Switching to windows 7?

Tried W7 some more, and for the LIFE OF ME I can't place a shortcut to hard drives on the taskbar! I use this constantly in XP, where I have shortcuts to all my drives. I've tried everything from creating a shortcut and placing it on the desktop - then moving it to the taskbar etc. etc. I just never shows up =/

One other annyoing thing about W7 will be all the versions that will be released. Now, I would like to try the bitlocker functionality, since encryption is one of my general interests, but it is only available in the W7 Enterprise and Ultimate edidtions. The Enterprise edition will only be available for coroprations, and Ultimate will be in limited supply (I read these facts somewhere, the other day).

Of course, I can deal with not having bitlocker, but it is still annoying that such a potentially great feature is only in the top two versions. I bet there will be some kind of XP-like EFS for the other versions. On XP etc. EFS is crap and EASILY bypassed if you have physical access, even if you delete the recovery certificate.

So... inability to do basic things like place the exact shortcuts you want, 100 versions of the os, and important features only in the most expensive versions = bummer!

 

hello pwr,
If you have psyical access to any computer its game over.

Microsoft are genrally just selling the following: home premium and Pro.
Forget about the other versions.
So if you think about it its like choosing windows xp home or xp pro.

I still wonder how why windows 7 takes up alot of disk space.
I think its because apparently users dont want to use there disc to install features. so all the features are kept on the disk but the ones you choose not to install are just not shown in the menus. i would much rather stick in the disc when I want to install featuresso my images are smaller.

I can put drive letters on the taskbar no problem with windows 7 beta build 7000. what build are you using?

 

Around half of the used space is due to the winsxs folder in the Windows folder. It's where old versions of dll's and other key Windows components are kept. Basically the older Windows' compatibility part of the OS. It's not bloat. It's a needed feature. Secondly System Restore also accounts to a lot of space but it's also a pretty needed feature.

 

hello yashau,
surely if i dont use a feature and i tell windows to uninstall it it should be taken off the disc and space should be freed? i have a disc so i should be able to install the feature back from the disc.

the first thing i do on my computer is turn of system restore because its crap.
all it recovers is system files and its rare that it works.
I have daily images so its ok for me to.

 

If you want to slim it down Google for WinSXSLite 1.80. It will clean up the WinSXS folder. Can't do much to reduce space apart from that. Good luck.

 

So XP fanboys articles are annoying to you because you find Vista better than XP?

There will never be a clear 'better' product in these types of things.

I think the best way to sum up any comparison of which one is 'better' would be

"Individual results may vary"

But I do think it is helpful to respectfully gripe about what you don't like. Many times I find that someone else's viewpoint on things is refreshing and can spur my own viewpoints to soften or change. Most times for better.

Sul.

 

BINGO !
I work on an XP machine anmd have VISTA at home. The hardware is "similar", but of course it is difficult to make a direct comparison.
VISTA is WAAAAYYYY faster in my situation.


But VISTA has had a lot more problem when installing new drivers and software. After "successful" install, they just never reall "crash" on either machine though. maybe I am just lucky.

EDIT: (I forgot that the whole reason I found this forum is because I could never get ATI to run under VISTA. But I consider that obviously a problem with the software. )

 

Hi,

I'm using 7068. Guess I'm just doing it wrong then =) Oh btw: Does W7 leave system files on one's drives like vista did? I had the misfortune of trying vista and was very annoyed by the crap it drive-by deposited on all my hds - which at first glace was hard to remove again.

 

Hello,
hmm what crap left on drives are you talking about?
im not sure ive noticed but i would be interested in knowing more.

 

I'm trying to google it, but it was some system files that was left over (like system volume information, something of that ilk) but totally undeletable even when vista was uninstalled from the drive and xp was booted (guess it was some ACL thing).

 

Not anytime soon.

XP has been rock solid for me

 

system volume information would also be used by XP.
thats probaly why it wouldnt let you delete it from within xp.
same with RECYCLER and $RECYCLE.BIN.

 

That's true, but they are easy to delete compared, there was some vista specific files that i had to google a bit to get to remove (was a while ago so can't specifically remember). I had installed vista on my second hd, which I also used for other things - and after wanted to get rid of vista again, some files remained. I'll see if the same types of files pop up with W7 =)

 

ok please report back your findings.

 

Hello again,

Indeed files are placed on drives. A system folder named Recovery, and another named Boot. I will write my xp image back to my os drive later today, and then I'll see if they are easy to delete =)

BTW: I can't place a direct shortcut to my drives on the taskbar. The closest I can get is to turn on the quicklaunch toolbar - but it looks out of place somehow, and the icons are a little smaller. I don't like that windows explorer folder icon. I can pin it there (so I have to first click on the windows explorer icon), but not directly on the taskbar so it has this layout:

|#|e w m C| |09:08|

Where # is the "start button", e is the iexplorer, m is the media player, and C is my C drive.

 

Hello,
I have a hidden folder called boot but I dont have a folder called recovery.
I added a drive letter to quicklanch since i assumed that was what you meant.
ok ive worked it out.
you pin windows explorer to taskbar,drag C: from open windows explorer to windows explorer on the taskbar. close windows explorer to test. right click on the pinned windows explorer and you will see C: on the jump list
see screenshot.
Is that what you wanted?

 

Hey Lodore,

I'm afraid not. I wanted the actual drive icon to be in the place of say the windows explorer icon, or next to it - but that is only possible if I enable the "in-w7-ugly" quicklaunch toolbar, which clashes stylistically with the taskbar. I guess it's not a huge problem, I can probably live with it being pinned to the windows explorer.