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.
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.
