Aero is working ok on my machine, but sometimes (particularly in Word and
Excel, but also other programs) the thumbnail view of the actual screen does
not show up. Instead, only the Icon for the program shows.
If I have, say, 7 windows open, this will only be a problem for, say, 3
windows while the others show fine.
Any idea what is the cause of this and any fixes? Thanks.
My highly technical conclusion is...
Windows is just dumb.
Here's another example for the peanut galley to whine about.
I go to a folder where I have exclusively finished DVD files waiting
to be burned to discs. All are in standard MPEG-2 format. A total of
28 files taking up a little over 18 GB. I have Explorer's view set to
show LARGE icons.
Now watch how utterly stupid Explorer can be. I took out the old
stopwatch. It took Explorer 2 minutes 18 seconds to "refresh" this
folder. Out of the 28 files it was able to actually show a thumbnail
for 15, or just over half. The others only show the MPEG icon.
Now for the smartass crowd, PAY ATTENTION, you may learn something. I
just got done opening each of the 28 files with Media Player being
able to play each. Since any application has to open a file in order
to create a thumbnail, the first question is since Media Player can
play each of these files and according must have found an appropriate
codec, why in the hell can't Explorer open 13 of these files to create
a thumbnail if it can open the same file to actually play the video?
Well like I said, Windows is dumb. Here's proof.
I fire up another viewer called XnView that like Explorer can create
thumbnails on the fly. I go to the same folder. Refresh time is under
a second, way faster then Explorer's 2 minutes and 18 seconds and then
failing to create half of the thumbnails. With XnView I see all 28
thumbnails, and see them instantly, all files again start up and play
correctly.
Now lets go a step further, how DUMB is Explorer really?
You have to ask?
Lets give Explorer a harder test. I added a video file again in MPEG-2
format where I deliberately corrupted the file header. Because of the
file name this file will appear in the sixth position if the sort is
alpha.
Lets see what happens now, well you guessed it. Explorer again needed
to refresh its database of thumbnails and took another couple minutes.
Dumb. It manages to open the first file showing a thumbnail, tries but
fails to create thumbnails for the next two files, opens the next two.
Look out Windows, here comes the corrupt file... what will you do?
You known damn well what Windows will do. It stalls, shortly after it
brings up the all too common Windows Explorer encountered a unknown
problem and needs to close error, do you want to tell Microsoft about
it line of crap. Score as a FAILURE. Windows Explorer lacks basic
intelligence, freaks if it hits a corrupt file, only way out is for it
to crash and burn.
Now lets try again using XnView. Again, no refresh time but, oops,
there seems to be a problem. The first five thumbnails are there but
XnView in now trying to open my test corrupt file. Can it? No. The
seconds are clicking by. A total of 22 seconds. However instead of
crashing guess what happens next? It simply skips over the "corrupt"
file and goes on to make the remaining thumbnails as if nothing
happened. This is SMART software, Igor, it can think, well sort of.
;-)
Now lets have some more fun with Media Player. I open a MPEG-2 file at
random and let it start to play. I click on the repeat button and push
the scrubber almost all the way to the right to see how Media Player
handles it.
Oops... Media Player starts to replay the file, but this time it is
totally distorted and completely unviewable and has turned into a
quivering mass of artifacts and wavey lines. Another Windows failure.
Somebody please explain how any application, even something as dumb as
Media Player can play a file perfectly the first time, then repeat and
totally screw it up. I'm all ears. Somebody tell me.
Will XnView do any better? What do you think? Of course it will. It
played the file repeatedly with problem, I even on the fly could stop
it, reverse it, change the speed, go to slow motion, go faster up to
10x, resize the window is was playing it, whatever I wanted to do.
Why can't Microsoft, the world's largest software developer get its
act together?
