Vista "Windows Explorer" - give me XP WE back!

What did we have in XP:
http://www.students.ucs.ed.ac.uk/helpdesk/images/documents/windows explorer window.gif

Now in Vista:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/b/b5/Windows_Vista_Explorer.png

I have 2 huge issues: why the "UP directory" button is gone in Vista? Browsing now is just ugly, what used to take one mouse positioning and a few straight clicks now takes a full-time job of moving the mouse all over the form and clicking the submenu selections. This is so ridiculous that I started to use FileNavigator I wrote for XP in Vista. WITH the UP directory button. I am not buying into force-fed new file browsing philosophy of Vista, I'm sorry.

For those frustrated as I am, I made FileNavigator available at
netcpp.com\Tmp\WinBookmark_Light.exe

Second issue -
"Standard Buttons" panel is gone in Vista and I no longer can uncheck the "File Conversion" button.

In Vista, whatever Java, WAV or txt file I transfer to my cell phone via USB, I find on the phone million of 181kb ".smo" files. Thank you, Vista, my phone is now indeed useless, as you intended!

In XP, clicking the "File Conversion" button would be the fix. But in Vista - I don't know what. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

For the "Up" button, at least, you can simply use backspace. Not so handy if you don't like keyboard shortcuts, but the option is there, at least

 

Ah, *not really*. You can go only one level up.

 

You can go "up" any number of folders by clicking on the folder name in the path. If the folder is "C:\Users\joe\pictures\christmas", you can go to "joe" just by clicking on it. So that's 1 click instead of 2 or 3 using the "up" button". And using backspace would be the same number of clicks as the up button. If you want the pulldown from the back menu, that's also incorporated into the path.

As for "Standard Buttons" and "File conversion", are you using some program that does that? That doesn't sound like a standard windows feature.

 

Thank you!

1. "you can go to "joe" just by clicking on it". It is a good alternative that I haven't noticed but might like in the future!

P.S. upon closer look I see some limitations. First of, too much context dependence. Because of a lot of strings to read, uphill navigation becomes like reading a book.
Then, suppose I am in
"C:\Users\joe".
From there, I can not see or navigate to "C:\" or to "Users".
(would be 2 or 1 click, respectively, with the Up button)
Instead, now I have to manually type "C:" or "C:\Users". (what? don't like Linux style?
Or click several times and move mouse (click left triangle - mouse move to MyComputer - click C - Navigate to Users - Click Users).

(i.e. I still vote for having the option for the "up button").

2. Siemens Data Suite provides the drivers.

I navigate the phone using Windows Explorer, like any other external drive. I can drag-drop files to and from there.

In XP, if "File Conversion" button is pressed, files put to the phone are split in many unreadable .smo files. Turning "File Conversion" off makes transfer not break the files.

In Vista - I can't figure out what the equivalent of "File Conversion" is.
Maybe, "File Conversion" was installed by the driver, as you suggeted. But in the absence of the Standard Buttons panel in Vista, I have no idea where to begin to look for a fix. Alas, google.com returned too little info this time.

 

Don't blame Vista for that. It's Siemens that has to update their application.

 

All the blame is on Vista. "Add new, but don't brake what works" - how hard is it? I am not asking Vista to support 5-inch magnetic discs via FireWire...

But does it look normal when OS fails to work with existing HW which is less than 5 years old (3 years in this case)?

The business practice of Windows makes me consider Linux every few months. But last time I checked Fedora and Ubuntu, they were clearly worse for my uses than even Vista.

PS
Siemens cell phone department is dead and no help is to be expected from there.

 

Microsoft gets just as many complaints about supporting too much old stuff, because it is holding everyone back. Sometimes you have to let go of some old stuff to allow the new to come in. That's just the way it is.

 

3 years old is not old - period.

"That's just the way it is." - and it is obviously the wrong way.

 

I also miss the "up folder" button.

It's only a matter of time before they become very dastardly and do away with the classic start menu and the ability to view file extensions.

 

it's funny how you assert your opinion as fact.

get over yourself.

you aren't that important.

and your complaints are ridiculous.

 

Hit alt and the up arrow. That's the TRUE shortcut to go up one level. Backspace only goes back one spot in your browsing history.

 

As above - plus, if you ever want the architecture of windows to change, you need to embrace the occasional incompatibilities.

 

That's a good one, thank you.

 

And how about contributing more constructively now?

(hint - see post from surfasb)


P.S. BTW, in case someone gets Vista-Siemens syncing problem in the future. The problem was solved by third-party software. (DES + TotalCommander by Christian Ghisler).

 

Vienna has been said to be a completly UI revamp, no more start button has been confirmed I think.

 

True 3d navigation would be awesome.

 

3 years isnt very old most of the time.

3 years in technology, now thats definitely getting old. Think about it, what was it like 3 years ago?

 

I've seen the rumors too, but they are all fake. Microsoft doesn't even know what/if they are going to do differently:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...ck-what-we-know-and-dont-about-windows-7.html

 

OK, I see you people wouldn't give up )))

Let me put it in a different way - what is the *harm* in supporting a cell phone currently used by a lot of people?

What is the harm in backward compatibility?

If new is better, old will die out, and there will no longer be need in supporting the old. THEN it's time to drop the support.

But while there IS demand for "older" (i.e. not of year 2007? 2008?) HW, what's wrong with Vista doing a better job in helping users NOT WASTE THEIR TIME WRITING POSTS LIKE THIS?

 

Indeed, someone will not give up. Thanks for putting it a different way, because you have exposed your preconceptions about how an OS is made. There's no one sitting around Microsoft going, "OK, what's all the hardware that's older than 3 years? We need to remove support for it." That seems to be your characterization.

What happens is that underlying changes are made to the system, and if a driver is not updated to support those changes, the driver will no longer work. One of the big changes in Vista are updates to Explorer. There are many things that now no longer work, because the old ways of doing things in Explorer have been removed to make way for the new. Many times you cannot support both old and new at the same time.

Bottom line is that it's up to your hardware vendor to keep up. If they don't, or go out of business, then sorry, that's life. You are upset that something you have doesn't work with Vista, and that's understandable. Your hardware works fine with the OS it was designed for (XP), so your choice is to use XP or deal with the problems of the new.

 

Oh I'm sorry, who forced you to use Vista?

 

OK, if you have anything valuable to contribute please do. I can do very little with the above post.
(I will explain - repeating the general facts or describing my perception of OS development does not fix real world problems)

 

ive personally had no problems navigating vista, if i want to go up a folder, i click it from the address bar, if i want to go to my computer or program files, i'll just click it from favorites, and favorites, tho no original, works

i suggest you try qttabbar, if you double click in freespace, youll go up a directory, and it also has some very nice features such as tabbed windows explorer browsing

 

Microsoft, Inc.

 

Hmm no.

XP is still on shelves. Linux can be downloaded everywhere....

 

I hope the symbolic links are fully implemented in the next version of Vista. This was one of the most looked foward to features for me back when it was called longhorn. I was disappointed to see it's bastardized current version.

The command line mklink works great for local volumes but I want to be able to link remote shares. I'm pretty sure I can symbolic link remote shares because I can link the pictures and video folders under c:\users to my network drives by rightclicking and clicking "move" under the "locations" tab. But I everytime I try the same thing with mklink:

mklink /d videos "m:\my videos"

I get a "insufficient privileges" message, even though I have am in an admin account and my remote share account is an admin account also.

 

Sure, but I already mentioned that I don't find Linux ready for personal computing.

As for XP, google to see why XP is still on the shelves.

Then, if you know Halo 2: the game cannot be played on XP, only in Vista.
It took hackers no time to patch it for XP. Vista is trying to phase out the old OS very obviously. MS wants Vista sales in the end. Have you seen the cartoon "Robots"? If yes, you get the idea.

Finally, did I indeed say somewhere that I don't like/want Vista?
This idea keeps coming, so I am curious.

I like both XP and Vista. As SF developer, I have to use Vista to stay compatible with the crowd. That simple.

(And I would love Vista to be compatible with as much SF and HW as there is. After all, Windows out-of-the-box compatibility steals a huge chunk of users from Linux, and why not keep the tradition at its best?)

 

To sum it up, both original issues are addressed.

"living without the UP button":
Alt + arrow up
Alt + arrow left

Siemens compatibility:
TotalCommander + DES plugin.

thank you all who contributed.

 

After a read of this thread I find this post interesting... Mainly because you claim to be a software developer, but then go on to blame MS for a third party software incompatibility?

Being a developer I would assume you're aware of how hardware and software interact with Windows (and any other Operating System)...

As posted before, it is the job of the hardware maker for your cell phone to make the device Vista compatible.

Neither MS nor Siemans told you the device was Vista compatible so you getting all bent out of shape about it is really silly.

I agree that the "up" button was a minor loss though, but thanks to the keyboard version being posted it will be long forgotten by me (i prefer KB shortcuts).

Are you a seasoned developer? As I'm still shocked at how you're unable to connect the proper dots here...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_compatibility

 

I know what the definition of backward compatibility is. There is no OS on the market to my knowledge that is 100% backward compatible. That's why developers have to update their software to be compatible with new versions of an OS when there is an incompatibility...

Otherwise, shouldn't we be yelling at MS that every MS DOS program doesn't run on Windows XP or Vista? After all, if they maintained the compatibility for some they should have done it for all right? In the spirit of backward comaptibility? Or they should be yelled at for all the Windows 2000 stuff that isn't compatible with XP too right?

 

Oddly, people I talk to bash Vista for holding over TOO MUCH backwards compatability. Main issues they have are all kernel related though, not interface related. I'm glad they are thinking about striping down the kernel for the next version and rebuilding it.