Annoying quirks in Windows that seem to find their way into every subsequent version

hohum

hohum

hohum

Associate
Joined
27 Dec 2004
Posts
1,199
I don't mean this to be a Windows bashing thread... indeed, I very much enjoy using Vista. However, I feel that I must rant about some of the annoying quirks that manage to find their way into each subsequent Windows release. God knows why they're still cropping up, and I doubt it's for 'compatibility reasons'.

Windows constantly forgetting or changing your view/column settings for a specific folder

For example, I have a folder that all my browser downloads go into, and I have it setup as details view with only relevant columns shown (name, date created, filesize, type). However, at least twice a week, it will randomly change this to something else... i.e. it could switch the view for the folder to thumbnails and change the columns to music artist/track no. etc, or change it to large icons and set up the columns for photos (date taken, rating, etc)... and so on. This is extremely annoying, especially when in order to put it right I have to go through a huge list of column detail settings in order to put back the ones that I do want.

Incidentally, this also affects other areas of explorer such as the control panel, programs and features (add/remove), and so on. Can't beat opening control panel and finding it's picked a random view setting for you yet again.

Slider on the side of open windows likes to stay at the top of a window

I think this affects nearly every program under Windows, although I'm not too sure... anyway, here's a situation: you want to scroll quickly down a large folder or webpage, etc, and using the mousewheel will take too long. So, you move the mouse pointer over to the slider on the side, hold down left mouse, and drag it down to where you want.

...Then as you let go of the left mouse button, the slider promptly resets itself to the top of the window, and you have to do all over again for a second time. What's the deal with that? I've seen this happen so many times now that it's beyond a joke. I can't think of any good reason as to why this happens, it just serves to annoy the hell out of me!

Ok, rant over for now. I really had to vent some steam though. Surely I can't be the only one who finds these small bugs/quirks annoying, especially when they follow you to each new version of Windows... :mad:. Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Sensible comments though please :p
 
The second problem is cos you're moving too far off the slider as you drag it, that makes it 'snap' back to the top.
 
if explorer is waiting for one thing to load in 'my computer' it'll show nothing until it's good and ready

it should just grey out ones it's currently trying to access
 
There are a few, and most have been around since windows began

Desktop icons/sidebar gadgets move when the screen res changes

loss of focus. (you can be typing away, or be clicking through menus and something will pop up to tell you something or a programme will finish loading etc etc. It's SO annoying

Losing folder views (vista only) This does my nut in, seriously, it just makes me what to throw the computer out of the window sometimes.

Deleting print jobs, quite often this is hard to do without restarting the print spooler or restarting the PC.

There are more but I can't remember them off hand and there are quite a few vista only ones but I won't go in to all those.
 
hohum said:
I don't mean this to be a Windows bashing thread... indeed, I very much enjoy using Vista. However, I feel that I must rant about some of the annoying quirks that manage to find their way into each subsequent Windows release. God knows why they're still cropping up, and I doubt it's for 'compatibility reasons'.

Windows constantly forgetting or changing your view/column settings for a specific folder

For example, I have a folder that all my browser downloads go into, and I have it setup as details view with only relevant columns shown (name, date created, filesize, type). However, at least twice a week, it will randomly change this to something else... i.e. it could switch the view for the folder to thumbnails and change the columns to music artist/track no. etc, or change it to large icons and set up the columns for photos (date taken, rating, etc)... and so on. This is extremely annoying, especially when in order to put it right I have to go through a huge list of column detail settings in order to put back the ones that I do want.
Click to expand...

You can sex me later http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=23106 :p
 
Last edited:
It won't let me edit my post for some reason...

Another one is that if you right click on a system tray icon, sometimes it will not go away until you click somewhere on the resulting menu. It doesn't matter where you click on the desktop etc, the menu is stuck until you click it
 
Pulse said:
:eek: Can I sex you now instead? Didn't work before, but tried this and everything set to default and now remembering them.
Click to expand...

I haven't even tried it yet... will do later though. Rather embarassing when your porn collection defaults to picture view every time. :D

EDIT - You can sex me now, no worries.

EDIT EDIT - Where's the reg file in that post?
 
Last edited:
Sometimes tooltips on a system tray icon appear behind the start menu. Although it is much much rarer on Vista over XP I have still seen it happen a couple of times.

Sometimes when you right-click a system tray icon to get it's menu. Then you decide to do something else. Sometimes the menu gets caught just at the wrong time and it remains open. So then you have to click on like a seperator line of the menu or some space where it will result in no action in order to focus it and then unfocus it so that it goes away.

There's loads more but those are the ones that stand out in my mind as being the longest standing bugs.
 
What about the add font window? I'm sure it's still the same as it was in windows 3.1. They probably thought that few people will use it so there's no point in giving the same look as the rest of vista.
 
Richdog said:
I haven't even tried it yet... will do later though. Rather embarassing when your porn collection defaults to picture view every time. :D

EDIT - You can sex me now, no worries.

EDIT EDIT - Where's the reg file in that post?
Click to expand...

There is no reg file for you to download in the link. You need to copy all the text at the bottom in bold to notepad and save it as Name.reg. Make sure you change it to all files when saving, or you'll end up with a file called Name.reg.txt, which would be of no use.

http://rapidshare.com/files/136850154/FolderReg.zip.html

I've zipped the reg file here if people want it. Just extract or run the file and it will reset all of the settings to allow Vista to start remember again. All folder views will be set to "Details" until changed. :)
 
Last edited:
No-One said:
What about the add font window? I'm sure it's still the same as it was in windows 3.1. They probably thought that few people will use it so there's no point in giving the same look as the rest of vista.
Click to expand...

Yeah but most people just click-drag new fonts into the folder.
 
Pulse said:
There is no reg file for you to download in the link. You need to copy all the text at the bottom in bold to notepad and save it as Name.reg. Make sure you change it to all files when saving, or you'll end up with a file called Name.reg.txt, which would be of no use.

http://rapidshare.com/files/136850154/FolderReg.zip.html

I've zipped the reg file here if people want it. Just extract or run the file and it will reset all of the settings to allow Vista to start remember again. All folder views will be set to "Details" until changed. :)
Click to expand...

Ok cool thanks man... I skimmed it and it looked as though there should have been a link to the file at the end of the sentence. :)
 
Zap said:
Deleting print jobs, quite often this is hard to do without restarting the print spooler or restarting the PC.
Click to expand...

This.

EVERY single printer, on EVERY single version of Windows has annoyed me. Print jobs either take too long to delete or simply don't. And sending a file to print always seems to give me slowdown too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom