Windows 10: Windows 10 Wishlist?

I don't even have weather in calendar...

 

Mail:

- See THIS LINK to save me typing it again (although some items may have been updated since).


Edge:

- The ability to automatically switch to new tabs when you open them in Edge. Like the "Always switch to new tabs when they are created" option that was in Internet Explorer. More details HERE:

- The ability to create Desktop shortcuts to webpages. Although Edge has 'Favourites' and 'Reading Lists', it's not the same. When I'm researching I prefer using the Desktop as a temporary workspace to keep numerous shortcuts to various websites that I will need to keep jumping between short term, or re-visit again in the near future. 'Reading Lists' are maybe OK for a few links, but when you're dealing with lots of links that are continuously being created/deleted, organised in a certain way, etc. it doesn't scale in the same way that temporary folders on the desktop can. Also, quite often I will save shortcuts that I only use very rarely (that don't warrant being permanently saved in browser Favourites) in a folder on my local machine. Manually creating desktop shortcuts is a PITA, especially when you're continuously creating/deleting lots of shortcuts.

- The ability to select text, right-click and search with the default search engine that you have set for the address bar search, not just 'Bing Lookup'. Microsoft's own interests shouldn't interfere with my choice of search engine.

- The ability to block ALL popup windows. Turning on 'Block pop-ups' seems to work correctly on PopupTest - test your popup blocker, download free popup blockers for example, but unfortunately in real life usage, websites are still able to launch pop-ups/pop-unders without Edge asking for confirmation. This means unscrupulous websites are able to launch pop-ups to malicious third-party sites just by the user clicking anywhere on the page, and the user is literally in the hands of Smartscreen filter to block the site that pops up. In IE it was possible to set the pop-up blocker to 'High: Block All Pop-ups' and then whitelist any sites that genuinely needed to launch pop-up windows from the pop-up notification. This isn't possible in Edge. Turning on 'Block pop-ups' in Edge should really be the equivalent of 'High: Block All Pop-ups' in IE.

- The ability to see a website's SSL/TLS Certificate by clicking on the padlock in the address bar. This also extends to being able to see a website's SSL/TLS Certificate when you get a certificate warning page. How do they expect people to troubleshoot SSL/TLS Certificate errors (for example when they're being MITM'd) when it's not even possible to see the certificates?

- Although I'm now using Inoreader for RSS feeds (and there's nothing wrong with it, it's really good), I still miss the ability to use RSS feeds natively in the browser on my local machine without needing to use any third-party services. Edge doesn't even tell you whether a website has RSS feeds, unless the website puts a logo in the page itself and even then it will just direct to an XML page because Edge can't parse it. Needless to say, I'm not happy with the blatant attempts by Microsoft, Google, etc. to effectively blackball RSS, when there's nothing else that comes even close to replacing RSS feeds. IMO, the World Wide Web seems to be de-evolving.

- Features on Edge for Desktop should be available in Edge for Windows 10 Mobile too. For example, Extensions and ability to automatically delete browsing history on exit.

- I think the symbols in Edge should have text too (like on Windows Phone) because although minimalist, I don't think hieroglyphics on their own are particularly user friendly. Something along these lines:






Calendar:

- The ability to choose your own reminder time for an event. As it is, if you set a new event in the calendar app, your choices for the reminder jumps from 1 hour before to 12 hours before. If for example you want to set an event to pick someone up from the airport and to remind you 2 hours before, you can't, your choices are 1 hour before or 12 hours before. Outlook.com is a bit better, but is still restrictive compared to being able to set your own times.

- The ability to set an event's reminder time forward in time as well (for all day events). As it is if you have an all day event (such as a friends wedding anniversary), the latest you can set the reminder is for '0 Minutes' before, which is at midnight on the day that the all day event starts, which is obviously not ideal. Being able to set the reminder at 9AM on the day of the event for example, would be more useful than being reminded at midnight.

- As a side note, the default Outlook.com Birthday calendar reminder should be changed from 18 hours before, to maybe 12 or 15 hours before. 18 hours before means phones will wake people up with a birthday reminder at 6AM the day before.

- As the other poster mentioned, users should be able to turn off weather in the calendar, mine shows 29ºC/27ºC tomorrow, even though it's currently around freezing point outside and you can't disable it for the Calendar app, only for the calendar on the website.

- This one is not just for Calendar, but extends to Mail, Calendar & People too. Why is the Outlook.com website more advanced than the local apps? If for example you take the recently introduced feature where Amazon deliveries are automatically added to people's calendars, to change this setting you need to go to the website. For me I'm familiar with the outlook.com site, but I don't think it's particularly user friendly for average users that they have to go to the website to access more advanced settings and features, they should be able to access these settings from the apps.


Photos:

- The ability to turn off automatic creation of photo albums. You clean install Windows, copy 30,000 photos and videos across and the Photos app decides that it is going to sit there in the background going through tens of thousands of photos trying (poorly) to automatically create albums for you. Albums that I have neither asked for, nor want. But you can't stop it, you can't disable it, nothing, which is such an idiotic design decision. Instead, you have to sit there watching your CPU go nuts, the CPU fan turning your computer into a jet engine and notifications constantly pinging up "Hey, we created a new album for you", "Hey, we created a new album for you", "Hey, we created a new album for you". Then you add another batch of photos and again, "Hey, we created a new album for you", "Hey, we created a new album for you". You then delete all the albums that it's automatically creating (painstakingly, one by one) and it just keeps creating more and more of them "Hey, we created a new album for you", "Hey, we created a new album for you"... Uhm, no, just no.

- Maybe a way to filter what photos are shown by incorporating the search box from Windows File Explorer into the Photos app. People's searches/filtering needs obviously vary, but I will quite often use Windows File Explorer for an advanced search query, then open just those photos in the Photos app. As an example, I quite often have three versions of the same photo (Original Image [not always raw], Post-Processed TIFF with layers, and final JPEG), Windows File Explorer search filters allow me to just show the final JPEG's, but obviously Windows File Explorer search is pretty flexible for lots of different uses.

- For Windows 10 Mobile, the ability to use the scroll bar on the right-hand side to go through the list of photos. Trying to get to any photos that are not recent is a nightmare, as 'flicking' your way down is just not practical.


People:

- Sort out 'linked contacts' as it's too confusing. I'd actually prefer to just add Skype details, etc. manually to a field in the People app, rather than mess around with linked contacts. It's a mess, you quite often end up with two Birthday Calendar entries for a contact, the one you filled in yourself in the People app and the incorrect one they added to Skype. Two different names too, so I get a birthday reminder in my calendar for the name they typed into Skype, not the name I myself typed into the People App. Then if I link a Skype contact on Outlook.com, the link breaks in the People app. If I then link them in the People app instead, then the link breaks either on outlook.com or the People app on my phone. Also, if I add a new contact to the People app, it automatically adds it to Skype, despite the contact not being on Skype. It's just a confusing mess.


OneDrive:

- The ability to locally copy files back into the OneDrive folder if you reset/replace a computer, so you don't have to download the whole lot from Microsoft servers again.

Feedback App:

Don't tell people they have to adjust their privacy settings in order to give feedback through the Feedback App. It's up to Microsoft to work with our settings, not the other way round.


File Explorer:

- For about a year now, if you mount a Bitlocker encrypted VHD, it shows both a 'This Drive is Bitlocker Protected' notification (which is correct), but also a 'Location is not Available' error dialogue box. They should really get around to fixing this at some point.

- Sort out all the Start Menu tiles/icons as they're all over the place with no consistency. With some, the tile is a silly colour with a white icon (Edge, Skype, Connect, OneNote, etc.). Others the tile is normal, with a white icon (Calendar, Alarm Clock, etc.). With other software the tile is normal, with a coloured icon. I don't get it, it just looks an inconsistent mess. Particularly the brightly coloured tiles like Edge ones, where I just end up unpinning them. Users should be able to set the colour for the actual tiles, so that they are all the same. Maybe also get rid of the down arrow for the folders too as all they do is make it look untidy.

- The ability to stop Windows automatically recreating User Profile folders that have been deleted every time Windows updates itself. If you delete the Links, Contacts, Saved Games folders from the user profile for example, they just keep coming back again and again, even though they're not used.

- A flexible and comprehensive batch rename utility built into the OS. Obviously there are third-party solutions around, but I think this is something that should be part of the Desktop Operating System. Something similar to the 'Batch Rename' utility in Adobe Bridge:

 

Whelp, I was planning on trying to put together a comprehensive and sorted list but :throwtable:

 

Agreed. *Smile

I use FreeCommander XE when I want to do anything other than very basic file management, because it allows/has:

• Mass renaming
• Twin panes
• Tabs