Well last week I looked into the 10 things I love about the Windows 7 Beta, today I’m going to look at what doesnt’ work so well and why they bug me so.

1. It's A Beta

This is something that can’t be helped, it’s new, old software have problems with it but when the Windows Installer refuses to work because it’s incompatible (for instance Mirror’s Edge refuses to install because the installer is incompatible) you’ve got to wonder what the point of Compatibility Mode is.

2. They Still Think You're Stupid

UAC was the start, and now they’ve got the Action Center which is there to remind you you’re not doing things the way Microsoft says you should. I’ve got updates set to download but only install when I tell them to, this is wrong, Action Center keeps telling me this and refuses to accept I don’t want everything to be automated. Don’t worry Microsoft I’m not going to blow my computer up while you’re not watching.

3. Padding

It’s everywhere and by padding I mean visual padding, the default window border is fat! The distances between the notification icons is disproportionate, they take up more space than they should. Same goes for the icons on the taskbar, too much spacing means your taskbar gets full pretty quickly.

4. Google Chrome

Chrome doesn’t work without a special extension on the shortcut’s target path and even then it crashes a lot, yet every other browser work fine. Is Chrome really that different that it can’t load web pages on Windows 7?

5. Adobe Software

Had to be installed in Compatibility mode, even then it has strange user interface bugs. Slows down after a while to the point of being useless and very frustrating. And what’s the point of having a 64-​​bit Photoshop if that version crashes on a 64-​​bit OS?

6. PSD Shell Integration

Now sure it’s still only a Beta but this should have existed since before Vista, Mac has it, why can’t Windows computers render a PSD thumbnail in the Explorer?

7. Preview Pane

Still not seeing much point to it when you can just Ctrl + Scroll to enlarge the thumbnails in Explorer.

8. Send Feedback Link

Okay so it’s a Beta, you want Feedback, I get it but do you have to put a link on the top of every window when it’s available in the Start Menu? The link gets in the way when I want to move a thin window.

9. Video Thumbnails

Not sure if the codecs have changed but in Vista video thumbnails were generated at random locations in the video but now they’re all at the beginning, or a couple seconds from the beginning which isn’t anywhere near as useful, as bad as the Mac OS X video thumbnails. Also some video files don’t generate thumbnails even with the same codecs installed.

10. Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

Betas are publicly released to get large numbers of people crawling through your OS and finding bugs like in the Vista Beta there was a glaring video playback bug there are plenty to be found in Windows 7. The ‘Save As…’ Dialog doesn’t generate icons for the folder you’re saving in until you change the format. The Windows Installer is touchy. Old game installers don’t seem to work. Virtual Drives don’t work.

So there you have it, I feel I will have to dual boot Vista when I get back to work because Photoshop just slows down so much after a short period of time it becomes unusable.