I may be the only Windows user out here that was unimpressed with Windows 7. Sure it was pretty, but so far I have found it slightly less stable than VISTA. Windows 7 turned my working printer/scanner into a stand alone scanner that refuses to print. Oh well, time to discuss the future.
Here is my Wish List for the next version of Windows.
- When I kill an application for hanging, don’t go searching for a solution. You’ve never found one. You never will. All you do is kill a minute of my life making me wait. And I am aware there is a 10 step instant kill method that geeks know about. Not interested. I want the ability to KILL INSTANTLY any application.
- A lean mean Windows Explorer. It has gotten way too bloated. This application should be rocking fast. It routinely hangs loading folders with lots of files.
- What happened with Adobe Flash? It used to work fine, but now it crashes frequently. The browser doesn’t matter. Flash became unstable once I went to Windows 7. If it is a Microsoft problem, fix it. If is an Adobe problem, deal with them directly on finding a solution.
- Unified volume control. I am so SICK of every web and desktop application having independent volume controls. Radio and TV don’t work that way. I want the operating system to calibrate the volumes for me and then I can adjust a single volume from my speakers.
If you have something you wish to add to the Windows 8 wish list, add it in the comments. I know at least one person inside Microsoft will be reading it.
Photo by Bill V
TigerAl
Mar 12, 2010 — 2:46 pm
Have you tried MSAnswers yet?
You can also put in your feedback directly 🙂
MAS
Mar 12, 2010 — 2:54 pm
My experience reporting issues to Amazon and Google has not been positive, so I’m not likely to create yet another account and use MSAnswers. I’d rather post it here and make them aware of it.
With M$ I have a direct connection to the team building requirements. I’m going to use it. 🙂
Aaron
Mar 12, 2010 — 4:37 pm
“Unified volume control. I am so SICK of every web and desktop application having independent volume controls. Radio and TV don’t work that way. I want the operating system to calibrate the volumes for me and then I can adjust a single volume from my speakers.”
I don’t see how this is enforceable by an operating system. Applications that have these sliders can output sound at any volume between soft and LOUD. How can the OS tell the difference between, say, a quiet section in a film and sudden gunfire? What would it do? Crank up the soft music (a huge WTF) and then push it down once it discovers that wasn’t the real max volume? I can’t do this with complete accuracy, how would the computer?
The OS just doesn’t and can’t have enough control over the data that makes up sound to prevent you from wanting to crank up or down the volume for particular applications. It’s an impossible generic technical problem primarily because there are no volume “standards” for applications to follow or that would be followed.
Continuing, web applications are generic across multiple platforms and even desktop applications are nearly always backward compatible. If Windows 8 somehow solved the need for per-application volume controls, most applications still wouldn’t migrate to that model for reasons of reverse compatibility, generic platform support and usability.
It is possible to set a universal “maximum” volume (since the dawn of computers) and it is possible for the OS to set relative max volumes on a per-process basis since Vista. This is probably the closest to what you want and what you should be using.
Incidentally, radio and TV _do_ work that way. Ex: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/10/calm-act-plans-to-put-loud-tv-commercials-to-sleep/
I frequently find myself adjusting the volume of my TV for different DVDs, Bluray disks, TV shows and video games. The differences are not slight.
MAS
Mar 12, 2010 — 5:12 pm
Aaron –
This is a WISH list. If it can’t be done, it can’t done.
Maybe someday in the future the scientists that put us on the moon and decoded DNA will figure out that my intention as a computer user is not to have one application scream at me and second one whisper.
It that wish is still too sci-fi future for modern operating systems, then maybe it can go into Windows 18. However, I got to think there are a few PhDs in Redmond that could solve this problem or at least narrow that audio range a little.
Matthew
Mar 12, 2010 — 11:47 pm
Normalization is pretty easy, but wipes out the dynamic range of the sound.
In fact, it’s already built in the speech recognition software when it tunes for your voice.
If you’re doing it online, I’m not sure you could get rid of the lag 100% and all sound would end up at the same exact same amplitude. This means if you were watching a war movie clip in youtube people whispering would sound just as loud as the artillery going off.
Matthew
Mar 12, 2010 — 11:48 pm
Now that I think about it… if you pre-render the sound technically you could adapt, before you play it for the user, but that would require making sure you give the DirectX sound buffer data that it has enough time to do it.