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18 cool things Windows 7 does that Vista doesn't | |
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| Time: 13:46 EST/18:46 GMT | News Source: ActiveWin.com | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum | ||
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From Windows 3.1 to Windows Vista, the Windows operating system has taken many giant leaps. And while Vista received a lukewarm reception from some users, Windows 7 is likely to be remembered for addressing those criticisms.
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| #1 By 12071 (202.43.140.32) at 8/27/2009 11:13:39 PM |
| And one thing that is does is still suck when it comes to displaying folders with a large number of video files (i.e. over 100)... the green progress bar of death still takes its sweet ass time before finally displaying the contents of the folder. Why this can't instantly display the contents of the folder and then, in the background, do whatever it needs to do to show you a preview, get details etc is beyond me. |
| #2 By 23275 (68.117.163.128) at 8/27/2009 11:38:50 PM |
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#1, Ditto that. Same drill for additional SATA drives - sometimes they act like they are asleep.
We've hunted until we are blue in the face for ways to get around this. Close as we have come is the Hive and turning off VSS, which of course is not desired. It does however work, if it just bugs the life out of you, which it does me on a regular basis. I do a lot of HD video of our apps and have thousands of clips. It is a problem we've reported many times. |
| #3 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 8/28/2009 7:43:16 AM |
| Can anyone recommend a better replacement for Explorer? I think I've about had it with the one in Vista, and the 7 one doesn't seem a whole lot better. |
| #4 By 12071 (124.170.194.161) at 8/28/2009 8:05:16 AM |
| #2 If you ever find a solution (other than turning it off obviously - which I've done so in the past)... please share with the rest of us. I honestly cannot understand how something like this can be overlooked... it's annoying as hell, the fix is dead simple to implement... it just takes someone to do it. Surely it's a common issue for a lot of people... MS developers included!! |
| #5 By 79018 (74.70.9.133) at 8/28/2009 8:31:03 AM |
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I use ACDsee Pro to organize my Photos, around 6,000+. grouped in folders of 200.
They are displayed almost instantly. The main reason I use it is, many are .psd files. It also displays RAW. |
| #6 By 2960 (72.196.201.130) at 8/28/2009 8:52:07 AM |
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My "E" data drive does the same thing. When I got to open it, which isn't often, it takes about 20 seconds to present.
And I am NOT fond of the new Win7 Taskbar at all. I've reverted to the old fashioned way. |
| #7 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 8/28/2009 9:06:41 AM |
| Checking out Q-Dir, which seems to be a nice, little app, and xplorer^2 Lite... |
| #8 By 23275 (68.117.163.128) at 8/28/2009 9:12:07 AM |
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#4, Chris, I work on this one quite a lot, actually. When I am not busy and it happens, I become quite OCD about it and spend several more hours on it. Though I really dislike the things, I added an external SATA II drive/enclosure to a test machine as a backup drive, which is directly connected to the system's main board and on-board SATA controller. I can reliably reproduce the behavior by simply browsing the drive. The green-band of death can take several seconds to several minutes to run its course. I have fixed our baseline builds and have a batch file that installs the keys that resolve this, but it is very specific to the builds we ship. I'd need to know very specific details about a build in order to modify it and as reflected above, any addition to a system can result in the same behavior.
As I have written this, TL has posted about his "E:" drive doing the same thing. This is similarly related to the same problem, namely MPIO Paths and associated drivers (if you're using a storage array and running WS08 R2, be sure to evaluate this KB, http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=4d65c744-bc51-4b89-83d6-75f6a2da8a8c ) If any user is having a really tough time with this one, email me and provide fine details about your system and I will make the fixes we have discovered available. It can be solved, but it takes time, testing, more time and yet, more time! There are bits of a phone still embedded in one of our walls where the conversation went like this: "If we can't solve this for ourselves, how can we hope to support our customers...? <slam> <impressive string of expletives> <silence on Microsoft's end> (followed by a month's work to get our baselines right). TL, designed for touch, the new task bar does not impress me either. I rarely touch the mouse and for me, there were always better ways to access open apps and files. Oddly, as designed, the new bar works best when placed at the top of a mouse centric user's screen, which now properly orient's the start menu and previews. All the raving over 7 very much puzzles me and XP users are in for not mess less of a headache than Vista users experienced early on. Of course, none of that matters... it's all perception and real issues as depicted in this thread will go unresolved. |
| #9 By 23275 (68.117.163.128) at 8/28/2009 9:40:27 AM |
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TL, others.
Where you have an additional drive, like TL's "E:" either external, or internally installed, right-click the drive. Click properties. Click on the "Customize" tab. Note the drop down under a heading called: "Optimize this folder for...." change it from its default "General Items" to "Documents" click Ok to close the dialog and restart your computer. This will help prevent the green border issue for many extra drives. |
| #10 By 13997 (71.94.8.164) at 8/28/2009 12:34:01 PM |
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Other tips that fix the problem.
1) When the Green Bar is progressing, you can Click the [X] in the address bar area and it will STOP pulling the thumbnails and other processing on the folder. 2) Turn on "Launch Folder Windows in a Separate Process" (This is under Folder Options - View) - There are other benefits of turning this on, as it increases the threading of Folders as well. 3) STOP installing 3rd party Codecs that are NO LONGER required. This seems to have the biggest impact for users, as they will download and install the Vista XYZ Codecs which circumvent the built in Win7 Codecs. (The Win7 Codecs support 99% of video file formats and Audio, and are ACCELERATED so the GPU will smack through making thumbnails and other nice things that the OSS or 3rd Party Codecs will Not.) 4) Avoid Quicktime - The Apple handlers for Quicktime are HORRIBLE at best. Even when opening a folder with a ton of Videos that Win7 hasn't seen before, like on an external drive, the thumbnails are processed in the background, so even as the green bar moves, you still should have 100% fluid control of the folder and not be bothered by the thumbnails be created. I am typing this on a 1GB Atom Netbook with a 500GB HD that I bring with me, and it can show a folder with over 1000 videos instantly, and creating the thumbnails for the folder for the first time was not even noticeable, as the folder and usage was still fluid. So if your system grinds to a halt doing this, you have a problem and 99.9% of the time I will bet you have install crap 3rd party codecs that are not needed. As for the SATA issues, they are chipset related, get an updated driver. There are also many RAID and other controllers that have bad drivers that have since been updated by the MFRs, this is not something Win7 does other than EXPECT the SATA drives and controllers actually use the features of the SATA specifications, and many of the older drivers don't have all the feature enabled properly. |
| #11 By 143 (216.205.223.146) at 8/28/2009 4:56:24 PM |
| I see this being fixed in Win8. |
| #12 By 12071 (124.170.194.161) at 8/28/2009 8:24:21 PM |
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#10 " I will bet you have install crap 3rd party codecs that are not needed. "
This may or may not be true - I haven't installed a single codec onto this Win 7 machine that I am aware of... however... purely from a development point of view... it shouldn't matter what codec you have or don't have installed. The process for displaying the folder should be, in all cases: 1) Display all the subfolders and files 2) THEN go through and perform whatever else is needed (calculating total size, individual thumbnails for video files, reading metadata from audio files etc.) And this isn't the case - you can clearly see that this isn't the case - so it's programmed incorrectly. Clicking on X is only a solution as long as you admit the underlying problem is one of implementation. |
| #13 By 13997 (71.94.8.164) at 8/28/2009 9:57:24 PM |
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#12 No
The point you are COMPLETELY missing is what you are seeing IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR AT ALL. You pronounce this issue as being systemic, but there are only a few known cases of this happening, and they all involve bad shell handlers, bad codecs, or damaged video files. Even with 3rd party Codecs, the thumbnails display slowly, but the 'dllhost' process that is creating the thumbnail CAN bring the system to a grind if it threads out and takes 100% of the CPU, which is what it seems you are encountering. Windows HAS NO control over the 3rd party shell handlers for previews other than to time them out. So if the Shell handler takes 100% of the CPU, all Explorer can do is try to display the folder as it gets CPU cycles back from the bad 3rd party codec that is bad or processing a bad video file. This is why you they give you the Red X to terminate further attempts by Explorer to create the thumbnails. Think of it like having a malformed image or HTML page witha bad connection, the Browser can only do so much, and that also why you have a Stop Red X on Browser Windows as well. The reason I know a bit about this is that during the beta process our team worked with many of the codec handlers in Win7 and dealing with corrupt video files, screwy codecs, etc. Our team threw a lot at Win7 and we were VERY VOCAL about getting stuff like this fixed, and Microsoft freaking listened to the point that it surprised our team they were so willing to get it right. (And this issue carried over into the WMP Sharing service and Media Center as well since they also rely heavily on the OS's preview handlers.) The 'Tips' I proved above are from what our testers found to get around flaws in bad codecs and videos during the beta. They are NOT because Win7 is broken and especially NOT in this area where it does a better job of not locking the user from accessing the folder than Vista or XP does. If you are honest, even with thumbnail previews on, Folder and the full Explorer UI is far more responsive than Vista and locks far less than XP. If all else fails, identify your corrupted video files or the codecs paired with the video files that create a process that is consuming your CPU or RAM. Open Task Manager and kill the background Process trying to obtain the preview or thumbnail and either remove the codec and replace it with one that works, or fix the video file by re-encoding it. Oh, and you can also just turn off Thumbnails all together... Geesh. PS Your pseudocode demonstration of 'how' it should be coded shows you don't have a freaking clue what Explorer is doing. This post was edited by thenetavenger on Friday, August 28, 2009 at 22:02. |
| #14 By 12071 (124.170.194.161) at 8/29/2009 1:33:28 AM |
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#13 "PS Your pseudocode demonstration of 'how' it should be coded shows you don't have a freaking clue what Explorer is doing."
I never claimed otherwise... i have no idea what the hell Windows Explorer is doing nor why. I'm not going to get into a technical discussion with you as it honestly seems like you don't really get it and hence there's a breakdown in communications with you getting all defensive to the point where it appears that I must have personally insulted your family! The issue I'm referring to isn't only occurring in a few small places - heck, even Lloyd, who is the first to defend Microsoft no matter what it seems they do, seems just as pissed off about this as I and many other people are. Is it better than Vista... sure! Is it better than XP... no! I never had an issue where by I had to sit and wait for the complete contents of the directory to appear in XP. Whether this is as a result of the underlying IO classes is also irrelevant as that just points to a fix being required in that component. My point was that when the user clicks on a directory within Explorer, the contents of that directory should be displayed to them immediately. I do no give a rats ass about what extensions have been installed into Explorer, I do no give a rats ass if the files in that directory are corrupt, I do not give a rats ass if the codecs that are used to read/verify/display those files are corrupt... it's all irrelevant. Windows Explorer should display the contents of the directory and THEN it can do whatever the heck it likes including telling me which files are corrupt, which codecs are causing issues (and those extensions to Explorer should be run on separate threads so as not to lock out Windows Explorer in the event that there is an issue with them!) etc etc. I'm not talking about thumbnails! I'm talking about seeing the contents of a directory without waiting for the green progress bar to get through 30% or so first. Every other OS Microsoft has ever made (other than Vista) and every other OS can manage to do file IO without any issues - so you're right... what I'm seeing is not normal behaviour at all - which is why I'm highlighting it as an issue. |
| #15 By 81201 (79.2.61.147) at 8/29/2009 1:47:03 AM |
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@chris_kabuki
On my Vista, the video thumbnails appear instantly without seeing any green progress bar. A constant green progress bar is caused by bad 3rd party programs. This post was edited by suy on Saturday, August 29, 2009 at 01:47. |
| #16 By 12071 (124.170.194.161) at 8/29/2009 4:40:02 AM |
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#15 It's not the thumbnails that are the problem... for example:
1) I will click on C:\Movies in Windows Explorer. (c:\Movies is included in the Libraries -> Movies - but that's just a symlink) 2) The right hand side which displays the contents of the currently selected directory remains empty (i.e. white). 3) The green progress bar kicks off and once it gets to 60% or so that's when the right hand side is displayed. 4) The next time I click into c:\Movies it doesn't take quite as long but once again it's not instantaneous. c:\Movies doesn't display any thumbnails, it shows it in details view. The "additional" columns include size and length. However, even if those columns are turned off so that all that is displayed is the name, date and type, the problem still shows up. It contains 145 videos for reference which is not a lot by any definition. |
| #17 By 23275 (68.117.163.128) at 8/29/2009 6:41:14 AM |
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I think some of us are referring to two different problems that produce the same green ribbon of death in explorer.
The work-around I provided at #9, eases symptoms in both cases (but does not "fix" the underlying issue). For the record, I am not speaking to the rendering of thumbnail previews and avenger's observations are accurate where the green ribbon is seen in such cases. Unfortunately, a lot of video editing software, even the very best of it, includes a lot of third party codecs. That said, I have seen the green ribbon on systems that have no third party software installed on them at all. What Chris and I and others have seen is real and it renders the explorer window affected unusable. In some cases nothing appears in the window. In others objects appear, but they are whited out until Explorer is done displaying the green ribbon. We've worked on this for years (since Vista) and it is better than before, but still happens. We worked on it a lot more and fixed our baselines, but the fact is, there is something not quite right - it should not take the effort this has. Also, I'm not quick to defend anyone - certainly not a company. I am quick to point out what we have found to be sure and what it means. If it means that Microsoft has worked hard on something to get it right or fix it, I say that. If it means there is a problem and it needs work, I'll say that, too. By and large MS works hard at things and I assess, based upon that work, that they care and really do want to ship great products - that's an opinion, of course, but it is based upon what I have seen. From the data we have captured and scenarios we have recreated, the issue I and Chris and TL have seen and reported here is related to Multipath IO bugs, bad drivers, bad firmware, or some combination of the three. Now, we use the very best and most costly components one may buy - and we still see it! There is still work to be done. As we find out what it is that has to be done, we fix it and where appropriate, we share the information. I had some notion that the company had captured enough data on this one to solve it. I was wrong and as with all things, there is still work to be done in Windows 7. It isn't perfect and neither will Windows 8 be. I am confident that the people that work on it, will give it their best and over many decades, things will get better. That does not change the fact that when the GROD appears and I am in a rush, that I don't feel like slamming the screen. |
| #18 By 21705 (142.213.176.140) at 8/31/2009 1:43:41 PM |
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Anyone noticed the second screenshot where a recent document is called 20 cool things Windows 7 does th...?
Where are the other 2 cool things? Why he kept the 2 coolest secret? ;-) |
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