Comments

1. caywen

   
   Posted on: July 02, 2007 at 4:34PM  

   LiveGadgets:

   My tone was indeed more negative than it should have been, so I apologize for that. Important thing is, it's all good now :-)

   I actually do have a wide screen monitor, but my work habits, unfortunately for SideBar, prod me to make maximum use of horizontal space.
2. Nick White

   
   Posted on: July 02, 2007 at 6:31PM  

   Hey Jonathan Wienke:  It sounds to me as though something's corrupted in your shell, as you should not be having that experience; all checkboxes work on my 3 systems just fine, among the other things you mention.

   This may help:  In a folder, click one checkbox, then shift and click the last one; you'll note that they all select.  And, Control-A selects all folders.  If you click the 'Name' bar in a folder it inverts your selections; same with 'Date modified'.

   Hope this helps -- if it doesn't, you might look into a system restore or other measure to bring things back to normal, as it may be that the shell is corrupted.
3. Nick White

   
   Posted on: July 02, 2007 at 8:23PM  

   Hey TimSmithCA:  you're right, some of these features do require an upper-end version of Windows Vista.  But, several of them are in fact available in Home Basic, such as the Snipping Tool, Photo Gallery, Sidebar and the Preview Pane.  I hear you on this point, however, and will consider your suggestion for a future article -- thanks for reading.
4. shollomon

   
   Posted on: July 05, 2007 at 2:02PM  

   I use Vista Ultimate as my primary operating system and here are the

   Top Ten Things I'd like to Know About Vista

   10)  Why do changing little things like the logon screen background require a third party program?

   9)  Why is there not at least an ssh client built in to Vista?

   8)  Related to 8, why is there no support for sftp in Vista/Explorer?

   7)  Why does  Vista take much longer to copy files from one directory to another on the same hard drive than XP did?

   6)  Why can't I get rid of the cheesy log in pictures and the user picture in the start menu?

   5)  How do you ?mount? an ftp location as a "letter drive"?

   4)  Why does installing programs result in menu items owned by Administrator (which makes them heck to move around)?

   3)  Why does Vista have about 30% worse battery life on the same hardware with similar power settings as XP?

   2)  Why the heck is is a good idea to bury icons in dll's instead of putting them in a folder labled something like icons?

   And the number one thing I'd like to know about vista is:

   1)  When is SP1 scheduled for release.

   Thanks.
5. Nick White

   
   Posted on: July 05, 2007 at 3:59PM  

   Hey shollomon:  thanks for this list of suggestions; we'll look into all of the topics you list, but know that a number of them (SP1 release date, for one) are still in flux.  However, know that we'll cover the advances included in SP1 in detail here on the blog when the time comes.
6. terri

   
   Posted on: July 05, 2007 at 4:13PM  

   sholloman, you've asked some interesting questions. I haven't seen some of the issues you're reporting, but I'll see what I can find out.
7. shollomon

   
   Posted on: July 08, 2007 at 8:37PM  

   Mark number 1 off the list, maybe.  Mary Jo Foley over at ZDnet is reporting SP1 Beta on July 16 and Gold in November.  With a purported fix  for the slow copy problem I noted in number 7.  Ask and it shall be leaked.
8. Professor P

   
   Posted on: July 11, 2007 at 11:16AM  

   shollomon-

   10)  I imagine because that is kind of a personalisation thing, and the logon screen is used for all users. Though, not sure.

   9)  Not sure about that.

   8)  There is, you have to enable it. In the control panel search box type "windows features", then select "Turn Windows Features On/Off" - SFTP is under

   7)  I think a fix for that is due for that, feedback ID 252302)

   6)  I think they're only used in the home editions (where you don't have to type a username) so you can easilly diferenciate between users. I think the start menu use is because well, what else can go there when nothing is highlighted?

   5)  Good question, dunno.

   4)  I think that's a bug, really. Report it.

   3)  I personally haven't noticed. Try changing your power options.

   2)  I think that's a good idea - I think it just hasn't been thought of, really.

   1)  Official word: Beta before the end of the year. Word on 'the street': beta next week, release in november (so I've heard)
9. shollomon

   
   Posted on: July 12, 2007 at 2:07PM  

   Herr Professor,

   Thanks for your answers.  I am particularly interested in answer 8 regarding SFTP.  In Control Panel=> Turn Windows Features on or off I have the option to turn on a TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) Client but not an SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) Client or the underlying service it is associated with SSH (Secure Shell).  The only ways I can find to use SSH or SFTP in Windows to connect to my servers is to use applications like PuTTY and WinSCP.  If I have mis-understood or missed something in general please correct me.

   Of all the stuff that's available in Vista for interacting with *nix systems, from LPD print services, to an NFS client, to the subsystem for Unix based applications, SSH/SFTP would have been the first thing I would have included functionality for.
10. shollomon

    
    Posted on: July 12, 2007 at 5:41PM  

    When talking about user pictures I'm talking about the pictures that appear on the start menu (here's mine)

    [img]html://southofdallas.com/stuff/user_pic.png[/img]

    Why couldn't we have an option to display that or not?