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Yet Another Windows 7 Wish List

January 9th, 2009 by freezewarp

I personally am not a huge fan of Windows, as I feel it has its fair share of problems. Though, what OS doesn’t? Mac, Linux, and Windows, they all have their problems. However, Windows is made by Microsoft, a huge company capable of doing great things (though you probably already knew that). So, it certainly can improve much quicker than other operating systems who don’t have quite so much available funding. Thats why I think its fair to have a million Windows 7 wish lists out there; We all know what we want, and we also know that there is some possibility of it actually happening with Microsoft behind the wheel. Many of my ideas aren’t all that new, some I think are. So, without further adieu, here it is:

A Built-in Office Suite - It seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? I’m not asking for a full-fledged office suite like Microsoft Office; I just want a few applications that can act as a word processor, spread sheet, and slide show. I would of-course expect they could read and write Microsoft Office file types as well. Now, let me reiterate, I don’t expect it to be the real deal that you pay 200 dollars for, rather just something that gets the job done.

Better Foreign Support - What I mean by this is that I wish Windows 7 would support a greater deal of Linux and Mac concepts (for lack of a better word), such as media filetypes like Ogg Vorbis in Windows Media Player, complete read/write support for file-systems in the ballpark of HFS, ext3, and Resier4, and finally Open Document support in any fitting applications they do choose to include, such as WordPad (if they include nothing else).

Built-in Virus Protection - Its common knowledge that Windows has a big piece of the Virus pie. Yet, it still does not have built-in protection for them. Not only would this make people feel safer to use it, it would also cut down on the cost of third party products.

LiveDVD Version - I really would like to see both a non-installable Windows 7 Live DVD that is offered for free as well as the standard installation DVD having the ability to boot it into a “Test drive” mode like you often can various Linux distributions.

Customizable Aero Effects - It would be much easier and more satisfactory for both my eyes and be fingers to be able to control what Aero effects are used and which ones aren’t. This would also make it possible to include a wider variety of effects.

Multiple Desktops - Its been around in Linux for ages, hasn’t it? Well, I would really like to see it in Windows as well. It is very convenient, makes it much easier to stay organized, and can be a great way to add extra screen real estate.

Custom Safemode - Well, perhaps its not something everybody would want, but I would like to have the ability to go into a safe mode that fits my needs strait from the boot screen. This includes different options regarding drivers, graphics, network support, and other things like that.

Web-like Password Recovery - It is not uncommon for me to change my passwords every so often, and after a while I forget the old ones. Now, I would obvious not forget my main computer’s password, however I have several other computers I use for testing that go dormant for months at a time. So, to not have to worry about this problem, I would like to be able to recover a forgotten password by answering a series of questions regarding myself.

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts - I tend to like to personalize my keyboard shortcuts to what I can remember best. However, with Windows everything is set in stone; you can’t change them, yet when I go into KDE I have no such problem.

Everywhere Spell Checker - I use a spell-checker for everything. However, it isn’t always available for everything. Well, why can’t it be? I think it would be much easier to have a built-in spell-checker whenever you have to enter text through a form.

IM Safety - The Internet is an unsafe place for kids now-a-days. I think it would definitely be beneficial to add an artificial intelligence to IM programs like Live Messenger to make sure that things aren’t getting dangerous. Perhaps this could take a while to code, however it would be greatly appreciated feature for many parents.

Better CD Burning - Finally, one thing that has caused me enormous trouble is the lack of CD Image burning in Windows. I would really like to be able to get a new computer, then immediately upon unpacking it burn Linux and dual-boot, though I suppose that might be what Microsoft doesn’t want me to do.

Edibility - Oh yeah, I would really like to be able to eat my computer when I’m done with it like Seinfeld does.


Posted in Microsoft |

  • Voyagerfan5761
    I like many of your suggestions. I am particularly fond of your ideas for a central spell-checker, custom Aero effects, and editable keyboard shortcuts.

    For central spell-checking, is there any reason Microsoft couldn't integrate something like GNU Aspell? It's open-source, and they could even contribute code or donate money to the project (unlikely, right? :P ).

    Keyboard shortcut editing is a no-brainer.

    Customizing Aero effects might already exist buried deep in the system control panels. I know that XP has a "Performance" options panel if you dig around in the System Properties panel's Advanced tab. In it, you can change various display options such as animations, drop-shadows, translucency, and so forth. If Windows 7 has such a panel, I suggest you try looking there (or if you don't want to download Win7, i80and is as I type this).
  • fyc
    Well, at least a couple of those are already there. WordPad finally has ODF (as well as OOXML) support and there's rudimentary ISO burning from Explorer (I don't think you can change burn speed, though).

    Voyagerfan's right about the Performance options (it exists in XP, Vista and 7). To get to it, go to System in the Control Panel (or just Win+Pause there), go to Advanced system settings, then into Performance settings.

    A companion to the new WordPad that does spreadsheets would be great, too. Not sure how likely it'd be, of course, but it'd be useful.
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