Why is it that when ever Microsoft seems to take a huge step forward in one area it takes a huge step back in another? I've had my laptop that came with Win7 just short of three weeks now so I've had a good chance to give it a full work out. Windows 7 is awesome. I'd almost be willing to suggest it's better than XP--certainly better than an XP of equal maturity. Probably the thing I like most about it is its abundance of hot/shortcut keys. Of course, there are things I don't like about it; the "libraries" for example, while a good concept in principle, unless you've got your entire house Sevenized, they can actually be a bit of an encumbrance. But the thing I like least--and what prompted me to start the thread--is WMP12. It's bloody fucking awful. I've always been a Media Player supporter. It’s simple and native. I’ve found pretty much all third-party media players to be nothing but glorified malware. (I’m looking at you WINAMP!) I know WMP is one of those programs that people love to blast away at, but usually with most issues, it's just a matter of tweaking the options. As such, WMP12 is lacking a lot of the options of its predecessors. The most notable omittance is the lack of an id3 editor. One long time issue with WMP has been its “literal interpretation” of tags. If two songs on the same album, for example, have even slightly different tags (even if in a label buried so deep that no one gives a rat’s ass), it displays them as two different albums. Before, this could easily be rectified with the advanced tag editor. That’s gone. Now, the geniuses as Redmond expect you to edit each one it the file properties via Explorer. What a fucking waste of time! Not only that, the number of available labels is limited (see above). And it doesn’t even work half the time. The tags seem to be “hard coded;” you change one and then it reverts back to its previous setting. I’ve even tried using third-party tagging software (which I do most of my tagging with, anyway). Sure enough, I’d load the file, change the tag, save it, find it Explorer, and it would be right back the way it was before. The only solution I’ve been able to come up with so far is delete the file from the computer, update WMP’s library, and reboot. One time, I even had to run a run a registry cleaner. With any luck, what ever malfeasance that causes the problem is gone and I can fix the thing properly and copy it back into the music directory. I assume this is supposed to be a piracy deterrent, but whatever. The other problem is how utterly boring it looks, but that has already been debated ad nauseum. Now, on the flip side, is Microsoft Security Essentials; it’s bloody brilliant. MS actually offered a malware program that works. And it’s free. As and added bonus, it has a remarkably low memory footprint. There have been several field tests done by reputable outlets and they’ve all found it to be as accurate (in not more-so) than all the big name third party AVs. It also seems to find an incredibly low number of false-positives. So after all that hot air, the question is this: why does Microsoft seem to have this problem? They do something good, and then do something equally bad. This trend dates back all the way to early Windows at least. Even last time around, there was the infamous Vista debacle, but at the some time Office 2007 was probably the best one they’ve ever produced.
Sounds like they've definitely improved things - some of the early reviews of forefront and defender were less than stellar Though office 2007 did copy a lot of flack for it's Ribbon but I think Microsoft have leartn from that and 2010 has dialed it back a bit - they've restored the file menu to it's traditional place on the left of the menu bar. They also managed to screw the pooch with document formats and conversion issues though it wasn't as bad as last time (when Office 97 came out). So in way the 2007 releases were both Mediocre but I think Windows 7 and Office 2010 will make up for those (combine with Windows Server 2008R2 and Microsoft have got some of their best ever software there).
There are huge numbers of complaints about WMP12, and cries for a downgrade to WMP11. My personal problem with it is that in fullscreen, vids that looked great in 11, now look like crap in 12. It is possible to do an unofficial downgrade to 11 in 32bit Win7, but there are some glitches afterwards. One of which is videos/mp3's no longer open in WMP upon double-click. WMP11 does open, but whatever you double-clicked isn't running. If you're running Win7 64bit (like I am on the desktop), forget about it. Some say they made it happen, but I have tried every different routine I found and nothing has worked, except to screw things up and require a repair installation to get WMP12 back. My only other beef (so far) with Win7 is, that double-clicking any file (mp3, wmv, jpg, etc) opens the given app behind the folder(s) that were already open. XP always opened the app on top, and since I skipped Vista, I don't know if this is meant to happen this way. Snipping Tool is a great thing. At least it makes the process of getting a screen shot ready to post in a forum a step or two quicker. I no longer have to open it in PhotoShop to crop it down. But generally speaking, I have been quite happy with the switch from XP to 7.
^ Possibly I like 11 better than 10 if for no other reason that F11 makes it go fullscreen. Video looks good in fullscreen in both 10 & 11, but again, not 12. And on my original "downgrade to WMP11", I noticed .divx files open in WMP11 correctly (ie: open WMP11 & run) after double-clicking on them. And I remember doing something in regedit to one of the extension types as a test. Now I just have to find the right section again and repeat it for all the other file types.
Another thing I've noticed is how sometimes the files turn-up corrupted or something. They all appear as "unknown." But they're all fine in WMP11.
^ I've never had that problem. I do have all normal WMP type files opening WMP11 properly on the laptop now. It even opens on top like it used to. Win7 must have some reason for not normally doing this.
WMP 11 was fairly decent. It looked good and sounded good. WMP 12 is just garbage. I'm sorry, but it only picked up about 1/3 of my music collection. I have to use WinAmp (and haven't found anything better unfortunately).
I want to say I love Windows 7, but I'm still smarting over the fact that they want me to pay for an upgrade just to change the desktop picture. :/
The very stripped down version for Netbooks doesn't give users the oppourtunity to change their desktop background.
I think the last version of WMP I used was either 9 or 10; I rather liked that version myself. I've since become more accustomed to iTunes.
Starter, I guess it just comes with netbooks, doesn't let you personalize much if anything. I'm using Stardock's Mycolors to get around a bit of it. I was so happy with it right up to there, and if it weren't for how easy they've made certain things I do a lot (like swapping net connections/networks on the fly) I'd probably toss it for XP. I like shareware, but not in my OS thankyaverymuch
I use VLC and Foobar2000 for Video/Audio respectively. On the rare occasion when VLC has failed me I've not had an issue with WMP12 - it is pleasingly lacking in the bloat and nonsensical bullshit that drove me away from WMP in the first place - but at this point I've made my bed and am happy in it.
Not sure where all the Winamp hate is coming from. It's always beat the shit out of WMP IMO. It's the rare free downloadable program I actually paid the license fee for! It's simple enough to delete most of the shit I don't need, like the little web links and the like. Can't get rid of the web browser entirely, but you don't have to use it, and once you leave it, it seems to release its memory, so it's not a big deal. I use it strictly for music, so I can't speak to the video functionality. The iPod support is really good, and lets me not have to deal with iTunes. It happily converts FLAC or whatever other format I feel like using into something iPod (got mine for free) friendly on the fly without complaint. My friend was complaining about how iTunes wanted to resync and obliterate all his music that he didn't backup when reinstalling windows. Winamp copied all his iPod stuff back onto his PC so that iTunes could nuke his iPod and recreate his library. I don't use iTunes, so I can't say with authority that it wouldn't take his music back from the iPod... is it really that bad?