1. After copying thousands of files for a few minutes decide to halt the entire copy process to ask me if I am sure I wan't to copy a hidden or read-only file. Usually this happens after I leave the PC to do its thing and return an hour later to find that it is holding at 2% until I do something.

2. After selecting shut-down and walking away the PC inevitable asks if I want to end an orphaned process when I am not there. On some days it will end the process. Most other days it can't make up its mind so it sits and waits .... for me to return the next morning.

3. The speed at which updates are installed. An hour really? That is the best you can do. I can install the OS in less time.

4. Stop nagging me to restart. I get it. If I don't restart there will be a cataclysmic event. Hey when I am reading the news or an email or watching youtube I like to live dangerously.

5. I like a messy desktop. Stop bugging me to clean it up! Jeeze you're not my Mom.

Bonus
6. Warning me my PC is at Risk before it even has a chance to finish booting and load Security Essentials. Yes it is not the fastest PC on the block.

I realize there are work-arounds for some of these items but since they are little (except maybe 3) you would think they would be easily fixed. Oh and updating Windows should not be a suggested remedy to fix these trivial items. Nor mucking around in the registry. How hard it is to put a "stop buggin me" tick box?

1. When I install a fresh copy of Windows, I need to install 500 million updates, then a service pack, then 500 million more updates, rebooting 50 times in the process (and I can't leave in case I come across a Media Player or IE update and it'll hang waiting for my input). They couldn't have rolled some more of those into the service pack, and made it a little more automated?

2. If I manually disable the firewall, quit reminding me every thirty seconds that my computer is unprotected.

3. Why can't I postpone Windows Update reboots indefinitely? 4 hours is not enough if my computer is doing something and I want to leave it for a while.

4. God I hate you, Language Bar, you are the bane of my Windows existence.

5. When you automatically clean my desktop, don't just shove the unused shortcuts in a random folder. That's the equivalent of shoving the mess under the bed. Delete them or leave me alone.

Oh ya. You guys nailed it well. Such common annoyances

1. You must be running a old version of Windows, because I know for a fact that Windows 7 (as well as Vista I believe) will continue copying files where there is no question or conflict and when you do eventually answer the dialog box copy the files in question.

2. Applications that don't shutdown after they get a WM_QueryEndSession typically don't because you have unsaved work that you might not want destroyed. Would it be a better design for it to just delete the contents of that notepad document?

Maybe going forward all applications should save their transient state to disk and get "re-animated" when you launch them again. That is how things work in with WinRT applications, but if you look at older operating systems in the past decade, all of them worked the way you describe.

3. What kind of computer do you have, and what updates take an hour? My 4-year-old Core 2 Duo-based laptop (1.8GHz C2D, 4GB, 120GB SSD) zips through updates in no time.

4 & 5. Whatever. Disable automatic updates and turn off the desktop notification (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=320154) feature.

6. I've never had this issue. Again, what kind of computer do you have?


A more general answer: stop running Windows XP. If you were running (say) Mac OS X from 2001 (that would be versions 10.0, the buggy original release) and complained about it on a Apple forum what do you think they would say to you?

1. Windows genuine advantage
2. Product activation

Windows 7 x64:

Copying a bunch of files from a CD-R or DVD-R, Windows creates a "desktop.ini" virtual file at the list end under a heading: "Files ready to be written to the Disk (1)"

Hitting CTRL-A to highlight the full list, then CTRL-C to copy them then CTRL-V to past them into a new destination, when Windows comes to the virtual file, it stops and proudly pronounces: "File doesn't exist".

How the heck did this stupidity get past all the beta testing and and SP1?

The mind boggles....

On the fly fix: delete the virtual file and send it to the recycle bin. DUMB!!!

Cameron

Windows 7 has a tendency of creating a "thumbs.db" file in folders I want to delete, but locks the file just so I can't.

1. Cannot delete folder. A file is open in another process.

Great, tell me what it is so I can freakin' kill it!!!! Or at least release the lock!!!

This is related to Win7 creating that thumbs.db file in any folder with a image file. Like, all of my music folders. I had to go into the Registry (I think) to disable the automatic creation of thumbnails. The fix is on the Internet somewhere.

Too funny!

Microsoft really should have used the alternate file streams feature in NTFS to store thumbnails of images rather than the thumbs.db thing that they ended up doing.

If my memory serves me correctly, that thumbs.db thing goes back quite a bit... Win95 maybe?

But locking it is over the top....

Cameron

Nope, it was introduced in Windows XP which used NTFS so alternate file streams was a alternate technical solution.

1. Cannot delete folder. A file is open in another process.
I was going to add that one but hit my limit.

I am happy now knowing that I am not alone. :D

Audacity no unsaved work. I make it a habit of manually closing all apps before shutdown. Suggesting people disable automatic updates and telling 35% of the world to upgrade because of a very simple fix is something Microsoft would do. ;) I mean they send out hundreds of updates for XP still.

+1 on that.

When running Windows 7 we frequently get this message when we close a window."Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must at first close the existing Firefox process or restart your system."
The problem is, Firefox is not running and to get the computer back to normal you have to do a quick re-boot. We never had this problem with other Microsoft systems.

I run dual screens (Win7) both at home and at work.

Is it really that hard for the OS to remember which screens the windows were on when I return to my session (after locking the computer).

Seriously.

@MAXAM Go to the Task Manager and kill the Firefox process. It won't appear in the Applications tab.

Is it really that hard for the OS to remember which screens the windows were on when I return to my session

Some applications do which brings me to another gripe. My laptop has dual screen when on the docking station, but has only one screen when being mobile. Some applications that I was using on screen 2 before shutting down and going mobile will open outside of the deskop area as if I still had screen 2. So indeed, I wish Win7 could better manage the switch between dual-screen and single screen as is often the case for laptops on docking stations.

NeilN "@MAXAM Go to the Task Manager and kill the Firefox process. It won't appear in the Applications tab."
Thanks for your helpful suggestion and I'll give it a try the next time the computer locks up.

When running Windows 7 we frequently get this message when we close a window."Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must at first close the existing Firefox process or restart your system."
The problem is, Firefox is not running and to get the computer back to normal you have to do a quick re-boot. We never had this problem with other Microsoft systems.
Had this happen to me for the first time the other night, there was a firefox process running in task manager. Stopped that and it worked fine.

the top things i dislike about windows (7) is that the application developers are in no rush to come out with 64 bit programs for it, so were stuck using 32 bit code, i know it works, but it does not work reliably, apps like fire fox are still 32 bits and they hog memory.

1) come out with more 64 bit apps
2) come out with more 64 bit apps
3) come out with more 64 bit apps
4) come out with more 64 bit apps
5) come out with more 64 bit apps