Amen to optimization and customization of installed components. Also, I suggest rethinking of the UI and input methods. The UI needs to consider that for some, being able to do most tasks should be completable without using the cursor. Others need to be able to do most tasks without keyboard input. Consider things like pen-input. It needs to work, and work fast. I can’t wait for it to pop-up a window, and I don’t want to have it take up screen real-estate always. Think about touch-screen input — I need a sweet onscreen keyboard that knows when to come up and when not to.

Copy apple if you have to. It’s worked for you before! Steal from the iPhone, from MacOSX, and even from those crazy ubuntu compiz guys. You know all that stuff that people drool over on youtube? Do it. But then make it optional, for those that want it.

But most of all, make it work. Please. No bugs, no lag, no features that I need to spend all day disabling that should never have been the default anyways.

Hi Nice work James. This is just IT !!!

I would add a request too :

Make the new windows a breeze to update from XP because i don’t and i wont go for Vista anyway !!!!

I agree with a lot, but here’s what I hope for:

One of the biggest advantages of other competing OS’s is tweakability. By this I mean having a setting for everything. I understand that this may confuse many users but that’s what default settings are for. With this regard, I agree that the user should have the option to install whichever features they deem necessary. Thus, their system will only be as loaded as they need it to be. When in need, additional features should be able to install from the original OS media as they do currently, or automatically from the web (let’s not bury our heads in the sand here, most users have net access at some point).

Regarding the power abilities, I propose REM: no not Rapid Eye Movement, but Rapid Energy Management. If I want my computer to sleep a deep sleep, I should be able to configure sleep to turn everything off. Permanently. Don’t wake up for anything. If, however, I want my PDA to be able to check my mail, my computer should be able to succeed where SideShow so miserably failed: Leave Bluetooth in a low power state on sleep, and when I access my mail with my PDA, I should be able to have my computer fetch my mail without ever having to turn it on. This includes using local WiFi access, enabled without the system waking, providing me options of which network to use (and the respective settings) on my PDA, essentially turning my computer into a low power router. Throughout this process, BT was in a low power state, and WiFi was turned on and off. Nothing more, nothing less. I understand a lot of this is up to hardware manufacturers, drivers and many other factors, but the dire truth is that’s how it should be by now…

I’ll end my rant now and crawl back under my Vista and Windows Mobile rock, mold, algae, earthworms and all.

Great letter! hopefully some that can make a difference reads it.

Hope you get a consulting job working as part of the design team!!!

Steve, the problem with scheduled tasks running during sleep is that in Vista it actually wakes up the device and sometimes it doesn’t go back to sleep.

I’m okay with scheduled tasks running during sleep… It’s having then run on battery power that’s the problem. I hope Windows 7 will be able to detect when mobile units are on battery and disable power intensive tasks, postponing them until the unit is back on AC power. That’ll solvethe “hot pocket” problem too.

— Steve

While I agree with the sentiment displayed here, the issues that you are talking about aren’t purely down to Vista, but are also down to shonky hardware and drivers for that hardware from manufacturers. The reason that Vista takes so long to sleep is because driver writers have made the OS do assorted tasks before it’s allowed to sleep, this is *required* to make sure that devices still work when they get woken up. When your computer comes out of sleep Vista has to re-initialise that hardware, again things have to be done. Apple has the luxury of making hardware and software, they can make sure it all Just Works. If you want an example of just quite how hard it is look at all the sleep issues with Linux.

Incidentally, Vista doesn’t poll for hardware, and no operating system has for near enough a decade. When some new hardware is attached the controller it’s attached to (USB/firewire/SATA) will raise an interrupt which will stop the OS from doing what it’s currently doing and get it to pickup the hardware. It’s a bit of a simplified description, but I’m sure that if you’re interested you can just use google.

As for modularity, I don’t really care all that much. There was a point when I cared about every piece of software installed on PC, now I just want things to work, and there are operating systems that do that. I don’t want the hellish Windows 98 problems again when it turns out that I didn’t click some silly tick-box during the installer.

But mostly I agree with you. I think that MS built a nice base with Vista, I just want Windows 7 to be the same but faster and leaner, most of the features that I want are already there.

I agree with some comments but disagree with others.
E.g.: sleep.

I use Vista as a Media Center PC. In that scenario I definitely WANT Vista to wake up at 2am for its scheduled maintenance, defrag, updates, etc.
Just give users the choice to turn things on and off.

Great letter James. And while your at it make most of the preinstalled programs optional. I don’t need MS Mail, Calendar etc. Make Windows 7 smart enough to see that if I install Outlook that it should offer to uninstall those programs that I don’t want. Having an install system like Office where I can choose a full install or what components to install in a custom installation is really the only way to go.

Also design a proper uninstall system. Registry entries, program folder, the lot. Stop clogging up my system with stuff I’ve tried to uninstall.

Gordon

Great letter! I already installed linux (Suse 10.3) on my 2 desktop computers and my sony vaio UX. But on my UX I use XP, because Linux gives me 1:40-2:10 hours of worktime while XP can work for 4:00 simply))) That is the only point.

>>>The work to produce a sophisticated operating system like Windows 7 is monumental in fact maybe epic is the right word to describe the task before you.

Or they could just outsource it all to Apple, who seem to be able to get the task done. (Recall the Allchin memo marveling over the things Apple had while MS was still “at work” on them — for *years*.)

And look, by the time Win 7 is at Alpha, we’ll already have better Linux and maybe a rev and a half of Google’s Android OS. Those two are *seriously* gunning for MS.

Microsoft is a lot of things but stupid isn’t one of them. I expect to see a big change in an upcoming version of Windows if only because they were slapped pretty hard with Vista. It’s hardly the dog some people make it out to be but, being a dev, I don’t use it. I don’t personally know a single dev that does use it. In fact, I only know a handful of people that use it regardless of their vocation. Microsoft likes to throw around the numbers of Vista units sold but what percentage of those were “sold” only because they forced manufacturers to preinstall Vista? I don’t know offhand, but I do know they were forced to again allow XP preinstalls and forced to extend their support of XP. Personally, I needed a new laptop and, yesterday, I bought a new Macbook Pro despite it’s being painfully expensive compared to a lot of the Windows laptops I looked at. Why? Vista. Sure, I could have wiped the drive and put XP on it but I can do that with OSX, too, and have the best of both worlds. Users complain about Vista, devs complain about Vista, manufacturers complain about Vista, retailers complain about Vista…if Microsoft hasn’t learned a few things from this, they deserve to lose a sizeable chunk of the market. But I can’t believe they’d be that stupid so I’m optimistic.

Great Letter James. Maybe MS will hear some of it.

I don’t care what bells and whistles MS decides to put in, just make sure that they work with a real computer and not some imaginary 4 core ,8 gigs of ram dream machine. I’m actually OK with having to upgrade my hardware every 18 to 24 months. But. I don’t want to have to spend top of the line money just so my OS will run reliably.

Please MS, look at the 10 most common things most people do with a computer and design an OS that makes them super easy to do with 99% reliability.

When I get my computer in the near future with Win7, I just want the darn OS to be compatible with all my softwares. Please!! Just make sure all the programs I have installed in VISTA right now, which took me considerable amount of time and effort to get them to work, will run without those dreaded compatibility issues.

@gorkon – I disagree about WinFS. Although users may not have used it directly any more than they do the built in desktop search, it would have been great for developers. I’d love to be able to query the folder structure as if it is a database rather than deal with the file commands that Microsoft currently make available.

Linux isn’t guilt free with alot of these either but I might add a few things:

1. Don’t CREATE new hardware with Intel to fix your stuff. If you do anything, work on a new standard WITH the Linux developers so that Suspend/Resume/Hibernate works perfect no matter WHAT OS it is.

2. Get rid of bloat….we don’t the file system to be a database too. We need it to be a filesystem. WinFS is a HORRIBLE idea. Just improve upon and then OPEN ntfs so others may use it. Stop pretending you make money off of ntfs. You don’t.

3. In fact, open Windows itself. With prices hardly changing between devices with Windows and without, you can’t make that much money on that Windows license. Plus you could use a little help closing your security holes.