The Windows 7 Beta identified a host of minor problems with the new user interface, and hundreds of people took the time and trouble to point them out, thinking they were being helpful.The RC has addressed virtually none of them. Not only does this mean that Microsoft wasted everyone's time by inviting feedback and then ignoring most of it; it also means that W7 will be launched with a host of silly niggles that stop it being a really great product. This is such a wasted opportunity!!I'm not talking about major architectural changes here, such as re-introducing the XP-style Start menu. I understand why MS won't do that. I'm talking about the really silly, annoying little things that surely could be fixed, and which DO NOT undermine or dilute Microsoft's vision for what they want Windows 7 to be.I won't list them all here - this forum is full of them for all to see for themselves. But I can give a few examples, to illustrate my point:1/ Place the mouse pointer over an icon in the taskbar for a non-running program. It takes ALMOST TWO SECONDS for the tooltip with the program name to appear. Now that my most commonly used programs are merely icons - without labels - in the taskbar, I occasionally need to remind myself what program an icon represents. A two second speed bump is a damn nuisance. This is such an obvious fault, and must be so trivial to fix, I can't honestly believe MS is seriously thinking of leaving it unfixed for launch.2/ This one refers to stacked icons in the taskbar (representing a program with multiple windows, of course). For these, hovering over the icon, and clicking on it, do exactly the same thing (bring up the little preview pictures). This is IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION to the behaviour for non-stacked icons (a program with just one window), in which hovering over the icon shows the preview, and CLICKING ON THE ICON BRINGS THAT WINDOW TO THE FOREGROUND.In other words, for non-stacked icons, the hover and click have two distinct functions, both of which feel entirely logical and "smooth".The obvious question is "OK, but which of the windows should be restored when clicking on a stacked icon?". The answer has been arrived at independently numerous times by different commentators: the most recently opened window. This makes good sense ergonomically - there's a good chance that the most recently opened window is the one most likely to be wanted, anyway.So, the functionality for stacked icons should be: a/ hover shows the preview pictures; b/ click restores the most recently viewed window.This would then "feel" TOTALLY CONSISTENT with the behaviour for non-stacked icons, and would be a great shortcut. And again, it has been suggested countless times by some very thoughtful and intelligent commentators.Here's how the taskbar icons would work, in summary:a/ Non-running programHover: show program name in a tooltipClick: launch and bring to the foregroundb/ Running program, single windowHover: show preview pictureClick: bring window to the foregroundc/ Running program, multiple windows (stacked icon)Hover: show preview picturesClick: bring most recent window to the foregroundTotally consistent, fast, "smooth", and suggested by countless commentators. It is simply better than the current arrangement, and yet is consistent with it and must be perfectly feasible to implement.3/ Here's a simple one: open an Explorer window. Make the folder navigation pane (on the left) fairly narrow. Now try to navigate to a deeply nested folder.Problem! The pane no longer has that auto-sideways-scroll that was introduced with Vista, but NOR DOES IT HAVE A HORIZONTAL SCROLL BAR. The only thing you can do is drag the handle to make the pane wider. What a bodge!4/ Gadgets can no longer be "guarded" from maximised windows. I understand why MS thought the gadget bar was superfluous, but it had one great feature: it made sure gadgets were (or could be) always visible. It's no good setting the gadgets to "always on top" because that hides parts of the window you are working on. Now, I can no longer glance across to the calendar, the weather, the exchange rates, the news feeds; I have to un-maximise the window I'm working in, or steer my mouse to the Desktop Peek button. Time wasted! It's just another clunky speedbump, and totally unnecessary.I could go on, but you've got the idea. There are countless little issues like these that MS has received MASSES of highly consistent feedback on, and yet (for some reason) insists on leaving broken.Dear Windows 7 development team: we are on your side! We want W7 to be utterly brilliant! Most of us are intelligent, experienced "power users" and we have useful things to say. We are your customers! Please, what can we do to make you pay attention to these annoying little issues that take the gloss off an otherwise superb product? At the very least, use your E7 blog to tell us why you want our gadgets to get hidden, why we can't scroll the folder pane in Explorer, why we've got to wait almost two seconds for a tooltip, why we can't single-click restore the most recent window, etc, etc.Pretty please??Steve Thackery(Thack)PS: Yes, I know you can alter some of these behaviours with subtle registry hacks. But for 99% of users that's a non-starter. (And in any case, it can cause unwanted side effects, as I found out when trying to change the mouse hover/tooltip delay). We want W7 to work properly out of the box.

It takes 2 seconds forthe program name to appear over an icon when you hover? Really? Mine appear instantly. I don't use stacked icons, so I don't know about this one.Maybe you shouldn't make the navigation pane so narrow.I don't use the gadgets soI don't know about this one either.

Rather than discussing the specific points (which have been done to death in these forums over the past several weeks - including the 1.5 - 2 seconds tooltip delay), I was hoping we could discuss how to get Microsoft to listen to all the good feedback which lots of people have taken a lot of trouble to generate.The point is that I (and many others) think MS is about to spoil a great opportunity, and we don't want that to happen.Even if they just said "Yes, we considered it all and decided not to implement it because....<some sort of brief explanation>". That would be better than nothing.But I don't want that. I want W7 to be brilliant. I want W7 to stick it to Apple, Linux, et al!How do we get Microsoft to listen?Thack

Microsoft does listen. They have to prioritize.Do you honestly believe that Microsoft has gone to such great lengths to gather customer feedback, and then simply ignore all of it?There are tons of trivial things that I've posted about here, that I don't necessarily expect them to change just for me. If it's important enough, for the good of everyone, and ultimately for their product / revenue, then they will make the change.Despite thequality of detail in the first post, this really is trolling.Trevor SullivanSystems EngineerOfficeMax CorporationTrevor Sullivan Systems Engineer OfficeMax Corporation

I have to agree with what Thack is saying tho. I must have sent 2000+ ideas on to MS using the Send Feed Back and other options including emails, and other forums, and MSDN. I do note the changes I send them, and it is duley noted some changes were implimented in RC-1. It was all the "Major" stuff, it seems the "Nagger/Nitpick" issues are still there as Thack said. I also agree with pcgeek86 they are most likely working on the magor issues to iron them out first, then the lessers will follow. What I would hope for if I am catching Thacks drift is this: We do not want a 80% OS Release, THEN, a Service Pack to fix minor junk again (ie. VISTA!) get it rite the first time, take no short cuts, forget tring to "POP the Market as fast as you can to make a buck" and end up with tons of unsatisfied customers again. Nothing is ever 100% perfect, I do not care how far you go with it, but taking a little time and knowing WHY you release a BETA and a FEEDBACK system is to help in devlopment of a product so the Major, and Minor Quams are ironed out first. At this point even in the 7000-BETA Win-7 is in my personal opinion 100% better than Vista in every way, take the time and the feedback us testers and devs are sending back and make it 110% at release. Impress the paying customer and give them something worth bragging on a 200+$ pricetag.Currently Testing Windows 7 Beta: 4 Systems built the same: 1Win7 ~ 2Vista Ultimate X64 ~ 1XP Pro/XP Pro X64 Dual Boot Box AMD X4 Phenom II 940, 8GB Corsair XMS2, EVGA 730a Motherboard, EVGA 9800 GX2 SCC, 2x500GB 32MEG Cache Seagate SATA Drives in Raid-0, 2x1TB WD SATA Data Drives, 6xHP w2207h HDMI LCD, 52" Mitsubishi LCD TV, Antec 900 Case, Antec TPQ 1000w PSU, 2 Sony BluRay Burner Drives.

pcgeek86 nailed it. Its all about priorities. ALL software ALWAYS ships with known bugs. Period. Read that again and let it sink in. I have been doing software development for over 15 years. We have weekly meetings with QA and Marketing, etc. deciding which issues will get fixed in what release. There are some we decide to just not fix because they cause no damage, just minor and/or cosmetic annoyances.These trivial issues in the first post are not going to be fixed anytime soon, if at all. They are simply too trivial and/or will affect so few people that they are not worth spending the time to fix. You can NOT spend "whatever time is necessary to get it right the first time". If you try to do that, it will never get released. Someone will always have his pet issue that just HAS to be fixed. If you equate these little issues with "No one at MS is listening!", then you simply don't understand the software development/marketing/maintenance process.Seriously, just don't make the navigation pane so narrow! If the stacked icons don't work to YOUR satisfaction, then maybe you shouldn't be using them.For every person who thinks they shouldwork YOUR way, there will be someone who likes it the way it is.Maybe you need a 2nd monitor for your gadgets if you can't fit them and your main windows on a single screen.The point is, don't expectMS to solve all of your problems. Like it or not, you just might have to compromise somewhere.

Do you honestly believe that Microsoft has gone to such great lengths to gather customer feedback, and then simply ignore all of it? Yes, I do believe it, because Ive navigated for more than 200 pages in the "Have comments about Windows 7 Beta - Parts 1 and 2". There, we had LOTS and LOTS of good feedback. Lots of people asking for the very same things. Dozens of customers and potential customers ask everyday for things like the "Classic Start Menu", and they dont say a word about it. I honestly dont want MS to provide a full list, lets say 500 or 1000 numbered itens, like: 1) Request - We didnt it because ... 2) Request - We will do this way because.. and so on. No, it will be impossible, because is impossible to make everyone happy. But, I would like very much to see a small post, like the "Top 10 requests that a thousand customers are asking and we are not implementing because..." It will make sense. There are some topics that are so recorrent in here that is even boring to discuss again. So, use the "Engineering windows 7 blog" to make a nice post and discuss it with people. If the topics and changes are really soooooooooo small then 1) They are easy to implement or 2) They will not get attention and then MS will know for sure that there is nothing wrong and nothing needs to be changed. BUT, if a post in the engineering blog gets a lot of attention, maybe the features beeing asked are not soo small and deserve to have some attention of the development team, to provide a better final product.

Hi ThackYour comments are welcome.Besides posting your comments here, you also need to post it in the official feedback thread. These poasts really are sent directly to the beta team and they really do read them. The more feedback they get onspecific changes, the more likely those changes are to be implemented. Go to the following thread. Click the Reply Button on the first post and write your comments.Have Comments about Windows 7 RC?All of the posts in that thread are collected, periodically and sent directly to the Beta Team.Hope this helps. Thank You for testing Windows 7 Ronnie Vernon MVP

Despite thequality of detail in the first post, this really is trolling.Trevor Sullivan I think that's a pretty objectionable thing to say, to be honest, Trevor.Putting that aside: this isn't about getting my pet bugs fixed, so much as the almost complete absence of any UI changes whatsoever between the Beta and the RC, when there are some really obvious shortcomings and inconsistencies in it.And importantly I'm talking about comments and suggestions that have been made over and over again by numerous commentators, on this forum and elsewhere. The one thing that has been consistent is the feedback. If that many people are noticing these shortcomingsnow, you can be damn sure there'll be a hundred times as many making the same observations after product launch, and complaining about how Microsoft always ships half-baked products!Of course Microsoft must prioritise what to fix before launch, but bearing in mind how much emphasis MS are putting on the Windows 7 "experience", they'd be daft to launch with silly little glitches that spoil that "experience" unnecessarily. In other words, with the "user experience" being such a big issue for W7, they really ought to pay more heed to the feedback they've got on it.And to re-emphasise something: I'm saying this now because I want W7 to be a winner. Not because I like whinging.Thack

hiIts not that microsoft dont listen or read the comments they just dont reply or offer any input which annoys me. I would be glad to try windows 7 if it would just install but like many other people with nivida hardware that have posted I cannot test it bexause it will not install. I only wish that microsoft would make some comment to the people who have the same problem.malc

Hi Everybody might be interested in the following article on the E7 Blog, that was posted just a few minutes ago.Engineering Windows 7 : Our Next Engineering MilestoneHope this helps.Thank You for testing Windows 7 Ronnie Vernon MVP

hii do understand the path of the rtm and its interesting to see that they are rebuilding small parts of the code on the way so can you advise the people with the intall problems what to do.do we wait to the release or will there be a post somewere to say the install problem is fixed.If we need to wait to the release then I see no need to visit these forums as i have nothing to try.would you suggest trying a new download say once a week to see if the problem is cured by the constant tweeking of the software as explained in the article.Thanksmalc

Hi Everybody might be interested in the following article on the E7 Blog, that was posted just a few minutes ago.Engineering Windows 7 : Our Next Engineering MilestoneHope this helps.Thank You for testing Windows 7 Ronnie Vernon MVP Ah well, having read that,it's clear that Microsoft is now closed to suggestions for changes in things like the UI.Never mind - at least we tried. Although it would be utterly unfair to call the Windows 7 user interface "half-baked", there is no doubt that lots of people - testers like us as well as new users - will consider (and say) that it was launched "seven-eighths baked." So unnecessary.Thack

But fit-and-finish, that's the customer experience.No excuses. Please. Actually, that's a really good analogy. Microsoft have done a superb job of Windows 7 under the hood, but they've been careless with the fit-and-finish.They will be judged by it, and found wanting. They will be compared with Apple, and found to be second fiddle - AGAIN - on the user interface.What a terrible lost opportunity! What are they thinking?Thack