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Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

devblogs.microsoft.com

61–70 of 311 posts

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just MS. I think they might have fixed it now, but my personal favorite was when Google photos would send me a notification with a preview of an AI generated album of my photos they made for me even though the app did not now, nor ever have permissions (on Android) to look at said photos. And it too would then "catch up" and ask permission to see my files and I'd say "no" and then the preview would go away.

Similar with google docs, if you share a link to a doc, even if the doc is restricted access, anyone can see the thumbnail icon with the contents of page 1.

I swear 70% of my value at work is pointing out details like this during meetings when no one else will… before we build it.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#62
As someone who prefers a solid color background, I’m always surprised by how often this simple preference leads me into bizarre rabbit holes.

Some additional examples beyond the OP:

- In the latest macOS, trying to set a custom solid color background just gives you a blinding white screen (see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256029958?sortBy=rank).

- GNOME removed all UI controls for setting solid color backgrounds, but still technically supports it if you manually set a bunch of config keys — which seem to randomly change between versions (see: https://www.tc3.dev/posts/2021-09-04-gnome-3-solid-color-bac...).

The pattern here seems pretty clear: a half-baked feature kept alive for niche users, rather than either properly supporting or cleanly deprecating it. Personally, I’d love to simply set an RGB value without needing to generate a custom image. But given the state of things, I’d rather have one solid, well-maintained wallpaper system than flaky background color logic that’s barely hanging on.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just MS. I think they might have fixed it now, but my personal favorite was when Google photos would send me a notification with a preview of an AI generated album of my photos they made for me even though the app did not now, nor ever have permissions (on Android) to look at said photos. And it too would then "catch up" and ask permission to see my files and I'd say "no" and then the preview would go away.

Similar with google docs, if you share a link to a doc, even if the doc is restricted access, anyone can see the thumbnail icon with the contents of page 1.

In this particular issue, MS has an opposite problem: you grab a document link, grant a permission to someone, and they still can't access the document through the original link (you need to fetch a new link just for them).

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#64

The code in question reminds me a lot of my favorite Kubernetes bug: if (request.authenticationData) { ok := validate(etc); if (!ok) { return authenticationFailure; } } Turns out the same meme spans decades.

Where can I read about the bug? And what is the bug? If there is no authenticationData it is authenticated by default or what?

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#65

The code in question reminds me a lot of my favorite Kubernetes bug: if (request.authenticationData) { ok := validate(etc); if (!ok) { return authenticationFailure; } } Turns out the same meme spans decades.

The way software is built hasn't changed in decades.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just MS. I think they might have fixed it now, but my personal favorite was when Google photos would send me a notification with a preview of an AI generated album of my photos they made for me even though the app did not now, nor ever have permissions (on Android) to look at said photos. And it too would then "catch up" and ask permission to see my files and I'd say "no" and then the preview would go away.

Similar with google docs, if you share a link to a doc, even if the doc is restricted access, anyone can see the thumbnail icon with the contents of page 1.

Really? That’s very surprising. You can see what this says? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uYM0vyZiDJbo-5mXmU_6Xtrz...

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#67

As someone who prefers a solid color background, I’m always surprised by how often this simple preference leads me into bizarre rabbit holes. Some additional examples beyond the OP: - In the latest macOS, trying to set a custom solid color background just gives you a blinding white screen (see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256029958?sortBy=rank ). - GNOME removed all UI controls for setting solid color backgr…

I recently acquired a ThinkStation P910 dual CPU Xeon E26xx with 64GB RAM and 1080GTX

Quite a capable machine for my uses.

Not supported in Windows 11. Maybe with some additional config? Can’t be bothered with something hat might turn out to be fragile and need more maintenance than I can be bothered with. That’s a young man’s gane.

Ok, I’m about due to give Linux another tickle anyways.

Hmm, which distro… can always give a few a spin.

Keep it simple, Pop!_OS.

Installed fast, no issues, runs fine, stable. Seems entirely usable.

Customisations? Nah, keep it simple.

I’ll set a black background though.

Nope.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#68
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> showing the user environment before the software was fully started. and it has migrated to web apps today - where doing something causes the UI to show a loading/progress wheel, but it takes forever in actuality (or on start up of the webpage, you get a blank screen with placeholder bars/blurred color images etc). And this is the so-called responsive design...

What would you suggest? Is it better to wait until the whole app is loaded to show anything? Or is the only solution to fix loading times in the first place?

> Or is the only solution to fix loading times in the first place?

Ding! Ding! Ding! We got a winner!

Yeah, maybe we could expect machines which got 40 years of Moore's law to give you an experience at least as snappy as what you got on DOS apps.

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#69

As someone who prefers a solid color background, I’m always surprised by how often this simple preference leads me into bizarre rabbit holes. Some additional examples beyond the OP: - In the latest macOS, trying to set a custom solid color background just gives you a blinding white screen (see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256029958?sortBy=rank ). - GNOME removed all UI controls for setting solid color backgr…

[flagged]

Re: Why did Windows 7 log on slower for months if you had a solid color background?

#70

As someone who prefers a solid color background, I’m always surprised by how often this simple preference leads me into bizarre rabbit holes. Some additional examples beyond the OP: - In the latest macOS, trying to set a custom solid color background just gives you a blinding white screen (see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256029958?sortBy=rank ). - GNOME removed all UI controls for setting solid color backgr…

[flagged]

KDE Plasma (on any distro I guess) has clear, easy to reach and easy to use settings for this.
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