Where Did I Save That File?

I spent the weekend with a friends Vista based laptop, cleaning up the results of a Trojan horse that infected his computer. About every five minutes his browser would open a few dozen sessions trying to go to a web site, s2.truth-is-out-there. The reason for my post isn’t to complain about Vista security and why Defender didn’t detect things like the Trojan “mgrs.exe” found by WinPatrol. I really want to like Vista but I found exploring for various files to be annoying.

A long time ago, Bill Gates talked his vision of making Windows “document centric”. While I didn’t agree with Bill, it was suppose to be the solution to one of the big problems with casual computer users; “Where did I save that file”?

The new Explorer in Vista really hasn’t solved the problem of “Where Did I Save That File”. For the most part, only folder names were changed.
Instead of “Documents and Settings”, Vista has a root folder called “Users”.
Instead of “My Documents”, it’s just “Documents”.
The “My” has been removed from other user folders like Music, Pictures, Downloads and they have been given special placement in the Users folder.
“If” and only if an application developer paid attention to the rules, these changes won’t break their programs

File type extensions continued to be hidden by default. I’m not sure why Microsoft considers a “dot” followed by a semi-descriptive extension so confusing. What I found confusing is trying to find how to change this option so I could see file extensions. Under “Organize”, I finally found “Folder and Search Options”. Using the new Search command line in Vista would be much easier with extensions displayed, instead of just little file type icons.

So far Vista has been taking a lot of heat but most of us reluctant to upgrade have been nice. The only people really evangelizing Vista are the authors of Vista books or those who have something to gain by it. I have the most respect for the online helpers and MVP’s who upgraded to Vista so they could help others in need. Most have learned to like Vista but I don’t hear them encouraging others to upgrade. I really want to be more helpful too, and I really want to like Vista but it ain’t happenin’ yet.