My biggest beef by far with Windows Vista is it’s Windows Explorer applet. I personally think it was a step or two backward in usability from the Windows XP version. From what I can tell, the Windows 7 version appears to be more or less unchanged.
Specially, I hate the address bar
I find the virtual depth indicators very annoying and it adds multiple additional clicks to my workflow as a developer. You can click it, and it toggles in original XP version:
I want this to be it’s permanent behavior, but can’t seem to find a way to achieve this. For a long time I thought this Folder Options setting would do what I wanted it to:
I wrongly assumed that there was a bug in Windows and this setting just didn’t work when I checked it. Then one day I re-read it carefully and realized this isn’t the setting I want. This setting simply dictates what’s shown in the title bar (exactly what it says it does) of a window, which is different than the Address bar that I’m complaining about.
If I could get this setting to bring back the original full path address bar in Windows Explorer… I don’t think I’d have a serious complaint about Vista or Windows 7. I still think Windows Explorer is entirely too cluttered and utterly terrifying to wives and in-laws all over of the world. Similar to the Control Panel, there needs to be a extremely simplified view and a power user view. This blend of both is annoying an ineffective. I’m truly sad to see that this was addressed in 7 :(