How to make Windows 7 look like XP

I SECOND The Nomination!

Wow, They took a perfectly good, evolving, Operating System, adding an Service Pack here, Service Pack there, gradually perfecting a System that works fine.  I admit I was skeptical about installing Service Packs, at first, but eventually I adapted and began looking forward to each new Service Pack.

This 'Give the people what WE SAY THEY WANT' attitude, has got me looking more and more toward alternative Operating Systems.  When Win 7 wasn't quite ready (with its super secret code word name as if anyone cares) they stuffed Vista down our throats; within a year it was history, cramming Win 7 into EVERY single new PC, incessantly emailing upgrade offers to Win 7 .  None of us learned from the whole Millennium ordeal; what incredible wastes of time and money. 

If this slap in the face weren't offensive enough, they decided to, break necks spinning heads around, by releasing Windows 8; with no easy way to turn off that 'made for touch screen', Metro look.  Half the people I know are buying orb changers, from God knows who, just to get back to being as productive as we were before they choked us with changes we didn't ask for, the other half simply went to Apple.  If you've got to learn a strange new Operating System: Why Not? Apple is every bit as strange to me as Windows 8.

If they're going to make such drastic, literally, life altering changes, the least they could have done would have been to include Microsoft made Orbs and/or offer the ability to revert to the previous Operating System, for their loyal if not so tech savvy Customer base.  No wonder Seniors don't want anything to do with computers , especially those who took the time to learn a very difficult concept, just for the sake of seeing their Children and Grandchildren, more often, albeit Online.  Learning all over again is a nightmare for them.

I am tired of their changes, tired of being forced into changes, I may not be prepared to make at the time, and on their schedule.  It's this behavior that will see Microsoft circling the drain, far sooner than it should or would have been, if they just stuck with one concept and expanded it.  It's supposed to be WINDOWS not Tiles, on top of Windows, inside of Tiles with more Windows inside.  I mean how complicated should it really have to be?

Before I learn Windows 8 and am forced to endure that idiotic, Metro (tile) look adding more steps to already perfected features; I'll learn Apple for my next new Operating System, before I ever attempt to learn to use a touch screen Program, such as Windows 8, on a PC or laptop until they start herding us into their tablet markets.  I need a desktop in the office and prefer a laptop at home, I choose to take a tablet with me and I prefer Android when I do.

I don't know what they hope to accomplish, but when the last of my Win 7 PC's are done running Windows 7, I'm done chasing Microsoft along with my own tail.  I'm going to Apple, where the O/S changes but the platforms remain the same...

Hey Microsoft: you pushed so much, so hard and so far down my throat, that this last push was the last push.  I returned my Down Your Throat Windows 8 machine to Best Buy, under their 30 Warranty and  better spent my money, having my Windows 7 machines updated.

YOU FINALLY PUSHED TOO FAR!!!  I'm Done guessing when you'll pull the rug out from under me AGAIN....

My goodness people stop acting like Microsoft is trying to personally attack you for upgrading their UI.  I mean, heck did apply users all stay on OS9 when OSX released?  Did you whine this much at the jump from DOS to 3.1? 

If you spend half as much time using the new system as you are complaining you would already be a competent user of the new UI.

Or we can just keep using software that simply "works" and never improve.  I have a nice text based adventure game I wrote about 15 years ago in QBasic.  Maybe we should tell everyone that plays MMORPG games the improvements made in the last 15 years are simply confusing people and a text based platform would be simpler.  Remember the old word processors?  How would you like to go back to having a sheet of archaic commands to simply insert a line, god forbid you want to print

My goodness people stop acting like Microsoft is trying to personally attack you for upgrading their UI.

I think, ZachChild, that you have missed the point here - perhaps with the uncritical acceptance that typifies our fashion-obsessed society...and which frequently leads it (mistakenly) to equate 'new' with 'improved'.

You say that with W7, Microsoft have 'upgraded' (=improved) their OS' user interface.  Changed it certainly has, but I invite you to substantiate the assertion.  You might point to (say) the partitioning capabilities now embedded in the OS.  I would say yes, that is an improvement of a sort, though it is arguable whether this is a UI feature (I would say not) and it leaves W7 less functional than many 3rd party partition managers; this is therefore a help only to more basic users.  Was XP incapable of accommodating the same partitioning functionality?

I believe noneknown's point was that W7 does not represent a sufficient advance to warrant the turbulence of the change and if so, I am with him/her completely.  Changes in the aspects which are true UI (themes and other such appearance matters, for eg) are mostly vacuous fripperies.  Someone who needs a new colour or animation to stay satisfied with their PC also needs a new brain.  Some other changes, such as those to the display of tree structures are nothing short of asinine.  The change from the perfectly intuitive + in a box in XP to signify the existence of a lower level directory structure to the less intuitive triangle is a degrade, not an upgrade, and the fact that it presents a smaller target to the searching mouse when attempting to expand or collapse the tree merely lengthens the step backwards that has been taken.  This is change for changes sake, and is rank stupidity.  BTW 'folder' is another example of MS' recurring habit of changing a perfectly understandable name ('directory') into a no better one.

Improved security is one justifiable basis for a change of OS and the pundits who know more than me say that in this respect W7 is better than XP;  I accept their expertise, but at the same time I also observe that patches to newly discovered vulnerabilities arrive for W7 no less often than before for XP.

Finally, chew on this:  do you think that MS would have been so keen to dispose of XP were its board, executives and shareholders not so desirous of the fresh income stream that Me, Vista & W7 would bring?  Do you think that in 2020, W7 will be found so wanting in the eyes of its users, or its successor so attractive by comparison that we will welcome its death?  No, I'm afraid that questionably improved OS are too much part of the business model.

You know you're right! Microsoft should continue to support legacy software FOREVER to pander to people who fear change as much as you do.

Of course new software is a big part of Microsoft's business model, you pay once for the license you think MS is a charity? 

So improvements, to name a few: Built in ISO tools for disc burning, libraries, group policy updates, the disc manager you mentioned, multi user mode, myriad security improvements, better 64 bit support, support for more memory, better offline files and folder synchronization, themes, gadgets, improved network management, more UI customization

Windows 7 also has a new kernel, as does windows 8.  Updating the kernel of the OS as much as was done with 7 and 8 is not something that could have been done by patching XP.  They could have made a version of 7 that was visually more similar to XP, but then again why?  Why not take the opportunity to make some adjustments to the UI?  What you may not know here is you and others in this thread are in the minority.  I work for a managed services firm where I spend most of my time migrating and upgrading workstations

• in recent months most of these have been XP-7 upgrades.  Of the thousands I have done I have had less than 10 people complain about 7, most of the complaints can be alleviated with a little bit of training.

From my point of view many of these complaints are simply nit picking by people who refuse to take the time (and it shouldnt take much)  I mean lets be honest, one of your rants here is about them changing the + to > to denote folder hierarchy.... Seriously?  This is a dealbreaker?  If someone cant adjust to something THAT simple.... well to use your own words they also may need a new brain.

And no... I don't think I missed the point, I just don't think you like what I have to say.