That's a little better

[johnridley]

I got fed up and found the spot in Windows 7 to turn off all of the damn animations-the stuff where windows "zoom" up and down instead of just appearing, all the glass window crap, a bunch of other stuff like that. It looks kind of like I'm using an actual operating system again. I did a little work on the taskbar yesterday, it's looking better too.

I'm not really happy with Windows Explorer, that's going to get some work soon too and see what I can do about making that make some kind of sense, hiding the useless crap and bringing up actual useful tools.

What would be perfect would be a Windows 2000 skin, but apparently they've done their best to make that impossible.

Functionally, Windows 7 is a very nice OS, but I really don't like all the window dressing and dancing clowns they've added to it.

EDIT - bonus, I just found how to shut off all the rounded edges on windows and glowy buttons and misshapen system buttons in the upper right corner.

Comments

Re: Windows 7

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I've been on Ubuntu for desktop experimentation for the last 2 or 3 years. Still doesn't do it for me. The software just isn't there. Sure, I can replace Photoshop with Gimp, except that Gimp isn't Photoshop, it isn't even close unless you're using maybe 1/50th of Photoshop. I haven't found any good, full featured non-linear video editors that have a nice range of predefined menus, transitions, titles, etc, and support my HD camcorders formats. I haven't found a replacement for TMPGEnc's MPEG editor. That latter runs under WINE, but only sorta. Dialog boxes are so wonky you just have to know what they are asking, because you can't read them.

And the Ubuntu dependency tree manager only works if you have a package that is IN a repository. I'm often looking for things that aren't.

I never loaded Vista, I wouldn't touch it with a 12 foot cattle prod. So far, Windows 7 is working quite well, I just had to turn off a few of the more irritating animations. I do wish I could get a sensible start menu back again.

I don't run MS Office at all, OpenOffice does everything I need there. Actually I do run Outlook because it's required at work.

Re: Windows 7

[jvanhare.livejournal.com]

I use Open Office too, but we did get the Office installs when Deb needed it for school, and got a discount, when she was doing her BSN.
Vista came pre-installed on this notebook, and it works. It came from Dell Outlet, a refurb, I am cheap, LOL I think we paid $359 for it...
I figure let Dell fix it right, like it should have been when it first shipped, and I will buy it after it has passed the more stringent quality control testing for the refurbs :p Better product for less!
As for Browser/Email, I am a Firefox/Thunderbird guy, regardless of platform.