[Did You Know] Ultimate List of Windows 7 Bugs and Goof-ups

Following are some interesting bugs and goof-ups which were accidentally found while beta testing Windows 7 builds. These bugs also exist in final version of Windows 7. You can use following simple steps to recreate those bugs:

BUG 1: Task Manager Maximize Option Bug

Actually its a kind of goof-up and can be found in Windows Vista and Windows 7. To re-create this bug or goof-up, simply follow these simple steps:

Open a dialog box having only Close button in titlebar, for example RUN dialog box. Now open Task Manager by right-click on Taskbar and select “Start Task Manager” option. Now right-click on dialog box entry and select “Maximize” option.

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The bug appears when you click on Maximize option. It totally ruins the GUI of the dialog box and stretches the dialog box to fit the whole screen as shown in following screenshot:

Maximized_Run_Dialog_Box.png

Also since RUN is a dialog box, there should be no Maximize option available for it as you can’t maximize a dialog box.

Funny! Isn’t it?

Check out following article for full details about this bug:

[Fun Tip] Maximize Windows or Dialog Box When Maximize Button is Disabled

You can also watch this bug live in action in following exclusive video:

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BUG 2: User Picture Disappears from Start Menu after Resizing Taskbar

1. Unlock the taskbar by right-click on the taskbar and uncheck “Lock the taskbar” option.

2. Now resize the taskbar and drag it to the maximum height. Now click on Start Menu and user picture will disappear from the Start Menu.

3. That’s OK. Since there is not much space available on the screen, that’s why Windows doesn’t show the user picture. But now resize the taskbar again and set it to normal height.

Now the bug appears, Windows still doesn’t show the user picture in Start Menu even though we have restored the taskbar height:

User_Picture_Removed_Start_Menu

4. To restore the user picture, you’ll need to drag-n-drop the taskbar to left, right or top of the screen and then restore it back on bottom. Now user picture will start showing in Start Menu.

You can watch both above mentioned bugs in action in following video:

BUG 3: Windows 7 Classic Theme Bug

The second bug is related to Classic theme. Its also present in Windows Vista.

To recreate the bug, first change the Windows theme to Classic from Desktop Properties and then follow these steps:

1. Open My Computer and then open any drive. It’ll activate the “Left Arrow” button as well as the drop-down Arrow which is called “Recent Pages“.

Win_7_Classic_Theme_Bug_2.png

2. Look carefully at the screenshot. The buttons and their background image both are misplaced. Either the background image should be moved to right by a few pixels or the buttons should be moved to left by a few pixels to fix their positions.

3. Anyway its not a big deal. Now hover your mouse cursor over the drop-down arrow and you’ll see following:

Win_7_Classic_Theme_Bug_1.png

The background image and the drop-down Arrow both are moved again to the left by a few pixels upon hovering the cursor over the arrow. Which makes the situation worst.

4. Now click on the drop-down arrow and amazing, the whole background image will disappear:

Win_7_Classic_Theme_Bug_3.png

NOTE: This bug has been in fixed in SP1 for Windows 7.

BUG 4: User Picture Disappears from Start Menu

1. Click on Start ORB (Start button) and make sure that Start Menu contains at least one program shortcut in left side pane which is expandable (look at the small black arrow).

2. Now expand the program shortcut by clicking on the arrow or by hovering the mouse cursor over it.

3. Once the Tasks list is shown, hover your mouse cursor on any other program shortcut so that the Tasks list gets disappeared.

4. Now the bug will appear. The user picture will disappear from the top of start menu. Even if you hover your cursor over any item present in right-side pane, the user pic will not appear.

If you exit from start menu and re-open it, the user pic will appear again.

NOTE: This bug has been in fixed in SP1 for Windows 7.

BUG 5: Items Reappear After Deleting From Navigation Pane in Windows Explorer

1. Open Windows Explorer and try to delete an item (Libraries or Homegroup) from Navigation pane. Right-click on the item and select “Delete“.

2. It’ll show following message:

Message_while_deleting_item_in_nav_.png

3. Click on “Yes” button and the item will be removed from Navigation pane.

4. Now exit Windows Explorer and re-open it and voilla, the deleted item will reappear in the navigation pane.

So what’s the point of deleting an item if it reappears in the list?

Bug:

1. If we delete an item successfully, then why does it reappear in the list?

2. Try to delete “Computer” from navigation pane, you’ll get the same message but it’ll not be removed but if you had Computer icon on Desktop, it’ll be removed.

Goof-up:

Why the deletion message says that “Are you sure you want to delete the icon from Desktop?“. Are we deleting icon from Desktop? NO, we are deleting from navigation pane.

It seems Navigation pane in Windows Explorer takes the data from Desktop, that’s why the message asks to delete the icon from Desktop.

BUG 6: Notepad Statusbar Bug

This bug is present in almost all Windows versions including Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7, 8 and Windows 8.1.

Notepad_Bug.png

Check out following article to read more about this bug:

Notepad Statusbar Bug Found in All Windows Versions

BUG 7: Taskbar Context Menu Bug

This bug was found in Windows 8 but later we noticed that its also present in Windows 7. This bug causes the Taskbar context menu to appear behind the Taskbar.

Windows_8_Taskbar_Context_Menu_Bug.png

Visit following topic to read the steps to recreate the bug:

Windows 7 and Windows 8 Taskbar Context Menu Bug

Another similar bug:

[Bug] Taskbar Context Menu wonโ€™t Close in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1

PS: There are a few more bugs which are also present in Windows Vista. You can take a look at them in following article:

[Did You Know] Ultimate List of Windows Vista Facts, Bugs and Goof-ups

That’s all for now guys! Please try to re-create the bugs and let us know your feedback in your comment. If you know any other annoying bug or goof-up in Windows 7, feel free to share with us in your comment…

Published in: Windows 7

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

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  1. phew! still quite a list.

    tried an interesting bug i know of during xp realm and it still is surviving up until windows 7 (dont know about windos 8 yet)

    that’s by creating a new folder and name it as “con” (without quotes). it wont allow you to do so and will give you and will give you an error msg “the specified device name is invalid”

    that you will start having a double look if you are naming the new folder or renaming one of your drives ๐Ÿ˜›

  2. Hi,
    I also find one issue in windows 7
    steps:
    1.lock computer.
    2. to unlock you have to provide user id and password, don’t provide any user id and password just press enter.
    3. u see error userid/password is incorrect.
    4.”Now Bug is here” when u press enter and it returns u to the base screen u find focus is on the password field but u haven’t provided user id and it ask for password. hahaha

  3. Possible Windows 7 Bug:

    I turned on the guest account on my Windows 7 Home Premium laptop and tried unsuccessfully to deny the account permission to see a personal folder on the c drive. After I switched users to go back to my own account I noticed the Control Panel would not maximize – I could see it on the task bar, and see the mini-view when I hovered over it, but that’s it. The only way I could get to the control panel was by opening Explorer and navigating to it.

    The next day when I turned on the PC it worked ok. Then I turned off Guest account and created a new user account, this time successfully restricting access to a personal folder i have on the c drive. This time when i switched users back to my account, it’s not the Control Panel that’s acting up but it’s Explorer itself! This time the only way to navigate to find files is by opening the control panel and then utilizing the browser address bar at the top to go on the c drive when i want to go.

    The same problem occurs no matter how i try to open Explorer: from the task bar, start menu, programs list, or clicking on a folder shortcut on my desktop.

    Attempted solutions: re-start, Malware Bytes FULL scan, Check Disk, Scan Disk.

    Any suggestions anyone?

    thanks!

    Robert

  4. possible bug:
    set a shutdown sound that is longer then 9 seconds. make sure no apps are open.
    logoff, and windows will show the Force Logoff thing. in the list is Windows Explorer.

  5. My startup and shutdowns are from win nt 4. Such a shame that the Shutdown is actually the startup played backwards ๐Ÿ™

  6. Hey! Ash,that password prompt without asking id is for the default user I.e. ADMINISTRATOR.Got it ??

  7. On Windows7 64bit SP1, Classic Theme, medium fonts (125%),
    the Alt+Tab dialog has redraw issues: the selection rectangle overlaps the selected icon, and when it moves to another icon, the part it covered isn’t redrawn.

    Example on nomadcoding.com/alt_tab_popup.jpg

    Giulio

  8. It is suggested as having been fixed, but the missing user picture from startmenu bug is still present on my up to date 32-bit win7.

  9. I found another bug in windows 7 classic theme,when u start your computer the word start in start button is surrounded by a dotted box,same thing occurs when you click start button.

  10. I cant but I will explain it again.
    1. put taskbar anywhere but top.
    2. right click and lock it
    3. right click jumplist on any program.
    4. now try dragging taskbar.
    5 it will move to the top

  11. About the “bug” that ace2788 was describing about naming a folder con, you will get the same thing if you try to name a folder aux, prn, lpt1, lpt2, lpt3… The thing is these are device names going all the way back to the days of DOS, so strictly speaking it is not a bug.

  12. I have noticed that when I delete a user account in Windows 7 that the account is successfully deleted, but Windows then claims it couldn’t be deleted because the user in question supposedly still was logged on.

    Another bug, in previous Windows versions (that is XP and 9x, for example) you could delete the “My Documents” folder or its subfolders. These would simply be recreated upon the next logon and Explorer would continue working. When I was too enthusiastic about cleaning my user profile in Windows 7, Explorer would fail when attempting to open ANY folder on the system. After several seconds a cryptic message about a “server” would appear. Manually recreating the folders didn’t work. Not even deleting the user profile would work. I had to completely remove my user account and recreate it from the ground up.

  13. To many icons on desktop can hang the explorer (win 7 ultimate).
    Steps:
    – place 256 or more icons (files, folders.. probably any items) on the desktop
    – change desktop resolution (to higher, or lower)
    – explorer may hang right after that (hangs most of the times)
    To fix close and restart explorer process.

  14. Taskmgr maximize “bug”: Process Explorer does that too. I think it’s not really a bug but rather something by design.
    Of course with ProcExp it’s harder to select the actual RUN window, so it happens with other dialog boxes.
    Windows 8.1: The same limitations of not being able to directly select the RUN box in taskmgr, still happens in other things.
    The 256-icon hang: Whoa, how many users are actually going to put that many? At least in my res (1280×1024) you can’t even have more than about 130 something something visible!
    Peter: Vista+ problem. You were experiencing undocumented behaviour, which changed. You could still use a live version of any operating system to recreate the folders.
    kitten s: make any other app do a shutdown behaviour that long. It will appear. It’s by design.
    Robert: Administrative CMD. In there sfc/scannow. Also please tell us what folders did you restrict?
    The con/com1/lpt1/prn/… oddity is present in all versions of Windows. In DOS they actually had a real meaning ๐Ÿ™‚ In Windows only CON is still important.

  15. I found two bugs in Windows 7.
    1. Click start button so that the start menu comes up.
    2. Right-click on start button so that context menu come up.
    3. Context menu shows up behind start button.
    4. When you click anywhere else, the context menu disappears, but the start button is stuck on hover state.
    5. Move mouse over start button to make the bugs disappear.

  16. this bug is still present in windows 8 (may be in all versions of windows, like vista or 7)
    when there are too many items in context menu and became larger than the screen it shows a tiny arrow on top and bottom of the menu to navigate the items but when your taskbar is not on the bottom of screen ie top, left, right side of desktop the context menu goes off screen at bottom and you cannot select some items with your mouse because its outside of the screen.

  17. windows 7 keeps doing a blue screen of death repeatedly! is there a bug in windows 7 that is causing this? because everything has been checked in this computer that can be checked.

  18. How do you remove live cursor mark on word documents that are going to sent to teacher for grading? It appears at beginning of documents and is live unless I lock it as final and read only? Never had it before, but had a new program installed that is allowing it only in editing mode… Had program removed but still have live cursor in all old and new documents. Thanks…..

  19. Something I still consider a bug in Windows Explorer: When you copy a big file, and you copy it to an existing file, Windows Explorer will see if you have enough space on that disk, to copy the file your want to copy. But, it is totally ignoring the current size of the file you are wanting to overwrite. Example: you want to copy a 5 Gig file from somewhere on D: to somewhere on C: – You have 1 Gig left on C: But, the file already exists on the location in C: where you want to copy. It doesn’t matter the content is exactly the same, or similar, but the size does matter, let’s say it’s about the same size. Windows Explorer will now say : I don’t have enough place to copy, because I have 1 Gig, and the file to copy is 5 Gig, which is more.

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