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Win 7 features
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iomatic
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Join Date: Oct 1999
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Jan 11, 2009, 01:57 PM
 
This is going to come off as pedantic defensiveness, but I have to laugh at some of these "features" that "really do kick ass." Please.:

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/11...-in-windows-7/

10.…Connection switching only requires two clicks and it can be done right from the system tray icon. Windows 7 also detects three more access points near my home than XP and Vista, and the connections to my work and home routers resume instantly when my laptop wakes.
Are you kidding me? With Locations, it only takes one click on this other platform. Resume connections instantly? Come on. Been there, done that. It's like PC users find out that having iconic representations of files and folders is amazing, and start touting it as the coming of Jesus. The Mac users roll their eyes up and continue working as they have for the past x years whatever feature Microsoft just recently introduced. I'll spare quoting the rest of the article, but you get the gist.

In the end, it's great Microsoft brings about innovation to the masses, but it's often (really) late, and poorly implemented. (Yeah, I know, I'm reporting nothing new. GAH! that damn Start Menu…)
     
Visnaut
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Jan 11, 2009, 03:00 PM
 
I completely hear you.

I have an employer-issued Vista laptop, and while it's not all bad, wireless networking is a pain in the ass. You have to open a cumbersome window just to choose an access point; it has to save a profile for each router it connects to, and will routinely forget them anyway; no way of telling it to prefer one connection over the other. Very frustrating.

Things are organized in a much more logical sense in System Preferences. I can easily create locations, drag and drop which connection methods to prefer over others, and create multiple configurations for the same connection methods and just swap between them. And of course, the fact that you can pick access points from a system-wide menu is a no-brainer.

To be honest, it's a larger topic of settings in general in Windows. They're usually buried deep in some config panel, or worse, spread out over a couple of control panels. And don't even get me started on 3rd party manufacturers' custom control panels that might or might not override Window's settings...
     
chabig
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Jan 11, 2009, 03:07 PM
 
Not to worry. When Microsoft thinks things are getting too complicated, they add another layer of complexity (called a Wizard) to take care of it!!
     
olePigeon
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Jan 11, 2009, 03:28 PM
 
I ran across a bug in XP and Vista. This may only apply to my Linksys router, but it took us several hours to troubleshoot and figure out why my friends' computers wouldn't connect to my wireless.

We have a Linksys WRT54G router that isn't broadcasting its SSID. We're using 128-bit HEX WEP for the password. Seems pretty simple. Type in the SSID manually, put in the password. I also live in an apartment complex where there are no less than 20 wireless signals (not a mistype or exaggeration.) So if you come over to my apartment and click the AirPort menu, it'll take a full minute to open, and will be populated with more wireless connections than it can physically list.

Anyway, probably 50% of the Vista and XP computers absolutely refused to connect to my wireless unless I turned on the SSID broadcasting. It would always return an "Unknown error." If the same person came back another day, it wouldn't have problems connecting at all. On a different day, it'd get an error. It just seemed completely random.

After several hours trying to get my friend on the wireless network, I remembered a problem that I had ran into my previous job when trying to get all our student XP laptops on our new wireless system: XP and Vista will not connect to a wireless that isn't broadcasting its SSID unless that wireless network is at the very top the list of available networks. So I moved my wireless profile to the top of the list of available wireless networks and it worked!

So... yeah. Thanks Microsoft.

To be fair, Apple caused me to lose half my hair because they only have one error dialog and it doesn't tell you if it couldn't find the wireless, or if the password or login didn't match, or anything. Just that there was an error. Turns out the network admin wrote down the wrong password after assuring me it was correct in the first place.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
mduell
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Jan 11, 2009, 04:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by iomatic View Post
Are you kidding me? With Locations, it only takes one click on this other platform. Resume connections instantly? Come on. Been there, done that.
Assuming that you know about Locations and have gone through the dozen+ clicks to get them set up.

I don't get the resuming connections instantly either; my XP box with Intel wifi already does that.
     
olePigeon
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Jan 11, 2009, 07:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by mduell View Post
Assuming that you know about Locations and have gone through the dozen+ clicks to get them set up.

I don't get the resuming connections instantly either; my XP box with Intel wifi already does that.
Is that a feature of the Intel chipset drivers, or a feature of the OS?
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
Goldfinger
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Jan 12, 2009, 04:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
Is that a feature of the Intel chipset drivers, or a feature of the OS?
An OS feature. My XP box that doesn't have Intel wifi does it as well.

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CharlesS
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Jan 12, 2009, 05:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
I ran across a bug in XP and Vista. This may only apply to my Linksys router, but it took us several hours to troubleshoot and figure out why my friends' computers wouldn't connect to my wireless.

We have a Linksys WRT54G router that isn't broadcasting its SSID. We're using 128-bit HEX WEP for the password. Seems pretty simple. Type in the SSID manually, put in the password. I also live in an apartment complex where there are no less than 20 wireless signals (not a mistype or exaggeration.) So if you come over to my apartment and click the AirPort menu, it'll take a full minute to open, and will be populated with more wireless connections than it can physically list.

Anyway, probably 50% of the Vista and XP computers absolutely refused to connect to my wireless unless I turned on the SSID broadcasting. It would always return an "Unknown error." If the same person came back another day, it wouldn't have problems connecting at all. On a different day, it'd get an error. It just seemed completely random.
I experienced that same issue this winter break, so you're definitely not alone there. Six Macs, all work perfectly with the Linksys, one Vista laptop that just wouldn't connect until I turned SSID broadcast on, and even when I did that it was kind of patchy, sometimes refusing to connect and sometimes connecting in 802.11b mode even though the laptop's wireless card supported 802.11n. I tried updating the router's firmware and everything. Fun times.

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