Drag wrote:
koitsu wrote:
"Classic" on Windows 7 actually disables, internally, a lot of graphical-oriented subsystem bits (in DWM/desktop composition). People insist it's "just a GUI change", but that is complete total utter 100% nonsense. So no, AFAIK there is no way to "enable those bits" while keeping Classic mode. Microsoft really screwed the pooch on this one (IMO), as well as how they both removed and no-op'd many of the UI adjustment bits in Classic mode as well (which worked fine in XP). All I see MS doing is removing more and more of the users' ability to customise their UI -- which is one of the (many) focuses of a GUI. Moronic on many levels.
But at the same time, how long is it ok to live in 1996? The original idea of disabling Aero was if your computer didn't have the hardware to handle it, and classic mode was if your computer couldn't even handle the skinned mode. They remove all of the hardware acceleration in those modes because they want you to get with the times. Shiny glossy glowy UIs might be superfluous, but what's so bad about getting used to them, other than "oh no, it's different"? Moreover, if you don't like the glinting, animated window widgets, you can turn the animations off and still be in Aero.
And let's be honest. How many of these users
actually customized the UI? Obviously not many if all they want is classic mode. ;)
I could seriously write a book on all the absolute UI monstrosities that are become apparent when using Basic or Classic mode. I'm not joking. You're the 5th or 6th person who has wanted me (in effect) to document the problems with Windows Vista/7's UI when using
anything other than Aero with all the bells and shitwhistles turned on. Absolutely
no one did usability testing for Basic or Classic, all while removing features and "screwing around" (leaving shit broken).
I had to use Windows Vista and 7 at my past job (guess where -- MICROSOFT!) as it was mandatory company-wide by MSIT and MS Security. For 5 years I had the "joy" of using these OSes 8 hours a day, so I became quite familiar with the brokenness. Five years later, I
still cannot get over the brokenness. In fact, coming home to my XP workstation was actually bliss, simply because I didn't have to tolerate all the continual in-my-face broken UI crap -- it was like coming home to a good blow job every day. Seriously.
Here's a short list off the top of my head:
* Basic: try adjusting some of the Personalisation settings under "Window Colour". You will find many of them are no-ops
* Classic mode: where is "Colour scheme" support (i.e. Rainy Day, etc.)? It's been completely removed. This is not the same thing as "theme" support
* Classic mode: under Window Colour and Appearance, many of the pulldown items do not let you adjust font sizes and colours (in 9x/2K/XP they did)
* Classic mode: moving/dragging an icon on the desktop shows a rectangular dithered shitbox rather than the actual icon itself (and if you tell me "it's because of the removal of hardware acceleration in Classic", then I ask you to explain the translucent selection rectangle still being available -- dragging icons around is not a "hardware accelerated" thing, the CPU has to do most of the work)
* Basic and Classic mode: cyan border around bottom and right edges of window to indicate has-focus; colour is non-adjustable
* Basic and Classic mode: turn off ClearType and "font smoothing" (separate things; latter is called "Smooth edges of screen fonts"). Now go into the Control Panel and ask yourself if you can actually read the text in there. I'm specifically referring to many applets/etc. assuming use of ClearType/font smoothing, resulting in blurry-as-fuck text I can't provide screenshots of this because it looks different in a VM than on actual hardware
* Toggling ClearType and "font smoothing" will result in some fonts showing significantly bolder than normal,
until you reboot, where the fonts then begin appearing correctly. 100% reproducible
* IE9 and IE10: ClearType is forced on in these applications, regardless of system setting. (This used to be a feature in IE which you could toggle and they removed it -- there is still quite a backlash from the customer base about that. But it still makes no sense why this is being forced on)
* ClearType and "font smoothing" greatly degrade overall UI performance (menus take longer to expand/draw, window contents take longer to draw and often scroll, etc.). I disable these, by the way, because I find they look like utter crap -- they turn my text into fuzzy, blurry piles of junk. I don't like things screwing with my text. Font hinting, blah blah -- it looks great on paper when printed, but it doesn't look that great on most LCDs I use. ClearType just makes it even worse. But despite my personal preferences, given that these features adjust most (not all -- see items above) of the in-UI text, it's very important things be designed to work with all 4 combinations (CT=off FS=off, CT=off FS=on, CT=on FS=off, CT=on FS=on), rather than just the latter
* Partially Microsoft to blame for this one: applications change their entire UI layouts based on which mode you're in. For example, look at Firefox with Aero enabled, Aero disabled, and in Classic. Classic will give you the
original File/Edit/etc. menu bar, while
the others do not. You can enable that menu bar while in Aero, but guess what you end up with? A
title and menu bar that looks like glowing inverted dildo with text on it (it's so easy to read! Really!). Furthermore, the "redesigned" menu bar (i.e. when non-Classic is in use and Menu Bar is disabled) makes using the Bookmarks feature annoying as shit. I should note no other application I've encountered behaves this way, including classic applications like Wireshark (which have a consistent-looking UI no matter what mode you're in).
There are absolutely no justified reasons for any of the above -- it is just pure 100% negligence. Furthermore, Windows 7 has been out since 2009, and already has one Service Pack out -- yet these problems/issues are still not fixed. Wonder why?
So I ask you plain and simple: how much of this is "living in 1996"? The correct answer is: none -- it's "living with head up ass in 2007+" (Vista came out in 2007).