Why has Windows 7 Been Rendered So Unusable?

[DWise1]

I know that we used to have somebody here who worked for Microsoft. Could he please enlighten us as to the reason why Microsoft has rendered Windows 7 so unusable?

Specifically, the search utility does not work. At all. Not in the least. WinXP's search utility worked wonderfully. So why destroy that functionality? Whenever I need to search files, I have to fire up my 6+-year-old laptop. Which is not going to last much longer. After it has died, how am I supposed to do anything? I can't even get grep to work anymore.

Why is Microsoft working so hard to drive its users away?

 

[Subliminal]

Search works fine for me... or are you talking about the command line search? The new windows search is built into the upper right hand corner of every window. You just type what you're looking for and it starts searching dynamically.

 

[DWise1]

Search files in a given location that contain a given string.

Just tried it yet again. That "upper right hand corner" thing. Does not work! Does not even begin to work!

If "search" works fine for you, then you mustn't ever look for anything.

Why screw up something so horribly that used to work so well?

 

[pygmalion]

All righty then ...

Does Microsoft have any sort of feedback/gripe mechanism or beta-testing for future releases?

It's hard, when you're in R&D, to envision how people actually use things. Its easy to see what they'll be able to do, and all the whiz-bang new technology that you're bringing their way. But did anyone at MS think about a scenario in which a user needs to retrieve decade-old data? Probably not. Sucky, but true. *sigh*

 

[pygmalion]

Oh yeah and... when I've had problems with windows (such as viruses that embedded themselves in the windows start-up files) I started up in DOS mode and navigated around to look for/do what I needed. Colossal pain in the butt, but it works. Timing is everything (Windows is fast! You have to be fast, if you want to rule the world.) but it does work, if you know what you're looking for.

 

[Joe]

no problems here...pebkac?

 

[little watcher]

if you mean the little window with the magnifying glass at the side.... do not hit enter when you have finished your search string. if i accidently do it enter, it tries to access an ip address, but if i do not hit enter, it returns a nice list of results.

hope that helps

 

[DL]

All righty then ...

Does Microsoft have any sort of feedback/gripe mechanism or beta-testing for future releases?

It's hard, when you're in R&D, to envision how people actually use things. Its easy to see what they'll be able to do, and all the whiz-bang new technology that you're bringing their way. But did anyone at MS think about a scenario in which a user needs to retrieve decade-old data? Probably not. Sucky, but true. *sigh*

Actually, data obsolescence planning is part of the industry generally. That being said, it behooves individuals and organizations to be aware of vendor policies and time frames (with it being incumbent on vendors to choose those reasonably and communicate them clearly). Preserving backwards compatibility is harder than laypeople seem to imagine and can be a serious drag on new development.

I say all this generally and without taking any side whatsoever on how good a job MS did with this particular feature. I haven't investigated that at all.

 

[pygmalion]

Awesome, DL! Thanks. So, when you say data obsolescence planning, exactly what does that entail? Is it possible for existing files to age off of a hard drive, for example, which I assume would mean that the memory cells where info was stored either get over-written or become otherwise inaccessible via normal means?

Intriguing. :-D

 

[DL]

Awesome, DL! Thanks. So, when you say data obsolescence planning, exactly what does that entail? Is it possible for existing files to age off of a hard drive, for example, which I assume would mean that the memory cells where info was stored either get over-written or become otherwise inaccessible via normal means?

Intriguing. :-D

For example, file formats change over time. Eventually new software tends to stop supporting old file formats. When that happens generally tools are made available to convert old data to new formats.

If you store your files on the same device indefinitely, you have only yourself to blame if they disappear. No software provider can save you from that. Yes, hard drives (and all other media) go bad, given enough time. Institutions that archive large amounts of data tend to know in detail, say, how long a particular CD made in a particular year by a particular vendor will last, and to have a collection of devices capable of reading the various sorts of media they archive (and a collection of computers to which it's possible to connect those devices, and a collection of spare parts).

"Put it in the cloud" is the currently fashionable response to physical data archival concerns. Of course, it requires that you trust someone else to store and guard data on your behalf over the long term.

 

[pygmalion]

That makes perfect sense, DL. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[DWise1]

Why all the talk of file-format obselescence? These are text files. Plain old text files. What idiot would design in the inability to search through text files?

Case in point: I have the King James Bible in one directory, divided up into with each chapter its own text file. I was attempting to search for a specific reference in Genesis. Windows 7 cannot handle such a simple common computer task. I had to fire up my 6+-year-old WinXP laptop and wait a short eternity for it to boot up in order to accomplish such a simple common computer task.

Now, if it were to turn out that ability to search for files with a given text string in them is in fact still there, but merely hidden away where the user cannot find it, then why not simply reveal it?

 

[pygmalion]

Because none of us has been able to replicate the problem you describe.

 

[DWise1]

Because none of us has been able to replicate the problem you describe.

Then how exactly did you accomplish the task successfully?

 

[DL]

Why all the talk of file-format obsolescence? These are text files. Plain old text files. What idiot would design in the inability to search through text files?

Pygmalion asked generally about whether industry folks considered the problem of dealing with decade-old data. My answer was a for-example to support my answer of "yes".

Additionally, it's not as though so-called "plain text" has never suffered file format obsolescence. Just recently I had to deal with some data encoded with EBCDIC. That's not to mention the issues with migrating from various foreign character encoding schemes to unicode/utf-8 (which itself is not to mention issues with multiple proprietary uses of the private-use areas in utf-8 e.g. to implement emoji). Then there's the more commonplace issue of converting line feeds between DOS and UNIX conventions. That's just off the top of my head...

However I of course cede your point that ASCII is a long-time survivor and, since utf-8 is backwards-compatible with it, is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Case in point: I have the King James Bible in one directory, divided up into with each chapter its own text file. I was attempting to search for a specific reference in Genesis. Windows 7 cannot handle such a simple common computer task. I had to fire up my 6+-year-old WinXP laptop and wait a short eternity for it to boot up in order to accomplish such a simple common computer task.

Now, if it were to turn out that ability to search for files with a given text string in them is in fact still there, but merely hidden away where the user cannot find it, then why not simply reveal it?

For this specific problem, you could always download the project Gutenburg version:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30/pg30.txt (plain text variant, clearly annotated with book, chapter, and verse)

Then you could find-in file using a browser or notepad. I expect that searching through 5mb on a machine modern enough to run Win7 would be as close to instantaneous as makes no difference for human interaction.

All that being said, I don't have a Win7 box handy so I can't offer advice on how to use it to search the contents of files in a directory.