Where Vista > 7

While fixing a Vista machine for a customer, I found two forgotten areas where Vista got it right, but Windows 7 did not:

Wireless passkeys:

With Vista, you have the following choices:

1. Save the password
2. Connect Automatically

You can choose both, either or neither. With 7, you either have to connect automatically or not. If you don't connect automatically in 7, you can't save the password.

Power settings:

With Vista, it allows you to select from the following power settings upon clicking on the system tray icon:

1. Balanced
2. Power Saver
3. High Performance

In 7, it only shows two: The one you're on and balanced.

I'm curious to hear of any fixes/workarounds folks have employed to address these two issues. Granted, they're kind of petty annoyances, but remain annoyances nonetheless...

Pretty sure all you have to do for the power plan one is click the drop down arrow...

Knufire said:

Pretty sure all you have to do for the power plan one is click the drop down arrow...

Click to expand...

Windows 7:

Power icon>more power options>Down arrow>select>close window

Vista

Power icon>select

Less than half the clicks, no need to open and close a window.

hafa said:

While fixing a Vista machine for a customer, I found two forgotten areas where Vista got it right, but Windows 7 did not:

Wireless passkeys:

With Vista, you have the following choices:

1. Save the password
2. Connect Automatically

You can choose both, either or neither. With 7, you either have to connect automatically or not. If you don't connect automatically in 7, you can't save the password.

Click to expand...

If you mark it as connect automatically first it will create a wireless profile then right-click on the connection, select Properties -> Connection Tab -> UNTICK Connect automatically when this network is in range

That will give you the same results. A bit of a work around - but it saves the password and allows manual connection.

Realee said:

If you mark it as connect automatically first it will create a wireless profile then right-click on the connection, select Properties -> Connection Tab -> UNTICK Connect automatically when this network is in range

That will give you the same results. A bit of a work around - but it saves the password and allows manual connection.

Click to expand...

Nice! Thanks!

hafa said:

Windows 7:

Power icon>more power options>Down arrow>select>close window

Vista

Power icon>select

Less than half the clicks, no need to open and close a window.

Click to expand...

I'd argue that selecting anything but balanced or power saver on any non-benchmark machine is a dumb idea, unless you just like to use more electricity and produce more heat from idle CPU cycles.

petteyg359 said:

I'd argue that selecting anything but balanced or power saver on any non-benchmark machine is a dumb idea, unless you just like to use more electricity and produce more heat from idle CPU cycles.

Click to expand...

You're clearly not a notebook user. I use high performance when creating content and programming (or if I don't want the computer to sleep), balanced when working on battery during meetings and power saver when on long flights. Each respective profile is specifically customized for given scenarios. Nothing "Dumb" about that.