Windows 8

Two small, yet irritating things, that I hope Windows 8 addresses with respect to Windows 7:

• Being able to put the Recycle Bin in the SysTray (or Task Bar, etc.) and not on the desktop, but still easy to access
• Not assuming the name of a new compressed folder archive

The second one is confusing to describe, but here goes:

You open Windows Explorer and open a folder with a bunch of files and sub-folders.  You click and press CTRL+A to select “all” items, then right-click and choose “New –> Compressed Folder”, only to discover that it takes the name of whatever file or folder your cursor was near and uses that as the base name, and simply appends “.zip” to it.  To be fair, it automatically switches to “rename” mode after the compression is completed, but still, this is dumb UI/UX design.  It’s doesn’t make sense.  Just try to do a mock staff meeting where you pretend to be the UX engineer describing this behavior as though it were 2007 and you making a pitch to the dev team.  Yeah.  They’d shit-can you in the first 20 seconds.

So, here’s to hoping they address these little annoyances.  However, do NOT assume that I’m in any way “anti-Windows 7”, but I’m not.  I love the product from inside to outside.  But there are small things that could be improved, especially when we’re talking about a MAJOR release (not a .1 minor release).  I personally cannot wait to get my hands on the first test copy of Windows 8 once the new metro UI is fully bolted on, spit-shined and ready.