Apparently someone on the Windows Development Team REALLY likes the new Libraries feature.

Personally that was the first thing I ran into and really disliked.  I do like it as a feature but they over-did it in Windows 7.  One of my previous complaints regarding Vista was that they introduced a lot of new features that were counter intuitive when compared side by side to previous versions of Windows.  An example of this would be the “My Documents” directory in Windows XP.  When you open My Documents you then had folders for Pictures and Videos.  Then with Windows Vista it was now the User directory which then contained Contacts, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Favorites, Links, Music, Pictures, Saved Games, Searches and finally Videos.

Now with Windows 7 they have complicated it yet further by adding Libraries.  You still get the same 11 directories that Windows Vista has but now you get an even more complicated method to navigate them.

The way that Libraries work is that instead of having a single user directory to keep your files in you have a “Library” in it with folders to monitor.  You can add a directory to monitor into this Library and then view multiple folders contents at the same time.  The idea is very good but I think for it to gain acceptance they need to make it more customizable.  For example disable the feature all-together.

The reason I dislike it is that I know where I store things.  I have always created a directory for downloads and other types of documents and then keep them very organized.  The forcing of libraries on users is very frustrating to me especially when  it comes to pinning things to the taskbar.

  1. Drag any folder to to the taskbar to pin it.  This can be things such as “Computer”  or another folder you would like access to.
  2. An icon is then pinned to the taskbar for you.
  3. Click it to open it… And it opens to the Libraries folder.
  4. Instead of left-clicking the icon, right click it.
  5. At the top of a very long list of items is the directory you pinned to the taskbar.

My point is basically that they over-did the whole Libraries feature.  While typical beta users won’t complain about it I guarantee that your average non-geek is going to hate that feature and will not even come close to understanding it.

I am sure much of what I am seeing is due to bugs not having been reported (which I will report) but they really need to be careful with adding in too many features and then over-implementing them.