One more reason not to use Vista.....

General Discussions
#1

No GUI interface for modifying file associations!

I came to associate my host of jar packaged tools with their appropriate file types.
e.g.
pngop.jar -> png files.
etc.

Only to find Vista no-longer contains the Tools->Folder Options->File Types menu option, and as far as I can tell it’s functionality hasn’t been replaced or relocated by anything else.
The result being that I have to resort to 3rd party tools, or manually editing the registry to achieve the functionality I need.
Wtf is M$ doing releasing an incomplete product ???

I think I’m going to be rolling back to XP…

#2

How about Shift+ on a file and then choose “open with…”?

Isn’t that still there?

#3

I never used a vista pc, but a post from the first link google: file associations vista contains:

“Just go to Control Panel -> Default Programs -> Associate filetype or protocol with a program”

#4

yup, both of those are present - however neither offers the vital functionality that has been eliminated by the removal of the “File Types” tab.

It is now impossible (without using 3rd party tools, or manually editing the registry) to associate a file extension with a comand-line that uses more than a single parameter.
For example, to associate a file type with a jar packaged java tool, you would associate the extension with the command-line :-

\bin\javaw.exe -jar \someTool.jar “%1” %*

Another ability that has been lost with the removal of the “File Types” tab, is the ability to change or add extra elements to the context sensitive popup menu.

e.g.

Open(default) -> open image in quick-to-load image viewer.
Edit -> open image in heavy-weight editor such as PSP, Gimp, Photoshop etc.
Tweak -> open image in tweakpng
Optimise -> open image in pngop.jar color optimiser.
pngout -> pass image through pngout compression optimiser.

Incase anyone comes across this through a google search, one solution is to use creative element power tools (though the tool itself has a finite evaluation period)

I seriously hope no-one is lumbered with Vista on a new PC; It is an absolute attrocity of software engineering :-

  1. No fullscreen command-prompt - breaks many legacy games that worked fine in XP.
  2. Broken compatability with many early DX games. (the list is huge, effecting games as late as DX7)
  3. No mail client capable of collecting webmail (outlook express has been replaced with windows mail, that by all accounts looks to be the same program, just rebranded with vital functionality removed)
  4. Laughably impractical UAC (User Account Control) security that nags so often that it simply has to be disabled for the OS to be usable. (completely removing all the so called secutiry benefits of Vista)
  5. Broken core functionality when UAC is disabled - try and install a network printer when you have UAC disabled… gives you the error “The specified print monitor is unknown”.
  6. Drag & Drop functionality in the start-menu is STILL bugged?! It has been bugged ever since it was added in Win98 SP2.
    Billions of machines running Windows,
    being used by 100’s of Millions of different users,
    who must click the start menu 100’s of times a day,
    for an entire decade.
    Yet it is still functionally bugged?! HOW!!!
  7. Clunky interface that defaults to wholely useless views :-
    Vista: "Oh you have an .avi in this folder, you obviously want to view the entire folder with HUGE icons, just so you can see a 1 frame thumbnail from a 2 hour movie; and all those standard columns that you normally have?.. I’ll swap those for useless ones such as “Date taken”, “Tags”, and “Rating(out of 5 stars)”

gah,
I can’t be bothered anymore, I bought it with an open mind, I’ve used it for several months, and I am left with only one conclusion - M$ have got it totally wrong - Vista is an absolute pile of shit.

Now… do I go back to XP… to do I go over to Linux…
How is Linux for emulating DX for games? Am I going to have a world of woe trying to get all my Windows only games to work?

#5

Depends. Some games have native Linux binaries (Quake and Unreal series f.e.).

Linux itself doesn’t support Windows applications, it’s a totally different system. However there is “WINE”, a program that loads windows PE files (EXE and DLL) and provides an emulation layer for the Win32 API and DirectX. But these are not 100% identical to Windows (mostly missing features and bugs or undocumented behavior) and DirectX is still largely unimplemented. Also Direct3D performance is a little lower in there because all Direct3D commands are translated to OpenGL (D3D is Windows only).

How Wine supports your games depend on how well the game was coded and how famous it is. Check the WineHQ AppDB for a list with games and applications that Wine users found to work (or not).

#6

I keep hearing good things about Ubuntu, and now Dell are shipping systems with it on for a meagre saving.

Now just need to convince games companies that it’s worth compiling a Linux binary on the CD. How hard can it be?

Cas :slight_smile:

#7

First you have to convince them move away from DirectX.

#8

It is good stuff. The latest release has resolved my last niggle with linux - network configuration. I use a wired network at work and wireless at home, and so was stuck with manually using “sudo ifup” to bring up the wired or wireless networks accordingly. The KNetworkManager included in kubuntu 0704 detects it all automagically, and even recognises that I don’t want a wireless connection when there is a wired one available - which is more than windows does for me.

Also, a JDK is finally only an apt-get away.

#9

Not so hard surely given that DX and GL seem to have been converging for the last few years? Besides, less than 1% of the code will be DX calls…

Cas :slight_smile: