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All About the New Taskbar in Windows 7

When you dive into Windows 7, one of the first new features you will notice is the brand new Windows 7 taskbar. Y’know that strip across the bottom of your screen that contains the Start Button and any applications that are open? Well it’s been completely, drastically rebuilt in terms of both appearance and functionality. It looks totally different, and works nothing like what you’re used to in older versions of the operating system.

That sounds frightening

Actually, it’s exciting! The new Windows 7 taskbar is a great enhancement to Windows — it borrows ideas from Mac OS X’s Dock, combines functionality from the old taskbar and Quick Launch bar, and puts all that together into a drastically different yet intelligent and functionally simple tool for managing applications and windows.

Pinning applications to the Windows 7 taskbar

With the old taskbar, the user would launch applications from the Start button or Quick Launch bar at which time buttons for each running app would appear in the taskbar. You could then use those buttons to manage your windows.

The new Windows 7 taskbar combines window management and the launching of applications into one simplified interface. Icons for running applications appear in the Win 7 taskbar with a border around the graphic. You may think this simply means that we’ve switched from rectangular buttons to square icons, but that’s not where things end. In addition to icons for running apps, any other application can be “pinned” to the Windows 7 taskbar. Its icon will stay put whether or not the app is running. When you launch an app, its icon will be highlighted with a border to differentiate it from other icons for dormant applications.

Screenshot of application icons in the new Windows 7 taskbar

In the screenshot above, you can clearly see these taskbar enhancements at work. The icons for Firefox, iTunes and MS Paint are all surrounded by a border since they’ve been launched. The other icons such as those for XBMC and Picasa do not have borders — they’ve been pinned to the taskbar and stay in place, waiting for me to launch them with a single click.

Peeking at running applications

When your mouse hovers over the icon of a running application in the Windows 7 taskbar, you will see a small thumbnail preview appear. You can close applications from their preview, interact with them, and peek at them — peeking makes every other window go transparent except the one at which you are peeking.

Screenshot of peeking at an application in the Windows 7 taskbar

In this screenshot, you can see how “peeking” works. Why is Firefox open? What did I last do in that application? I hover my mouse over the Firefox icon and the little preview appears, letting me know that, oh yes, I was watching an episode of House on Hulu.

Familiar taskbar elements

The Windows 7 taskbar contains the familiar system tray, clock and notification area on the far right side. The system tray has been minimized and shows only a few icons unless you elect to see more. Notifications — like those little yellow bubbles in XP — appear in a small message window. You can customize how these behave and choose to hide notifications from specific applications.

We think you’ll like it

The new Windows 7 taskbar brings significant change to the way in which users launch applications and manage windows — and we think you’ll like it. It may sound as if the new taskbar has gotten more complicated, but in reality it is a compact, sophisticated tool that is simple to use. Once you learn the ins and outs of Windows 7’s new taskbar you may very well find yourself working much more efficiently.

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