Comments missing from the information presented by the network browser
This is not a question as much as it is a statement concerning features removed from the later (later than XP) versions of Windows. I had posted this comment in the Windows 7 Networking forum last month. I didn't get a lot of feed back there so I thought I'd post here as well.
I've just installed Windows 7, in September, for evaluation. I noticed that as with Vista and Windows 2008 the comments column is no longer available in the Network browse list. I'm not sure why this feature has been dropped from newer releases of both the Windows desktop and server platforms in that it is a most useful feature when working in a corporate IT environment where a naming convention, one not containing user name and/or system location, is in place and used to name systems.If you have a naming convention in place which does not include the name of a person to whom a computer may be assigned or location of the system, then trying to find a machine assigned to an individual or by location becomes impossible by using the browse list. If you use a naming convention that does include a user's name or a location then you may find, potentially, that you're constantly changing computer names as people come and go and systems get moved around. It's by far, in my opition anyway, to change the computer's comments field when a system is reassigned. Without the comment field you most certainly would have to keep track of who has which machine assigned to them in something like a spreadsheet.
Some of the concerns we have in adopting these newer Windows systems for use in our corporate environment are issue of compatibility with legacy applications and changes to the environment that makes managing a network that much more difficult. I would suggest that if you want better/faster corporate acceptance of your newer versions of Windows that you keep those of us facing issues created by what you decide to leave out of future releases in mind. I'm really suprised that Microsoft didn't get any feed back about this during initial testing. It seem to me to be a shame that I have to resort to copying code from my old Windows XP systems to my new Windows 7 system just to get back the useful features that were left behind. By the way My Network Places from XP seems to work well running under Windows 7.
I don’t normally spend much time posting in system related forums. However I don’t know how else to try and make a point. A point that I hope makes its way to a concerned developer/decision maker at Microsoft.
For what it's worth...
All Replies
- Hi,
Well, I have to start out by saying that you probably won't get a lot of discussion here around this, because this forum is really geared towards IT Manager topics and discussion. However, as a bigger-picture topic, and without understanding the details of your particular needs, I do have sympathy for your situation. Any time we have functionality that we find useful, no matter how rare we may be in the functionality we're using, it hurts when that capability changes or even goes away in a newer version. Yours is not the story I've heard like this.
I'm not affiliated with any product development groups at Microsoft, but as someone who's been with Microsoft 6 years as an IT Evangelist, and about the same amount of time prior to that as an IT Manager and IT worker (and even more years prior as a Software Engineer), I know that sometimes decisions like this are made based on one or more typical reasons:
1. the functionality was not used widely enough to justify carrying it and supporting it going forward
2. the functionality was replaced by another capability that works sufficiently for the vast majority of users who would use it
3. the functionality was broken in some way
4. the functionality caused, contributed to, or could be used in some breech of security
What do the rest of you think? Do any of you have to make these kinds of decisions for products you support and upgrade? What do you want to see Microsoft do in future around this? (Again - I'm personally not going to have much pull in any particular circumstance - but if this generates enough in the way of a good, constructive discussion, I'll certainly forward it to the appropriate program managers.)
Thanks,
Kevin
Kevin Remde US IT Evangelism - Microsoft Corporation http://blogs.technet.com/kevinremde
