- Posted by sondreb on April 30, 2008
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PC World ran an article on 18 Features they think Windows should have, but doesn't, and that they think Microsoft should borrow and steal to add them as features in Windows. While the list is great, there are alternatives and mistakes in the article. Here is my own list of alternatives to the 18 features listed by PC World.
Original article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,145118-c,windows/article.html
My focus will only be on Windows Vista, which has been my primary OS since the early available CTPs and betas. I've only used Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate, so I can't speak for the features that's missing in other editions ... sorry about that.
1. Expose
PC World mentions some alternatives for Expose, my alternative is My Exposé which is developed by french student and is available in both binaries and source code. He's not been able to keep it updated yet, but he promised in a blog post that he would get back into. Anyhow, it works decently well and it plugs into the Aero-APIs in Vista.
http://blogs.labo-dotnet.com/simon/archive/2006/11/08/11485.aspx
2. Virtual Workspaces
There have always been multiple third party solutions available for virtual desktops on Windows, but I've never felt comfortable with any of them until recently when I tested DeskSpace by Otaku Software.
http://www.otakusoftware.com/deskspace/
This is a brilliant solution to the users who need multiple desktops, it's well worth the $19.95 USD.
Other solutions that I've used previously is SphereXP, which uses a very different model for desktop navigation. Instead of having many virtual desktops, you get a 3D sphere on which you can organize all your windows. Check it out at:
http://www.spheresite.com/projects.html
It's available as two different application, one that gives you a 3D based web browser, and one that gives you a 3D desktop.
3. Back to My Mac
Simply one word: LogMeIn
http://www.logmein.com/
Have never experience a situation where LogMeIn doesn't travers any firewall or network configuration. The basic feature of remote desktop is free, but you can pay for more advanced features like file transfer, sound support and more.
4. Screen Sharing
Another topic where PC World forgets some alternatives, this time it's Microsoft SharedView which is an official product from Microsoft. It relies on Windows Live ID for authentication and collaboration.
From Wikipedia:
"SharedView is similar to Windows Meeting Space, which is included in Windows Vista. However, Windows Meeting Space supports ad hoc meetings, application sharing, file transfer, and simple messaging within a network and works primarily inside the firewall, requiring IT involvement (on both sides) to bridge firewalls. Microsoft SharedView, on the contrary is designed for collaboration over the internet. It works through firewalls using HTTP if necessary."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SharedView
Another solution (which I prefer) is TeamViewer, which is an absolutely awesome desktop sharing application. It's also free for non-commercial use and now available for Mac.
http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx
5. Time Machine
As PC World mentions, the premium editions of Windows Vista has shadow copies of your documents which allows you to revert back if you make mistakes. I have never, ever used this feature.
On other hand, I'm an active user of Windows Home Server and the automatic backup of all my home network computers. With WHS I'm able to open up old copies of my files in case of problems or even restore a full computer back to a previous state.
6. ISO Burning
Windows Vista has built in support for writing CDs and DVDs. You can write discs from DVD Maker, Photo Gallery, etc. But there is no built in support for burning .iso files, which is a shame as Microsoft is distributing all their software over MSDN Subscription Downloads as .iso images. To handle this, you should do what PC World tells you: Get ISO Recorder by Alex Feinman:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
7. Stickies
PC World makes a "mistake" here, they only mention the Notes gadget on Vista Sidebar (guess what, I've disabled and never use the Vista Sidebar). But that is not the only option on Vista, there is a Sticky Notes application that's built into Vista. But this is only available if you have a tablet PC, it only supports ink input. Just click your Windows key and write Sticky, and a yellow application icon will appear.
It's very limited, but it does record ink notes and voice notes, but adding more notes doesn't open additional yellow windows, it just adds it to the same instance and you can go back and forth between your notes using the arrows.
Don't ask me why Microsoft didn't include this application for regular PC users and allows it to take regular keyboard input.
8. Podcast Capture
This is one feature I don't miss in Windows and I hope that Microsoft won't release anything to simplify podcasting. There are way to many people that is utterly uninteresting and incredible boring to listen too. If you want to speak, please make sure it's worth other people's time. If you're serious about podcasting, make sure you read a lot of books on communication skills and make sure to use good quality equipment and produce sound output in high bandwidth.
Suggested reading: The It Factor: Be the One People Like, Listen to, and Remember.
9. Software Repositories
This is something that other platforms excels on compared to Windows, and hopefully it will be better in the future. Primary concern here is signing of distribution packages, if Microsoft should approve all the software to be distributed from an official repository, then there will be costs involved and lots of companies will be unable to join in on the action.
You do have Windows Marketplace, which is an attempt to get somewhere, but it's basically just a market-channel for commercial software vendors. But it has a very important feature: Digital Locker. This allows you to buy software online, and have all your license keys available in your Digital Locker. No more problems searching around for original software/game packages and no problem with scratched disks. You can use the Digital Locker to store download URL and license details on software acquired outside of the Windows Marketplace, which is a nice feature.
http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/
Additional, there is a Digital Locker Assistant that can download and install the software you register, similarly to the repositories in Linux. Let's hope Microsoft takes this one step further in Windows "7".
10. Desktop Cube
Se number 2. Virtual Workspaces :-)
11. Application Dock
Never had the need for anything other than standard Start Menu and Quick Launch on the toolbar/taskbar. I would much rather like to see some improvements to the toolbar/taskbar in Windows, it's cluttered and not easy to get an overview and preview of what's really running. Have a look at my current taskbar.
The usability value from the taskbar is low, it's not a good way of representing my active applications and windows. This has to be improved in the future.
12. Automated Screen Shots
Snipping Tool to the rescue! This is an awesome utility that is included with Windows Vista (might be a tablet PC utility, but I'm sure you could manually install it if you're not running a tablet PC).
This utility allows you to capture Full Screen, Windows, Rectangle or Free-Form. When you've captured what you want, you can annotate the capture and even send it directly as e-mail from the tool.
There are other utilities for Windows that are free, so you don't have to spend $15 for Better Screenshots which PC World gives you as alternative.
13. Multitouch Trackpad Gestures
Hopefully more PC devices will include multi-touch support in the near future and hopefully Microsoft will add better support for multi-touch in Windows, considering the work they have done on Microsoft Surface.
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
I have actually played with a Surface table and it's a great experience, I'm looking forward to ordering my food and beverage in restaurants using a multi-touch table instead of waiting for a waitress.
14. Cover Flow
Discovery of files in Windows Explorer is not as good as it could be, and there are no alternatives to cover flow (iTunes) for Windows that I've used or know about. Maybe someone could develop an shell add-in that uses Windows Presentation Foundation (Silverlight) as an alternative to the normal folder-navigation? Sounds like a challenge to me, so start coding!
15. Pre-Installed Web Server
This feature is of course available on most editions of Windows Vista (and Professional on XP), so I don't understand why PC World makes a point of this. Internet Information Services is of course not enabled by default, for obvious security and other reasons. You can run most popular Web application frameworks on IIS, like ASP.NET, JSP and PHP.
16. POSIX Compliance
Microsoft have for a long while claimed that Windows is a fully POSIX compliant OS, but PC World seems to have some frustrations and suggest using Cygwin instead. The little POSIX software I have used, I've run using Cygwin as well, never tested the "Subsystem for Unix-based Applications" that Microsoft has made for Windows. This shouldn't be on PC Worlds list of things that Windows doesn't have, but perhaps on a list of features that Microsoft should fix?
17. Standardized Menu Ribbon
This is one of the first frustration you have as a Mac user going to Windows (in case you didn't know, I used to be a major Mac user). But my opinion is, with today's large resolution on monitors, this is a feature that is very negative for Mac users.
Why is a standardized menu ribbon a negative feature? Many of us will soon have 2560x1600 and 30" monitors and perhaps even bigger in the next few years. With this kind of desktop resolutions, it will be a lot of mouse movement going from an application you're running in the bottom of your screen.
Another reason why I think a standardized menu ribbon is bad from a usability aspect, is that the menu is constantly changing, it switches depending on the context (application) that the user is currently within. Windows is much better in this regard, that the application menu is always attached and contained within the application window.
And what's even worse, maybe you don't realize that you have the wrong application windows active until you've actually moved your mouse all the way to the top of the screen and opens up the File menu ... whops, you have to close the File menu, go back to your desktop and activate the correct application window, and so forth... (I realize that most power users are actively using their keyboard to navigate the desktop, but majority of computer users relies on mouse for almost every desktop operation).
Standardization of menu shortcuts and names is always something that developers can do better, but this is nevertheless the same problem on Mac, just because the location of the menu is standardized, doesn't make the shortcuts and menu options standardized.
18. Single-File Applications
Yes and No, this is one of the nice features of Mac OS. My father recently bought a new Dell and he wanted to move all his files and applications from the older PC to the new one. Most importantly was Adobe Pagemaker which he relies heavily upon. Since Pagemaker is an old Mac application, I was hoping that copying the application folder between the machines would be sufficient to make it run. But no such luck.
One of the foundations in Windows OS has been the ability to use shared libraries of functionality, but this also introduced complexity of decencies. Using the COM framework, applications like Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office Excel can share libraries of functionality, which initially in the first versions of Windows was used to save disk space. A nice feature in the good old days when storage was sparse and expensive, but today you can get a terabyte disk for less than the price of 20 MB few years back.
Another huge issue with the COM architecture, is third party dependencies. If you want to build an application that utilizes or integrates with the Microsoft Office package, you can easily extend the existing software in many great ways - but when the next version of Office is released, your own code might break.
The solution that most developers use today with the birth of Microsoft .NET, is to include all the required assemblies (shared libraries) with the software and not install anything in the shared directories in Windows. This works fine, but it still leaves room for improvement compared to the Mac application model where many apps uses a single file.
My suggestion is to make a virtual application folder (compressed .zip named .app) which is a bundle of all the resources your application is using. This way, users can download the application directly from the Internet (compressed, as .app) and the first time they run it, Windows could decompress the content and put it within a temporary folder and run it. Similar to the way you can navigate into compressed files in Windows Explorer today.
Conclusion
Hope some of my experience and tips is useful and please leave comments with your own suggestions. Maybe I'll write my own list of features I think Windows should have, which would end up being very different from PC World's.