More Windows 7 MIA Features
I love Windows 7 and its new ways of doing things, but some users are not happy about all the changes, especially the Vista/XP features they got used to that are now Missing In Action. A fellow blogger addressed the absence of formerly built-in applications such as Windows Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, etc. and noted that you can download these from the Windows Live site and install them. Making these apps – which many people don’t use (for instance, I have no need for Windows Mail since I use Outlook) – optional makes a lot of sense and reduces “bloat” in the new OS.
But some of the other things that have been removed are sorely missed by quite a few users, and some of them are not as easy to get back. There are a few Vista apps that appear to be gone for good, such as Windows Meeting Space (which replaced NetMeeting for meetings within the LAN). I’m not sure it was widely used in the first place. However, one of the first things I noticed when I began using Windows 7 was that the Quick Launch bar was no longer an option in the toolbars selections. I’m very dependent on the QL bar, and nice as the new taskbar is, it doesn’t obviate the need for QL. Luckily, I soon discovered that you can get the QL bar back, as shown in the screenshot below - although how to do so isn’t exactly obvious. Way back in February, I wrote about how to do this in my Live Spaces blog.
Unfortunately, not every “omission by design” is as easily fixed. One decision that I really, really don’t understand is the one to take away our ability to create additional toolbars that are separate from the taskbar. You can make new toolbars in Windows 7, but they can’t be separated from the taskbar. In Vista, I had several separate toolbars, including one for all my network machines and one for my most frequently used folders. The taskbar ran down the left side of my screen, the network toolbar ran across the bottom and the folders toolbar ran vertically down the right side. You could easily make a toolbar out of any folder by dragging it to the edge of the screen. What was the rationale for taking that away?
Although I don’t miss it, some folks are also up in arms about the absence of the classic Start menu. I suspect most of these are people who still like their avocado green or harvest gold kitchen appliances from the 80s, and likewise are most comfortable if they can make their OS interface look like Windows NT. I don’t know why anyone would want to revert back to the Classic look when Windows 7 is so much more elegant, but hey, seems like it would have been easy to give them that choice.
I’ve also heard a bit of grumbling about the loss of the network activity animation in the system tray/notification area. I didn’t even notice this myself, until someone else pointed it out, but I guess it’s important to some folks. My husband has been upset, since Vista, about losing the lines that connect the folders and subfolders in the Explorer tree structure. Again, it’s something I didn’t even notice, but he wants it back. He also griped about the “missing” path (replaced by the much more functional, in my opinion, breadcrumbs view) in the Explorer address box until I showed him that all he had to do was click the breadcrumbs to get his familiar non-clickable path back. One thing he and I are both glad to be rid of is the automatic scrolling feature in the left Explorer pane in Vista. It was one of those things that sounds good in theory, but in practice will drive you nuts. Tom called it “whack a mole” because of the way it was constantly moving.
All in all, most of the features that were removed are things that I consider pretty trivial, and the many cool new features in Windows 7 more than make up for them. I think the libraries feature alone is worth the price of admission. But some people will always focus on what’s been taken away, rather than what they’ve been given.
Debra Littlejohn Shinder
MVP (Enterprise Security)
deb@shinder.net www.debshinder.com
Mike on July 14, 2009 at 04:01 PM
You may want to look at True Launch Bar www.truelaunchbar.com . It has a stand alone version that allows it to create separate toolbars, in windows 7, on the screen and dock them just like the old toolbars did. Plus it does a bunch of things the old quick launch didn't do.