OK, the preview thing, that's good. But mac OS X does the preview thing if you are in column view, which is the way X was meant to be navigated. The other views are only there for legacy users and particular workflow needs. So, it's good, but hardly new.
I'd send you a screen shot but my screen shots are all in pdf and I don't feel like spending time converting them into something reasonable for the web. That's a bad thing. I was loving screen shot to PNG, why did Apple lock us into pdf only screen shots?
Anyway, the preview almost makes up for the unintuitive choices. The selection and the choices should make the actual question superfluous. Windows still misses that one. "Jpeg, yes or no ... why yes, that is a jpeg. Wait, what's it asking?"
Next, why do you need confirmation on a completely undoable action?!? That's the point of the trash can, call it whatever PC term you want it's still a trash can. An undoable action needs no confirmation! That's why it's undoable! Windows teaches people to click dialog boxes without looking at them ... or to read reeeeaaaallly fast.
Next, congratulations, M$ has blurred IE and Windows Explorer into one mass, but which slash is the file delimiter? NeYo even messed it up in his reference. Do you know what a tech support nightmare the backslash is? You tell someone to type a slash, and every time you do you have to tell them "no, regular slash, not backslash. The one that's on the same key as the question mark." If Windows wants to improve things, it could move to the slash that everyone else uses and make the internet and Windows a little more unified and tolerable.
In all, kudos to XP for raising the bar. But I still think that improving windows is like trying to carve a gold statue out of horse manure. The problem isn't the size of your chisel, it's the big hunk of crap that you're carving.
As for stealing from Xerox, I have lots of bones to pick about that piece of revisionist history, but in the end, competition improves product, and IP shouldn't be hoarded. I agree with MacLuv, Everybody copy everybody, but let's hurry up and get the suck out. Computers have had too much suck factor for too long! Mine, yours, everybody's. If you don't think your computer has suck factor, just make sure you kept the receipt for your soul.
... I hope that wasn't too raving and maniacal. Those improvements just really rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps I just need the touch of a woman... am I off topic?
