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One thing I am continually annoyed with when working with the Visual Studio test framework is that, when a test fails, I have to look at the error to figure out what line of code in my test method caused the problem, then separately find that class, browse to the line, and figure out what's going on. This isn't how we do our development, so why is it how we do our unit test development? I know this was a v1 release -- although I hate that excuse -- but I hope we'll see some significant improvements in Orcas.
Edit: Looks like this was reported on VS 2005 beta 2  and ultimately closed with a claim that it was added to the RTM release. Obviously, it wasn't, so I added another suggestion . We'll see what they say.
Edit: According to the folks at Microsoft Connect, this will be in VS08. I look forward to it!
I like my taskbar to have as few items as possible. Honestly, I like my notification tray to be minimal, too, but that seems to be getting worse and worse. With that in mind, I have to say I like apps that make judiscious use of both of these areas. Outlook doesn't really do a good job of that. At times, there will be 3 items -- the main taskbar item and 2 notification icons. I'd like to see the ability to minimize Outlook to the notification tray. I tend to have a lot of different apps open, so if I can minimize what's on my taskbar, I'm happy.
Released in Outlook 2003
I absolutely hate the Today screen in Windows Live Mail. I'm sure some might use it, but I don't. I go to mail to do exactly that... look at mail. Why are you wasting my time with this blank screen? Sure, I know that it can do some nice social networking stuff with your contacts, but I think I'll pass. Give me the option to just look at my mail. That's all I want... well, and a million dollars, of course.
Edit: I just submitted this via the public WL Feedback mechanism.
Edit: This is now an option in the latest internal version of WL Hotmail! THANK YOU!!! I believe this will be out in Fall 2007, but I haven't seen any absolute dates.
Here's one that should affect everyone who's had to work around email. In probably every company that relies on email, you'll see email sent out to the masses -- whether it's 5 or 500,000 people isn't the issue. Every once in a while, you'll get someone who decides to Reply All and say something that you will most likely not care about. Then, in what seems to be a snowball effect, others start doing the same. Then, you start getting the people who are just as annoyed with the junk email as you are and Reply All with a message of "Unsubscribe" or something similar to mark their disinterest and others' disrespect of their email inbox. The problem just gets worse from there. I think I speak for everyone when I say that there has got to be a work-around to this... besides weeding out the idiots.
One other scenario where I think the Reply All comes into play, but not necessarily as drastic of an annoyance, is when you BCC someone. As I'm sure you know, when you BCC someone on an email, those who receive the email don't know you sent it to the BCC'er(s), yet they still have the ability to Reply All. This can raise tensions, depending on the context. So, obviously, limiting the Reply All feature here would also be a good thing.
Basically, I'm thinking that Outlook needs an option to specify when the Reply All feature is available. This option alone could save a lot of pain. Obviously, someone can still do a manual Reply All, but that would help ensure that the user truly wants to reply to everyone, instead of not realizing who they're sending the reply to (namely, senior execs who you're not on a first name, fart joke basis with). I'd hate for there to be a dialog box that asks if a user is sure they want to Reply All, because I know a lot of people hate dialog boxes. But something does need to change.
The BCC scenario actually has 2 parts, in my mind. First and foremost, the receiver needs to know that they have been BCC'ed. If they don't know, then they are more likely to Reply All. Obviously, the second part is the actual Reply All. Perhaps a Fwd to All option might be used in the BCC scenario to signify that this person is a masked part of the conversation; however, that could still cause the same issues. My hopes for that would be that seeing the different text on the button would make the user realize what they're doing.
Honestly, tho, I think that any effort made to hide the capability would eventually come down to the user getting an option whether or not they want to Reply All or at least whether to respect the sender's choice to show/hide the feature. This is somewhat like the option to be notified when someone reads your email. I believe this was automatic in Outlook 2000; however, in Outlook 2002, the user received an option as to whether to send that notification back or not. Personally, I like that. I'm assuming any attempt to limit Reply All would come down to the same decision. Even so, at least that's something!
Edit: Outstanding news... this is already in Outlook 2007. The feature may be in earlier versions, but I'm not sure. In Outlook 2007, when you're creating a new message, click the Office button (Alt+F) and, under Permission submenu, check the Do Not Reply All option. It's a beautiful thing.
I'm not sure if this one is a bug or a feature change. I'd like to think it's the former because it's very annoying, but who knows. I'm running Vista RC1 (build 5600), so we'll see when RC2 (or whatever the next publicized build is) comes out.
Here's the synopsis: When browsing directories in Windows Explorer, if you press the Back button, the first directory is selected instead of the one you were last on. This can be rather annoying if you're used to traversing directories with the arrow keys. For instance, let's say you're at the root of the C: drive. You arrow down to the C:\Users directory and press Enter. Now, press Alt+Left (or click the Back button). The first thing you'll notice is that the C:\Users directory is still highlighted, as you would expect; however, if you press the down arrow, you'll notice that focus is moved to the second directory, instead of the one below C:\Users. Maybe it's just me, but this is contrary to how it should work.
Resolved in Windows Vista official release.
Windows Live Search is all about getting search down to its bare essentials. That's exactly why Google was so successful over the years. Users went to the site, got what they wanted, and only what wanted. Their tasks were seemingly streamlined for them. One step of this streamlining process, albeit minor, is auto-focusing on the most used element of the site. Live Search does good, but for some reason, Live Local doesn't. I'd like to see that changed.
Resolved
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