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OT-Windows Vista; A Rant

Phil Hawkins, Photographer

Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 6:50 AM on 01.02.09

->> Are you surprised? Yet another satisfied customer; NOT!

I HATE Vista. As God is my witness, as soon as I can afford it I'm TOTALLY going Mac.

Question; WHY can I not see the dates of my files in Windows Explorer like I could in XP? Vista senses when it's an image and wants it to go into Windows Photo Gallery. It assumes it knows better how to organize my photos. The entire structure of this GOD-awful "Operating System" seems to want to take control automatically of everything I do!! I spend more time fighting this God-%^$#@ OS than anything else!!

Can someone show me how to display the dates of my files in Windows Explorer? If I click on a specific file and click on "Properties", there it is, but not in the "Details" function of Explorer, like it does in XP.

Also, when I go into the "File Info" section in Bridge CS4, (This is not a Windows problem, but still... Adobe reinvents the wheel when they don't have to as well) I cannot cut-and-paste the contents of the "Description" box. ????????????????? The entire template structure has been redesigned ??? and I had to spend time trying to figure out the new way. I have a dark suspicion this is a Windows problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

PLEASE let me win the lottery so I can dump PCs once and for all.

Adrian Gauthier, Photographer

	Mississauga \| ON \| Canada \| Posted: 7:16 AM on 01.02.09
	->> See where it shows "Name" at the top, which is able to be used for sorting? Right-click that. That will give you options to either select date modified, date taken (for photos), along with a ton of other options. As for Bridge CS4, haven't touched it yet. Still using CS3, as it allows me to do everything I need still.

Phil Hawkins, Photographer

	Fresno \| ca \| usa \| Posted: 7:34 AM on 01.02.09
	->> I did all that, the "Date Taken" is checked, yet no display of the date comes up on any of my files. More to the point, why does it care if it's a photo or not? It's a file manager. All I want is all files to be treated the same. I SO hate Vista.

Adrian Gauthier, Photographer

	Mississauga \| ON \| Canada \| Posted: 7:57 AM on 01.02.09
	->> The "Date Taken" is just specifically for photos. Some photos are post-processed, which would have the "Date Modified" as that. The Date Taken would be different though, assuming the EXIF is intact. I've personally never had an issue like what you're describing. Never really had an issue with Vista either, so I'm not sure.

Mark Peters, Photographer

Highland | IL | USA | Posted: 8:11 AM on 01.02.09

->> Phil,

I'm running VISTA (and don't care for it for other reasons), but I can get the dates to appear. I just checked it after reading your post. I went into explorer and went to a folder of images. I went to views - details. It had a colcumn for date taken, but not date modified. I went to the top and right clicked on name as Adrian suggested - it showed all of the columns that could be displayed, with check marks next to those that were displayed. I scrolled down to date modified and checked it off. My explorer display now has date taken - which applies to photos only - and date modified - which applies to all.

Mike Braca, Photographer

Providence | RI | USA | Posted: 9:13 AM on 01.02.09

->> Phil,

To disable the picture crap and get the "classic" view, try this:

- Find the topmost picture folder, e.g. "Pictures"
- Right-click on the folder and select "Properties"
- Click on the "Customize" tab
- For "Use this folder type as a template" select "All Items" (It was probably set to "Pictures and Videos"
- Check the box labeled "Also apply this template to all subfolders
- Click OK

Hope this helps!

Phil Hawkins, Photographer

	Fresno \| ca \| usa \| Posted: 2:28 PM on 01.02.09
	->> Mike, Wow, thanks so much! That did it. I just can't help but wonder what planet these OS designers/coders are living on when they decide how these systems operate. Designing for simplicity and ease is understandable, but with Vista it gets in the way of productivity. Ironic, huh? Where is Red Hat Linux (as an OS) when we need it? Does anyone know if Ubuntu is viable yet?

Jim Colburn, Photo Editor, Photographer

	McAllen \| TX \| USA \| Posted: 3:40 PM on 01.02.09
	->> "It assumes it knows better..." Ah. Microsoft. Some things don't change.

Jason Johns, Student/Intern, Photographer

Biddeford | ME | USA | Posted: 4:37 PM on 01.02.09

->> Being a programmer & a user are two different things. When you're coding, you have the processes, classes, methods, ect running in your head, and so you know everything about the program so it is very easy to find yourself in the mindset that "if I know this, then everyone else should."

Its not just coders that can get into this mindset. Once in a while I have some people ask me why the 70-200 2.8 I use is so much larger & heavier than a consumer 70-300 5.6. I can give a simple answer such as "the bigger glass lets in more light" or a technical answer. The technical reply would make sense to a shooter, but would leave the layman looking at you like you grew a second & third head.

If you think about it, operating systems are pretty damn complex, since they have to hold all your information, display it at the right time, know when to fade in the background when a program is running, ect. Just like a car, when its working fine you don't have to worry about a thing, but when things start hiccupping you find out just how frustrating gremlins can be.

Michael Troutman, Photographer

	Carmel \| CA \| USA \| Posted: 5:31 PM on 01.02.09
	->> This video perfectly sums up Vista: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOh6Nh8w6f8&e When Vista was announced we got a couple high-end XP workstations and later a fresh copy of XP for the new Macbook Pro. No hiccups here.

Walter Calahan, Photographer

	Westminster \| MD \| USA \| Posted: 5:37 PM on 01.02.09
	->> But Phil, Having Microsoft Vista makes it easy to use the new Nikon Coolpix P6000, which is flying off the self, and scaring Canon for the logic of their PowerShot G10. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha And you wonder why Microsoft continues to extend their support of Windows XP?

Michael Troutman, Photographer

	Carmel \| CA \| USA \| Posted: 6:11 PM on 01.02.09
	->> Microsoft rumored to be laying 17% of its workforce January 15: http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=76972 Needless to say, Vista hasn't helped their bottom line.

Michael Troutman, Photographer

	Carmel \| CA \| USA \| Posted: 6:14 PM on 01.02.09
	->> Laying off, that is. Although, clearly, Vista users are already getting screwed (sorry, couldn't resist).

Alec Pytlowany, Photographer

Whistler | BC | CANADA | Posted: 6:43 PM on 01.02.09

->> If you want to go back to Windows XP look, then change Vista to "Classic" view. Also under control panel you can turn on or off things like Widgets, Animations, etc.. I really enjoy Vista and have no problems whatsoever with it. My main computer is a year old low priced 17" HP laptop running Vista Home & 4 GB's Ram, 2 Raid HD's and more. I use the Vista Classic View vs. Aero. I can tweak Vista to do what I want and how I want and how I think, not how Vista or MS thinks. I personally find Macs incredibly frustrating but it's whatever you want to learn or not. I started with PC's and am very happy to stick with them.

Also try this for Vista tweaks to also have it perform faster.

Vista Tweaks

http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm

Mac Tweaks

http://macperformanceguide.com/index.html

Mac OS & Security Problems

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleI...

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/12/os_x_users_appl.h...

Rich Cruse, Photographer

	Laguna Niguel \| CA \| USA \| Posted: 6:59 PM on 01.02.09
	->> Good tips about Vista I love my Macs and will never ever buy a PC. Security is strong on the Mac and viruses are virtually non-existent that is a huge plus. To each his or her own.

Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer

Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 9:07 PM on 01.02.09

->> Guys, guys...Vista may have many faults, but it doesn't suffer from having the interface designed by/for programmers. Face it: the *typical* PC users wants to see his pictures when he opens a folder of pictures, not file information. That's why that is the default. I think for 99% of users, that's a lot better than having what Windows calls "details" being the default.

If you want to see an OS designed by programmers, go back to DOS. :) Or CP/M for those who are really old.

I dislike Vista because it is so slow. Even SP1 is markedly slower for things like simple file transfers than XP was. But once you turn off UAC, it's an extremely user-friendly OS if you ask me.

Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant

	McCall \| ID \| US \| Posted: 11:36 PM on 01.02.09
	->> Phil- You're right. Just go get RedHat 2.0... Add one of those 1.1.x dev kernels! You'll never have any troubles again! (relatively!) You and software are a trip!

Phil Hawkins, Photographer

Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 5:33 AM on 01.03.09

->> Israel,

I know, I must seem like such a nit-picker, but these things are my pet peeves. The thing that grates my nerves about software designers is they think they have to constantly change things about the functionality of their product when it was doing a fine job as is. The display of file dates is a prime example. When and where did it occur to designers that people did not want to see the file dates in Windows Explorer? Even if it was of photo files. Did they do market research to determine that? No, I think it was a case of change for change's sake.

Another example; Photoshop CS4; why, oh why, can you not cut-and-paste the "description" portion of the "File Info" (IPTC) function in Bridge? CS3 allowed it, and I can take a caption, right click, save and paste in another image. NO MORE! Or at least not that I can figure out. And if that functionality is still there, why was it relagated to a mystery to figure out!!

Adobe Premier did the same thing on about a dozen common video editing functions, changing the way these common tasks were done, and making it impossible to figure out the new way. I just don't get it.

I wuold give anything to be function designer of Photoshop.

Marc Gold, Photographer, Photo Editor

	Reston \| Va \| usa \| Posted: 8:11 AM on 01.03.09
	->> Happy New Year, all Sportsshooters! Great tip Mike, thanks

Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer

Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 9:07 AM on 01.03.09

->> Phil,

I understand one thing you're saying: that's my frustration with Office 2007. I see very little in terms of functional improvements in that release, but they sure managed to hide just about everything very well. Yes, they kept the old menu hotkeys from Office 2003, but you're totally flying blind when you use them. If you don't have the exact keystrokes memorized, you're screwed.

But believe it or not, software makers do conduct research into how people use the interface. Having been on both ends of that process, you can never please everyone, and like any qualitative research process, you can end up with selection biases that skew the results away from what the majority of users might want to see. And yes, the programmers or other decision makers can always choose to ignore feedback.

As for CS4...you can still cut and paste description info, just not with a right-click. Highlight the text you want to copy, then hit "Ctrl+C." Ctrl+C works in a lot of instances when you can't use the mouse to cut and paste. Use "Ctrl+V" to paste. (Yes, this is annoying change and I doubt it was based on any research or feedback.)

Chuck

Philip Johnson, Photographer

	Garland \| TX \| USA \| Posted: 10:06 AM on 01.03.09
	->> I for one have had no problems working with Vista. Chuck, as for your frustrations with Office 2007, yes it is confussing at first but just keep working with it. Once you see how they have set things up it will become easier and you will wonder why they never did this earlier.

Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer

Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 12:31 PM on 01.03.09

->> Philip,

I do indeed wonder why they didn't do it earlier...but why did they have to do it NOW? :)

They've been doing this for years. I can still remember the day I issued instructions to my 24 campuses on how to carry out a mail merge, step-by-step, in Word 2000, only to find that when the IT guys installed Word 2003 later that week the process was completely different.

If you ask me, there's been absolutely no compelling reason to upgrade the Office suite since 2000. Many would say the same about Windows (Windows 2000, not ME) for that matter.

Chuck

Philip Johnson, Photographer

	Garland \| TX \| USA \| Posted: 1:04 PM on 01.03.09
	->> The real reason they do upgrades is so they can sell my instruction books and make more money giving classes on how to use the upgrade.

David Harpe, Photographer

Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 1:34 PM on 01.03.09

->> There is no perfect operating system. Seriously, they all have problems - even Macs. Just ask anyone who suffered through the various paths to Leopard.

It really all depends on mindset. Dealing with your operating system is like dealing with backup management or any necessary evil in the technology world. First you have to accept the fact that no matter what platform you choose you are going to have problems. You then have two options: Learn how to deal with the inevitable problems yourself before they happen, or depend on others to fix it for you when it breaks.

Phil Hawkins, Photographer

	Fresno \| ca \| usa \| Posted: 7:42 PM on 01.03.09
	->> I agree with what you're saying, but the difference here is functionality, not execution problems. These are a direct result of someone or some group making a conscious decision to change a basic function of the program that has existed for 15 years. All in the name of God-knows-what.

Matthew Sauk, Photographer

	Sandy \| UT \| United States \| Posted: 12:21 AM on 01.04.09
	->> Yes I hate Vista and I miss my mac os. But in the end I like the ability to upgrade my hardware when I want for much cheaper. In the end though I can see myself going back to them. It's just an awesome OS

Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer

Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 12:41 PM on 01.04.09

->> Phil,

It's not that simple. Programming is not merely a checklist whereby you decide with the flick of a switch what features to include or remove.

Whenever you make fundamental changes to the framework of the interface - which Adobe did in CS4, for a variety of reasons - sometimes default behaviors change. So more than likely, because of some larger decision about how to implement the IPTC screens in CS4, the ability to right-click copy was lost. I'd fault Adobe for not taking the time to "fix" it, but I doubt seriously it was a case of someone deciding, "hey, let's remove this feature for no reason at all."

Think of it this way: Nikon's first DSLRs had an electronic shutter. That gave them an "official" flash sync of 1/500 but in practice you could push the flash sync much higher, without having to resort to reduced-flash-duration FP sync tricks. Even the lowly D70 had this feature. Then Nikon's newer cameras dropped the speed back to 1/250. Many photogs screamed the same thing you did:why did Nikon "cripple" the cameras or "break" something that worked great. But eventually people began to realize that the change from the electronic shutter was related to the switch from CCDs to CMOS sensors.

Chuck

Phil Hawkins, Photographer

Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 1:16 PM on 01.04.09

->> Hi Chuck,

I understand what you are saying, but therein lies the problem; "...fundamental changes to the framework of the interface" is precisely what I am questioning. Was this necessary? What did the professional gain by this change? Did the good outweigh the bad? So far I cannot see that it is. I remain open-minded to be corrected, but with 11 years experience using PS, CS4 has, so far after 30 days, been more of a setback in my workflow than an improvement. Again, I'm open for someone to show me how "...fundamental changes to the framework of the interface" is an advantage.

On the positive side, I am glad to see a change in the JPG conversion process; when converting an AdobeRGB colorspace image to JPG there is a box that allows one to "convert to sRGB" very easily. Great improvement. People were having problems with having to go into Color Space procedures to accomplish this. The tabbed system for opening multiple images in the workspace is also really great, but these are small things, and while very good, there are negatives that offset the good. I just wonder what Adobe was thinking. This is not a flippant comment; seriously, what is the thought process in making these decisions?

Then, mix in a serious deterioration in Adobe customer service and you have a very frustrating customer experience all around. Just try to upgrade from a PC to Mac environment and contact Adobe to accomplish the switch. Get ready for frustrations!! Endless hoops, it's ridiculous.

Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer

Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 2:10 PM on 01.04.09

->> In theory, this is the reason for the interface change:

"Enjoy improved interface consistency across all Adobe Creative Suite® 4 Design Premium components. Flexibly arrange multiple documents in a single window to compare content or drag-copy objects between them. Easily tab through multiple open documents without maximizing each one." (from http://tinyurl.com/a3akcp)

If you don't use the other Suite applications, then it doesn't make sense to change the interface. And probably like the changes I don't like in the Office 2007 update, it's debatable whether this change is, in fact, an improvement. But it's not simply arbitrary. There's an intent, and there are any number of ripple effects on down the line.

But hey - how hard is it to switch to "Ctrl+C"? ;)

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