microsoft, vista, windows

Vista even thinks Control Panel is photos

6 Comments

One of Vista’s most annoying features is the tendency of Explorer to decide, first, that all your documents are music or photos; and second, that if they are, you care more about metadata like “Rating” than humdrum details such as the date of the file.

I had thought that Vista only did this if it found at least one media file in the folder, but today it happened with Control Panel:

Notice how it highlights another user-hostile feature: the name of each applet is in a column too narrow to read, and several applets are indistinguishable from each other because they begin “Microsoft .NET Frame…” or “Internet Information S…”; another triumph of branding over usability.

What I wanted was the Event Viewer; and while I’m in ranting mode, let me add that I much prefer the old NT Event Viewer to the Vista effort. The new one takes ages to populate a clever multi-pane view, which presents too much information in tiny scrolling panels. In practice I use the tree view on the left to select the log I want, subverting the new design by doing exactly what I would have done in the old Event Viewer. Habit possibly; but there are real design problems with the new Event Viewer. Administrators will always choose practical over pretty.

See here for my earlier complaint about Explorer views and a partial remedy. Why wasn’t this fixed in SP1?

6 thoughts on “Vista even thinks Control Panel is photos”

  1. I know it’s probably nit-picking, but Administrative Tools isn’t part of the Control Panel – it’s just a standard folder.

    Still, folder views are broken 🙂

  3. Administrative Tools isn’t part of the Control Panel – it’s just a standard folder

    OK, it’s a folder full of shortcuts located at:

    C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsAdministrative Tools

    But it is also a standard element in Control Panel.

    Either way, it is not photos 🙂

    Tim

  4. Microsoft help desk told me that in registry
    there is a number meaning max number of folders
    for which Vista is able to remember settings.
    By default, it it 5000. If your folder count
    exceeds that, windows explorer might not work
    properly anymore. You can fix this by editing
    registry keys manually.

    Funny how it is not yet fixed, two years after
    Vista is in public. 🙂

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