When are they going to integrate this stuff in with the Zune Marketplace, so we can download TV shows and movies, and play them on our Zunes?
When are they going to unify their product line, so that I can rent or buy a movie or TV Show, and transfer it between my Media Center PC, my Zune, and my XBox360 at will, watching it wherever I want, whenever I want?
That list is a nice start... but how about not having those little dialogs that pop up with a long file copy status steal focus? How about not allowing ANY window to EVER steal focus? And those dialogs shouldn't have accellerator keys on the buttons... I can't count how many times I've been typing during a long download, and when the file completes and copies, it steals focus, and while I'm typing, I just happen to hit the key that causes the "cancel" button to activate, losing the entire damn download.
No window should ever steal focus, period.
And all those damn pop ups giving me status of things I don't give a damn about.... "Network connected" (uh, no kididng, I can tell), "There are unused icons on your desktop", "Updates are ready", ugh, ugh, ugh. Stop with the notifying me all the time! It's annoying and distracting. Even more, when I say "shut down", please just shut down! Fast! Don't prompt me for things, don't hang out, don't stop and wait on dialogs... FORCE the damn shut down, so that I don't tell it to shut down, walk away, and then come back an hour later to see it stuck at some "Are you sure?" prompt. Ugh.
Better multi-monitor handling all around, including media center, placing dialogs and remembering them, applications, virtual desktops, task bar placement (on specific monitors, or across monitors, or different parts (launch, language, system tray) on different monitors.
Windows install and uninstall is such a mess. I know this from both a user view and a developer view. It's too complicated, too easily messed up, not robust enough to deal with strange situations and boundry cases. It all should be a lot simpler.
Include the powershell with all versions.
And speaking of versions, let's cut the 17 versions crap. At most three: Home, Business, and Ultimate. Basically, that's "Media Center", "Business" (with advanced security, domains, more services and clients aimed at business), and "everything" (the sum of it all).
And make the UI consistent... go through everything, and make all the icons consistent, all the graphics consistent, get rid of those "single tabbed dialogs", update everything to the same consistent look and feel.
That, and speed everything up, optimize everything, and make windows snappier. I can't stand clicking a close button and waiting (1... 2... 3... 4... ) until it closes SECONDS later. Same when I launch... put that damn window up there, blank if necessary, and wait for the application to load and paint it. I want the perception of snappiness.
I've been using virtual desktops on Windows since Windows 95. Microsoft has always made virtual desktops available via easy add-on (TopDesk was included, but the Virtual Desktop "Power Toys" for XP was a separate download). The Power Toys haven't been updated for Vista yet, so I guess it's technically correct in this rundown, but I still kind of snickered when I saw virtual desktops being promoted as such a "new" feature when I've been using it on Windows for the last ten years. I'm sure a Microsoft solution will be made available shortly. In the meantime, there are many 3rd party solutions, which is probably the whole reason why it's not included by default in Vista. As someone else already said, Microsoft has to worry about a lot of "anti-competitive" and "monpolistic" practices that Apples doesn't. If Microsoft tried to include something as comprehensive as iLife with every machine shipped, the way Apples is doing with its iMacs, Micorsoft would get its pants sued off.
Under "Screen capture" -- Vista has integrated screen capture of full screen and windows (ctrl-PrintScreen and alt-PrintScreen), in addition to the Snipping Tool application. I really think this is closer to a tie, than a win for Leopard.
Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"I need help! I want a small pocket camcorder but I'm not sure which one to get. I don't want to fall into the hype of the Flip because I worry two hours won't be enough. What should I be looking for when considering a small camcorder and where can I get a good quality one with expandable memory? Thanks!"
The most commented posts on Engadget over the past 24 hours.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
When are they going to unify their product line, so that I can rent or buy a movie or TV Show, and transfer it between my Media Center PC, my Zune, and my XBox360 at will, watching it wherever I want, whenever I want?
So much potential here, not yet realized...