If it aint broke...

[Phalconphixer]

Hi,
Is there any way of restoring the old traditional version of Google Maps / Strret view. Overnight the new 'improved' (NOT) version has taken over. My old bookmark takes me straight to a preview page instead of its normal home position. Cant be doing with these totally unjustified and unnecessary improvements that keep getting foisted on to us by google's geeks with nothing better to do... Just in case its relevant I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit, and Fireox 30..
Thanks

[Bushfiva]

https://support.google.com/maps/answer/3045828?hl=en

[BOAC]

Highly endorsed! Much relieved to find the option a while back.

[Ancient Observer]

Thanks for that link. Initially, I saw an option, but recently I have not seen the option. The ? is something I must remember.



What was I trying to remember??

[Phalconphixer]

Bushfiva... Thank you so much... normal classic version restored!

A.O. What was I trying to remember??

Senior moments? Been having a few of them myself lately!

pp

[Saab Dastard]

You might be interested in the classic shell for Firefox - it's enabled me to get it back to almost the way I like it since 29 came out. If you haven't found it already it's at:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer

Cant be doing with these totally unjustified and unnecessary improvements that keep getting foisted on to us by google's geeks with nothing better to do.
And I agree completely with that as well!

SD

[Phalconphixer]

S.D. Thanks for the link, I'll keep it in mind for if I run into problems. Right now I'm playing 'Quit while you're ahead!?
(I'd actually qualify that statement by saying ... 'because you only think youre ahead!' Wait for the next gotcha!)

pp

[vulcanised]

Another classic example of 'If it ain't broke' is iPlayer.

Until it was 'improved' a couple of weeks ago it provided a useful and efficient menu.

Now, it requires a lot of navigation and multiple clicks to just possibly get to where you want to go. :ugh:

[BEagle]

vulcanised wrote: Another classic example of 'If it ain't broke' is iPlayer.

Not to mention Outlook Express (replaced by that POS Windows Live Mail), Microsoft Photo Editor (replaced by Microsoft Office Picture Manager with less features), the 'improved' version of Photobucket.....etc etc. :ugh:

[ExSp33db1rd]

anybody use Yahoo! mail ? or is it just our local version - that is allied to our Telecom ISP - that has changed within the last hour ( Sunday morning 15th June, UK time )

It now looks a bit like Gmail, with "threads" of "conversations".

WTF can't "they" leave things ALONE

[Booglebox]

replaced by Microsoft Office Picture Manager with less features

Which was, itself, removed entirely from Office 2013. :mad:

[BEagle]

Booglebox, why does Microsoft do that sort of thing - surely they know that it'll just make people despise them even more than they already do after the disasters of WinME, Vista and Win8?

I was able to download a copy of Windows Photo Editor about 3 years ago; however, I still have an earlier version of Office for a different computer, (Office XP), so perhaps I can extract it from that?

I don't know whether Windows Photo Editor is still available from a reliable on-line source which doesn't try to install some add-on rubbish as well?

[mad_jock]

http://www.gimp.org/

Try that BEagle.

more than likely a bit more than you want but is free and works a treat.

[Booglebox]

BEagle, the "why" is rather boring, and has to do with corporate politics inside MS.
The short version is, after W7 was released, the iPad came out and MS feared the death of desktop computing (x86 programs, keyboard+mouse), so they hired some consultants to make Windows "cool" again. The consultants told them to make one version for tablets and desktops, so that MS could have their cake and eat it, by maintaining compatibility / existing monopoly on the desktop with regular programs, and simultaneously building a walled-garden mobile "app" ecosystem a la Apple. The OS would be usable on both categories of device.
The consultants told them to also radically change the design, so they took the one from the first version of Windows Phone, which is why Windows went from Vista / 7 era shiny stuff & gradients to "flat" and square corners, in every product. This effort pervaded, as it still does, every corner of MS; from servers, to Visual Studio, to Office, to online services - even the relatively obscure Dynamics Nav got the flat design treatment with 2013 R2 release a few months ago.
The Windows 8 project was led by a nutcase called Sinofsky, who pushed such things as the absence of a start button even for devices with no touchscreen, and so on.
Then, a couple of months after 8 was released, Sinofsky got booted out and the damage control started. About a year before he left, Ballmer started a gigantic reorganisation of the whole company, which is still progressing. Realising that they had another Vista on their hands (swallowed by consumers because they have no choice, but shunned by business) the board of MS forced the very visible backpedal that was the reintroduction of the Start button with 8.1. Update 1 added right-click shutdown menu and power button on the Start screen. In 2015, Windows "Threshold" (9?) will bring back an actual Start menu for desktop users. Essentially, the product is slowly becoming more adapted for conventional desktop devices i.e. something without a touchscreen.
Office fell prey to this too. I don't use W8 (having tried it briefly) but I do use Office 2013, and once you disable the unneeded rubbish such as the "Start experience" (screen full of templates when you launch a program, instead of going to a new blank document as before), apply the dark grey colourscheme, and apply various settings in Outlook, there are actually some good improvements, in both usability and performance, especially in Outlook which I use heavily.
Windows Server also has the Metro treatment but this doesn't matter (everything apart from terminal or application servers should be Core anyway!) and there have been fantastic developments here. Amongst other things (e.g. network adapter teaming), 2012 R2 Hyper-V is utterly brilliant - Generation 2 VMs are a godsend. SQL 2012 is rock-solid and, with the glaring exception of Exchange (SP1 came out in February, ~16 months after release, and it is finally ready for use - this should have been the RTM version!), the other products in the Server area are pretty good, e.g. SharePoint and particularly Lync.
So, it's not all bad.

That was not as brief as I intended… To answer your original question, I suggest you download an ISO of an old version of Office e.g. XP (reassure yourself with MD5 hashes as you wish), or buy one from eBay. I quite like Picture Manager though. You may also wish to consider paint.net, Windows Live Photo Gallery, and MS Paint in W7 or newer. :cool:

[BEagle]

Booglebox, thanks very much for the insight into the absurd politics at Microsoft! Did no-one say "Tell you what, why don't we consult our customers?"......:*

I do have an old, fully legal copy of Office XP which was installed on one of my old computers. Is there a legal way of installing just 'Photo Editor' onto a Win7 computer running Office 2007?

mad_jock, thanks but I'm after Photo Editor, not Gimp or Irfanview etc.

[Booglebox]

BEagle, you're welcome. I guess not, but actually the customer is not always right:

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses

Apple are quite good at pre-empting customers. Remember people thinking the iPad was pointless and just a big iPod Touch?... :E
MS seem to have got it quite badly wrong, though...

I imagine it will be quite difficult to copy over Photo Editor from one machine to another. I suppose it relies on various DLLs, frameworks, dependencies etc. which don't exist unless you install it, using an installation file / setup CD, which can easily be found online.
Once you have setup media, installing only Photo Editor is quite easy.

(disclaimer: Photo Editor is EOL, won't get patches, possible attack vector, blah blah)