like File Types. Type in doc and it starts looking for a control panel applet to match, instead of filtering the list. Now, the Uninstall Programs screen does filter the list. Some work right, other dont, all feels like its held together with tape, cheap tape.

Well, I will give you my list in no particular order, but I would bet the first will be the ones that annoy me the most.

1) Folder Settings do not stick, at all, ever. I set a folder to how I want to view it, close it, open it – good. Come back to it an hour later, Explorer has decided its now a list view, with only “name” as a column. Or, perhaps Explorer dediced folders like my C Drive are “Pictures and Videos”. The check box that says “Remember each folders’s view settings” is non functional.

2) Still WAY to laggy. When I open it it should show what it can instantly, not a blank empty window while it is looking at my 8 in 1 card reader, 4 mapped drives, and 3 regular drives. Open when I say open, and put a spinner or something on things you are waiting for – that is much more acceptable. And, help me god if as I drag a folder over explorer with treeview enabled and I happen to cross a network drive, the whole thing will just lock for about 5 seconds.

3) Color of Toolbar should match the color theme I have picked. Perhapes I dont like blue? Should have when picking color, a second color so we can still have a nice color fade from left to right.

4) No way to color or highlight a folder, all yellow, this is a nice feature of OSX, and as a cool idea I am giving a way now – on vista since we have that colored toolbar – it would be nice if I colored a folder “Red” the toolbar also was colored to match (pick an nice second color to fade to for me here) – dont change Glass though. That should stick as theme color. Now I can easily spot this folder when it is open too! OSX only does this with an ugly behind the text highlight on the folder – I would say just tint the folder instead, that would look much better!

5) folder view is worthless.

6) Favorite links – see to change at times but, apple has done this whole bar WAY better. scales better, and is far more usefull with network drives.

7) Thick status bar in the bottom doesnt give me size of folder now for some reason. It is very thick for showing almost nothing most of the time (yes I know its resizable, but as I have said earlier, vista will just change it back at some point). Also, sometimes when you click on it it focus the window, in other places it does not. Dont get it.

Previous version button removed from toolbar – dumb – was a great feature most will now never see.

Brandon : “For both search and browse scenarios.”

Maybe on par with the second, maybe.. But search? no. Seriously search is terrible in vista. The UI for search in vista is just so bad, I only use it for filtering start menu items. The advanced UI is rigid and I cannot stack filters which is so easy on OSX. Also the results are poor, very very poor. Over all I would give vista a 5 out of 10 for search UI and a 4 out of 10 for the results. Granted it could just be how they are represented that makes the results seem so useless. so so so sad.

There is a task force item about this already:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/taskforce/view.php?id=90