Love Windows 7

I have been a big critic of the new ’super’(yuk!)bar.  Looking at things from an end-users point of view there are many things about it’s use and functionality that are just plain dumb.  I could rant on for ages about this but for this article I want to focus on the biggest single flaw…

Look at the screenshot (above) and tell me what’s wrong with it.

In this screenshot we’ve got an active download started through Internet Explorer but no open Internet Explorer Window, that’s been closed, we’ll say accidentally.

What happens when we click the Internet Explorer icon to open another window?  Nothing!  At the very best all you’ll succeed in doing is minimising and restoring the download window.  You won’t be able to open another Internet Explorer window until closing this download box.

Now readers of this site will all know that you open the IE jumplist and select “Internet Explorer” to open a new instance of the program, but what about a novice user?  The average person sitting at home or in an office will be completely confused by this as, while the jumplists are a good idea, there’s still a learning curve associated with them and, as we all discovered when businesses took a look at Vista, people don’t like learning curves.

Before you criticise me there, I would point out that the breadcrumb bar, one of the things businesses said would be confusing for their staff, has the same type of learning curve as the jumplists.

Then things get worse.  Let’s say you want to open two Windows Explorer windows to move or copy files between drives or folders.  How do you open two windows?  Without knowing about the jumplists it’s impossible to do.

It’s precisely this type of serious usability oversight that will cause many people to avoid Windows 7 and stick with XP.  People, remember, often believe the horror stories about Windows that their friends tell them.  This will be a crying shame as Windows 7 is otherwise an excellent operating system, and anyone who sticks with XP in preference to it is setting themselves up for a security nightmare.

Microsoft need, and quickly, to implement a fix for this.  Something along the lines of clippy the paperclip saying “I see you’re trying to open a new program, WOAHAHAHAHA!” simply won’t be good enough.