# Windows 7 visual feedback **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834 "2013-01-02T15:40:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834/21 "2013-01-03T03:59:30Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I’ll just have to call that “a matter of opinion”, because it seems backwards to me. Virtually every physical action you take in the “real world” provides some level of immediate feedback, and that feedback is almost always, at the most basic level, “the thing I expected to happen, _did_ happen”. It’s when you perform an action and _nothing_ happens that you think “something went wrong”. That’s actually rather ironic, given [the underpinnings of your OS of choice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy). Eric Raymond’s “Rule of Silence” is one of the few things Windows used to do correctly. (I say “used to” because more recent versions have proceeded to assume that I’m an idiot. Every Patch Tuesday after I install some updates and reboot, I get a balloon saying “Windows has installed some updates! Isn’t that wonderful?” I _told you to do this_, Windows, why are you bothering me about it? Would you like a prize for doing your job correctly? There’s a reason I’m only in Windows to play games.) ---
**Author:** ![Space\_Vegetable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Space\_Vegetable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Space_Vegetable)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834/22 "2013-01-03T09:45:01Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > If it reassures you any, I’ve been using Windows casually since W95 and I’ve never had a command just not work. Programs have crashed, hard drives have failed, files have become corrupted, but I’ve never saved a file or moved a file or the like and have it just not happen. One way this can happen (in some versions of Windows) is when a background program like an updater takes focus from the foreground program and then exits, leaving no program in the foreground with input focus (or maybe Windows gives the focus to the taskbar or something). Then Windows ignores what you type until you notice your window’s title decoration indicates it’s no longer in the foreground, and you switch back to it. Yes, there’s a continuous visual indication that it’s ignoring what you’re typing, a different colored title bar, but that’s easier to miss than having a specific visual response to every command. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834/23 "2013-01-03T15:30:02Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > That’s actually rather ironic, given [the underpinnings of your OS of choice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy). Eric Raymond’s “Rule of Silence” is one of the few things Windows used to do correctly In the case of this feature, I guess legacy Mac OS behavior — menu flashing was around for many years before the switch to OS X — trumped “UNIX Philosphy”. It occurs to me that on PCs of the past, at least with the “Save” command, you had the feedback of seeing that green light flashing on the front of the case and you could hear the hard drive grinding. My laptop, OTOH, has ho hard drive light and the HD itself is nearly silent. > [@Space\_Vegetable](#): > > Yes, there’s a continuous visual indication that it’s ignoring what you’re typing, a different colored title bar, but that’s easier to miss than having a specific visual response to every command. This is actually worse with Windows 7’s (and Vista’s, IIRC) “Aero” UI. Back in Win 95-98, an active window had a blue (or whatever color you’d chosen) title bar and an inactive, “background” window had a gray title bar. (and in XP, didn’t the whole window frame go from blue to gray?) It was obvious. The current window title bars don’t change color in the foreground/background, there’s just a subtle change in the 3D texturing of the window. Not nearly as obvious. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834/24 "2013-01-03T16:07:38Z")
Here’s why I like the Mac’s visual feedback: Say I’m using a program that has co-opted the standard keyboard menu shortcuts, so it uses cmd-D for something other than _duplicate_. If I forget the correct duplicate command, and press cmd-D, I can see the menu title that flashed, so I have some hope of figuring out what command I actually invoked… ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834/25 "2013-01-03T16:46:49Z")
> [@Space\_Vegetable](#): > > One way this can happen (in some versions of Windows) is when a background program like an updater takes focus from the foreground program and then exits, leaving no program in the foreground with input focus (or maybe Windows gives the focus to the taskbar or something). > > Then Windows ignores what you type until you notice your window’s title decoration indicates it’s no longer in the foreground, and you switch back to it. > > Yes, there’s a continuous visual indication that it’s ignoring what you’re typing, a different colored title bar, but that’s easier to miss than having a specific visual response to every command. Well, there is also usually the fact that that the menu or dialog box that you are trying to use does not close (or open), or that the text you are typing does not appear at the insertion point (and there is no cursor there). I am baffled as to why people think these do not constitute visual feedback, and want to see something flash as well. And, even in Notepad I am pretty sure, if you have the system sounds turned on, Windows does give you audible feedback - some sort of ping or pop or whatever - when you do something. Personally, though, one of the first things I do on a new Windowns system is to turn these unnecessary and, I find, annoying sounds off. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834/26 "2013-01-03T18:05:00Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Here’s why I like the Mac’s visual feedback: > Say I’m using a program that has co-opted the standard keyboard menu shortcuts, so it uses cmd-D for something other than _duplicate_. If I forget the correct duplicate command, and press cmd-D, I can see the menu title that flashed, so I have some hope of figuring out what command I actually invoked… So, I just had this happen to me this morning. I was in _Mail_, and I pressed cmd-1 by accident (I meant to press cmd-I, to italicize a word). The view changed abruptly, and i wondered what the hell cmd-1 actually did, so I looked under the menu that flashed, and it turns out that cmd-1 is “Go to inbox.” ---
**Author:** ![Space\_Vegetable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Space\_Vegetable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Space_Vegetable)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834/27 "2013-01-03T20:33:45Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well, there is also usually the fact that that the menu or dialog box that you are trying to use does not close (or open), or that the text you are typing does not appear at the insertion point (and there is no cursor there). The issue comes up with those commands that don’t do anything visually obvious like that, such as Edit/Copy or File/Save. > [@njtt](#): > > And, even in Notepad I am pretty sure, if you have the system sounds turned on, Windows does give you audible feedback - some sort of ping or pop or whatever - when you do something. It’s possible to configure Windows to play a sound when you use a menu command (can’t remember if it’s on by default), but this doesn’t apply when you use a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl-S or Ctrl-C. So this only helps in the case where Windows already provides visual feedback: when you save a file using Alt-F S or copy using Alt-E C. I don’t think Windows has an option to play a sound in the cases where it lacks any visual feedback (though I haven’t checked Windows 7 specifically). > [@BorgHunter](#): > > Eric Raymond’s “Rule of Silence” is one of the few things Windows used to do correctly. I think you’re misapplying this rule when it comes to Windows commands like Ctrl-S or Ctrl-C. The Unix Rule of Silence was for a command-line environment. There was no need for a program to tell you it had finished copying files, because the shell would prompt you for another command to indicate that the previous command was done. Note that Unix would provide a visual response in this environment to virtually every key you pressed. Press Enter to run the command you just typed, and the cursor would move to show you the command had started, and you’d see another shell prompt when it finished successfully. Likewise, Unix text editors typically display messages when they save files or copy text. Contrast that to Windows, where some key sequences do things but display no feedback. I agree that there should be a setting in Windows to suppress its notices about installing updates. On the other hand, Unix-style systems commonly display lots and lots of messages when you boot them, so complaining when Windows does the same, by saying it should be more like Unix, doesn’t really work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-visual-feedback/645834.md?page=1)