[mjd420nova]

OH how I wish I could have a say in what gets loaded unto my clients systems. They have a huge IT department that makes up a list of recommended and supported software and hardware. There is a large list of supported mainframe terminals and they are limited to the OS for the mainframe. I just support the hardware. Many users are set up with a thumb drive that gives access to that users authorized programs and files. The machines will not boot with out some drive plugged in. Really handy as I just need my own drive to diagnose anything beyond a total boot failure. Many users had their data backed up when the moved to Vista, and they were glad they did as they didn't get the OS working to their satisfaction. WIN7 is much easier to move up to from XP or ME than from Vista.

[brainout]

mjd420nova, on 25 January 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

OH how I wish I could have a say in what gets loaded unto my clients systems. They have a huge IT department that makes up a list of recommended and supported software and hardware. There is a large list of supported mainframe terminals and they are limited to the OS for the mainframe. I just support the hardware. Many users are set up with a thumb drive that gives access to that users authorized programs and files. The machines will not boot with out some drive plugged in. Really handy as I just need my own drive to diagnose anything beyond a total boot failure. Many users had their data backed up when the moved to Vista, and they were glad they did as they didn't get the OS working to their satisfaction. WIN7 is much easier to move up to from XP or ME than from Vista.

Glad to know that, thank you. I plan on experimenting with changing Vista to Win8. Not sure I'll do it, as Vista Business works quite well. File management is terribly annoying owing to the multiple iterations of My documents etc. in order to accommodate the new 'move' to a 'Users' folder. The UAC permission annoyance is also frustrating. Else, it's decent enough to use. Still, Win7 is overall, an improvement over Vista.

But I'll stay on XP for all my mission-critical stuff.

[brainout]

LIFESAVER is GPEdit.msc , which you type at the search box. It lets you force the Classic Menu from Win2000, and many other things you'd not be able to do. I bet it works in Windows 8, too.

I'm so sick of Windows Explorer dysfunctionality, and the taskbar dysfunctionality in Win7 and Vista, I could scream.

In my lifetime I hope I never have to set up another Windows machine. Not sure now if I'll even open my two sets of the DVDs for Win8 Pro. Finally I understand how some people can be motivated to murder.

[brainout]

Hooray, I found a way to get a toolbar on both top and bottom of the screen, in Win7! Install MS Office of 2003 or prior, and then during installation be sure to elect the Office Shortcut Bar. You can dock it along the other side of your machine, it will auto hide, and depending on what other stuff you want it to show, it will. Like, Programs or Desktop, etc.

This matters, because the tool tips on the Task Bar are VERY SLOW. They play fast on Desktop and Quick Launch toolbars. So you can reserve the Task bar section (which you can't get rid of), for the windows, right-click on the orb then checking in Start Menu Properties to put the files used in the Task Bar and Start Menu.

Windows 7 is the most frustrating and annoying for its Start Menu, which you can no longer sort by name, and it won't actually SHOW 'All Programs' in All Programs. It has some internal limit on the number of entries it will show. So by using the Office Shortcut toolbar (which you can configure as you choose), you can bypass the horrid Start Menu, and just put what you need in the toolbars.

After all, you can't get MS Word, Excel, etc. to actually show up in your Start Menu after you move their shortcuts to Desktop. Nor can you access the program locations, as they are in Documents and Settings, which Win7 LOCKS.

I'm so sick of MS dysfunctionality I could die. Hundreds of hours lost just trying to get the desktop to be functional. I don't even want to THINK about Win8.

This post has been edited by brainout: 05 February 2013 - 05:40 AM

[LiveBrianD]

Rigjt-click, send to, desktop (create shortcut) is how I usually do that BTW.

[brainout]

LiveBrianD, on 05 February 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

Rigjt-click, send to, desktop (create shortcut) is how I usually do that BTW.

That's not what I was talking about. You can't make the Desktop toolbar separate from the taskbar and dock it at the top of the screen. You are only allowed one docking bar, the taskbar, and any other toolbars have to be attached to it. So if you want both bottom and top toolbars in Win7 like you can have in XP (you can have any number of toolbars in XP, docked or free) -- in Win7, the only way you can make more than one toolbar to dock in more than one place, is to use Office Shortcut bar. It has within it, several optional added toolbar sets, and you can design your own. But you can separately dock it. That's the point.

This post has been edited by brainout: 06 February 2013 - 04:21 AM