Windows7 Evangelist

At the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference today, Stephen Sinofsky, president of the newly renamed Windows and Windows Live Division, spoke about the process for developing Windows, and pressed developers to use the new features in Windows 7.

Perhaps the biggest cheer came when Sinofsky talked about how Microsoft learned about what it takes to make a PC, and said the company created its own BIOS and software load, and thus created a Windows 7 PDC laptop, which will be handed out to paid attendees of the conference later in the day.

During the keynote, he showed demos of how computer makers were able to make computers faster by not loading so many applications at start up time. Another showed how a system with nVidia’s Ion platform and an Intel Atom processor was cabable of running 1080p video; and how much faster that platform was at transcoding video using the built-in support for hardware acceleration in the Device Stage feature. Yet another demo showed Direct X 11 in gaming and a demo of DirectCompute using an ATI Radeon HD 5000 graphics card running an astronomy demo mostly on the GPU.  Microsoft also showed off a laptop being used as a server, and a variety of sensors built into a Dell Adamo XPS laptop.

Sinofsky pushed the "Ribbon UI" that started in office 2003 and is now part of Windows 7, and showed how it integrated with touch screen PCs. He also spoke about touch-enabled applications, on notebooks, tablets and desktops, and said there were many different technologies used for touch, but Windows abstracts, so it doesn’t matter to developers. Then he described the process that hardware companies go through in developing their hardware and the software loads for Windows.

For developing Windows 7, Sinofsky stressed the importance of having the multiple pre-release versions, and the feedback the company got from developers, and the built-in telemetry features within the product, including the Send Feedback button, the reliability analysis component, software quality monitor, and windows error reporting.

He said that prior to Windows 7 being released, the beta version was installed 8.1 million times, incluing 4.4 million installations of the release candidate, and used in about 900 million sessions. Through the telemetry, Microsoft got 1.7 million "send feedback" reports;  reports on 91,521 unique devices including over 14,000 printers; 883,612 unique applications; and  over 10 million Windows error reports which led to 4753 code changes.

He showed a funny video that suggested that when Microsoft gets an error report, it then can view the actual developer and sting or shock them. More seriously, he showed several videos on tests of user account control, which he said led to the changes in that feature in Windows 7.

PDC 09: Sinofsky Talks About Creating Windows 7 – Forward Thinking by Michael J. Miller

Forget pasting analog sticky-notes to the sides of your monitor. They look terrible there, and they always fall off anyway. Instead, paste digital stickies to your Windows desktop. If you’re a Windows 7 user, it’s a snap: Just run the new Sticky Notes app.

You might recognize it from the ol’ Vista Sidebar. In Windows 7, Microsoft ditched the Sidebar but kept the gadgets, allowing the latter to reside anywhere on your desktop.

To run the app, just click Start, type , and press Enter. You’ll immediately see a new note; just start typing whatever it is you need to remember.

Need another note? Click the plus sign on the first one. Want to delete it? Click the x in the opposite corner. Prefer a different color. Right-click in the body of the note and choose from six options.

Remember that Sticky Notes is an app, so your notes will stay on your desktop only as long as the app is running. If you close it (by right-clicking the taskbar iconand choosing Close window), Sticky Notes will restore your notes the next time your run it.

This is a decidedly barebones program. You can’t change the font size, adjust transparency, or force notes to stay on top of other programs. If you want that kind of functionality, try Stickies for Windows.

Still, Sticky Notes can really come in handy when you need, well, a note that sticks to your desktop.

Create Sticky Notes in Windows 7 – washingtonpost.com

Trojan attacks are likely in the wake of the Windows 7 product activation system cracks developed last week, less than a month after the release of Microsoft’s latest operating system.

The RemoveWAT (and the similar ChewWGA) utility allow a prospective Windows 7 user to bypass the Windows Genuine Advantage registration procedure. Both hacks circumvent product activation without the need to have OEM keys, unlike earlier hacks on pre-release code.

Security firm Sunbelt Software warns that Trojans posing as Win 7 cracks are very likely to follow.

"RemoveWAT and Chew-WGA… join the grimy world of cracks and key-gens – oft-Trojanised applications that defeat activation passwords or other security on legitimate software," writes Sunbelt researcher Tom Kelchner.

"Trojanized versions of RemoveWAT and Chew-WGA soon will be available on websites and file-sharing networks near you. Look for them (or maybe we should say ‘look out for them’)," he added.

The release of the Win 7 cracking tools last week came as little surprise to security watchers.

Richard Kirk, European director at application vulnerability firm Fortify, noted that similar types of cracks arrived shortly after the release of Windows Vista in January 2007, and were solved when Microsoft issued an update. "Similar utilities for Windows XP also started appearing in the summer of 2005, shortly after the Windows Genuine Advantage system was made mandatory in July of that year," he added.

Trojans likely to follow Win 7 activation hack • The Register

Microsoft releases an advisory to help users concerned about a new zero-day vulnerability affecting Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The bug was made public last week after Patch Tuesday.

Microsoft released a security advisory to help users mitigate a bug affecting Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2.

The security vulnerability was reported last week by researcher Laurent Gaffie and can be exploited to remotely trigger a denial-of-service condition in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Gaffie posted proof-of-concept code to the Full Disclosure mailing list and his personal blog last week.

The bug he uncovered lies within the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and affects SMB versions 1 and 2, the advisory states. SMB is the file-sharing protocol used by default on Windows-based computers.

According to Microsoft, users can block TCP </STOCKTICKER itxtvisited="1">ports 139 and 445 at the firewall to defend themselves against exploits. Instructions on how to do that are contained within the advisory. Several Windows services use the affected ports, so blocking connectivity to the ports may cause various applications or services to stop functioning, Microsoft warned.

“Microsoft is aware of public, detailed exploit code that would cause a system to stop functioning or become unreliable,” Dave Forstrom, group manager of public relations for Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, said in a statement. “If exploited, this DoS vulnerability would not allow an attacker to take control of, or install malware on, the customer’s system but could cause the affected system to stop responding until manually restarted. It is important to note that the default firewall settings on Windows 7 will help block attempts to exploit this issue.”

According to the advisory, the issue can be exploited through Web transactions regardless of browser type.

“In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker would have to host a Web page that contains a specially crafted URI,” the advisory states. “A user that browsed to that Web site will force an SMB connection to an SMB server controlled by the attacker, which would then send a malicious response back to the user. This response would cause the user’s system to stop responding until manually restarted.</STOCKTICKER itxtvisited="1">

“In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability,” the advisory continues.” An attacker would have no way to force users to visit a specially crafted Web site. Instead, an attacker would have to convince them to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes them to the attacker’s site.”

Microsoft noted that the vulnerability is unrelated to MS09-050, which addressed three security issues affecting SMB Version 2.

Microsoft Issues Advisory on Windows 7 Security Bug

It was a notable accomplishment when Windows 7 was not impacted in any way by the vulnerabilities addressed in the six Security Bulletins released by Microsoft for the November Patch Tuesday. It would be even more impressive if Windows 7 proved invulnerable to the zero-day exploit that hit the next day.

This newly found bug was discovered by Laurent Gaffie and details were posted on the Full Disclosure mailing list. Microsoft is investigating the reported flaw which basically crashes a Windows 7 system when exploited. The issue is in the SMB (Server Message Block) protocol that forms the backbone of Windows file sharing. When triggered, the flaw results in an infinite loop which renders the computer useless.

Tyler Reguly, Lead Security Research Engineer with nCircle, explains "Exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when a user attempts to browse to Windows Share hosted on the malicious server. On Windows 7, the DoS (denial of service) will occur as soon as you type ‘\\<ip>\’ in the search box. "

The vulnerability actually impacts both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. There are currently a couple different proof-of-concept exploits circulating, but there are no reported attacks in the wild at this point. Because the flaw only enables an attacker to crash the system, and doesn’t provide any unauthorized remote access that could lead to compromising information or performing other malicious activities, the odds of the exploit being actively used by attackers is fairly slim.

With some SMB-based bugs, you can minimize the risk of exposure by blocking SMB traffic at the router or firewall–essentially making sure that no outside source would be able to attack systems on your network. Blocking TCP ports 135 through 139, and port 445 will prevent outside SMB traffic from entering the network.

With the firewall blocked, the threat still exists internally, but ostensibly the systems on the internal network should be more trusted than those on the Internet and hopefully nobody on the internal network would intentionally launch such an attack. You could block those ports on the internal network as well, but then systems would be unable to access file and folder shares on the network.

With this particular bug though, the firewall will not protect you completely from outside attacks. Reguly says "There is an Internet Explorer-based attack vector. By including a file stored on a share in the HTML of the web page the flaw can be triggered. But, once again the result is a denial of service."

Until Microsoft completes its investigation of the issue and releases a patch, you will just have to be vigilant about avoiding suspicious or malicious links on web pages. Because of the limited value of a DoS for the attackers, odds are good you won’t see any attacks from this.

Microsoft has described Windows 7 as the most secure operating system it has yet developed but ‘most secure’ doesn’t mean impervious. Windows 7 is still significantly more secure than Windows XP, but news of the Windows 7 vulnerability certainly overshadows the fact that Windows 7 wasn’t impacted on Patch Tuesday.

For more real-world tech solutions for small and midsized businesses–including cloud services, virtualization, and complete network overhauls–check out PC World’s Tech Audit.

Protect Your PCs from Windows 7’s Zero-Day Exploit – Business Center – PC World Business Center

By Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY

Most every computer user is a whiz at pointing and clicking with a mouse. If Microsoft (MSFT) has a say, you’ll become equally adept at touching and tapping the PC screen directly with your fingers.

As part of the company’s recent launch of Windows 7, the vastly improved successor to Windows Vista, Microsoft hopes to usher in a new era for touch-based computing. And that means smudging your paw prints all over the surface of the screen – to finger paint, play music, spin a globe or enlarge and rotate photos.

VIDEO: Watch the touch features of Windows 7 in action

TV: Tune in to Baig on ABC’s ‘America This Morning’ Fridays 4:30 a.m. ET or check local listings

Multitouch, or the ability to manipulate the display screen with one or more fingers, is built directly into Microsoft’s latest operating system. "We believe in touch," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says.

You’ll need hardware with special touch-capable screens. Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba and other PC makers have or will shortly trot out touch-ready computers with Windows 7.

TOUCHING: Three multitouch models get a look

With the technology fused into Windows 7, PC companies and software developers can apply their own touches on top of the operating system.

On HP’s TouchSmart 600t all-in-one PC, for example, you can tap tiles to launch Twitter and recipe applications. In a Rhapsody music application, you can search for an artist or song by "writing" the name directly on the screen with your fingers.

The SimpleTap feature on Lenovo’s ThinkPad T400s laptop lets you turn on Wi-Fi, alter volume and brightness and handle other basic functions by tapping onscreen tiles.

"Direct manipulation is easier to interact," maintains Ian LeGrow, a group product manager on the Windows team at Microsoft. "Our task is to make these habit-forming."

Such a task won’t come easy. Because of years of doing it one way, you may well be inclined to reach for the mouse and keyboard even when there’s a touch alternative.

While the ergonomics may seem unnatural at first, the truth is that folks touch computer screens all the time, getting cash at an ATM, receiving boarding passes at the airport or printing pictures at a photo kiosk. And you’re a master of touch if you carry an iPhone or certain other smartphones. HP has suggested that touch is great for "walk-up computing" – quickie behaviors such as browsing photos or consulting a family calendar.

"The great thing about touch is you don’t have to teach anybody," says John Cook, a marketing vice president at HP. Joe Roberts, an executive vice president at Corel, adds, "I think it’s unlearning –that you don’t need your mouse and keyboard to do this."

The demand for touch-screen PCs is rising. Amy Leong, research director at the Gartner research firm, says the number of touch-screen PC units shipped will surpass 6 million in 2010, nearly quadrupling 2008 shipments. She says about 10% of the new PC models coming this year will support touch technology. According to iSuppli forecasts, the global market for touch-screens will reach $6.4 billion by 2013, up from $3.4 billion in 2008.

‘In search of an application’

It’ll take time for the software to catch up. "Touch is technology in search of an application right now," says Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm.

Some software – digital drawing programs, for instance – lend themselves naturally to touch. For example, Corel Paint it! Touch is a new $40 program designed specifically with touch in mind. You can take a photograph and apply a painting style to it (watercolor, impressionist, etc.) by tapping the screen.

SpaceClaim is about to bring out sophisticated 3D modeling software for engineers that exploits multitouch. It’s not for consumers, but it shows off the possibilities. You can pan, rotate and zoom in on 3D models. "It’s like something out of Minority Report," says Blake Courter, co-founder of the Concord, Mass., company.

Ubisoft has been previewing R.U.S.E., a wartime strategy game that will be among the first to take advantage of multitouch in Windows 7.

But turning the mouse and keyboard into benchwarmers is, at best, a touch-and-go proposition. In fact, touch is meant to augment and complement the mouse and keyboard rather than supplant them.

"Some things are just inherently easier to do with touch," says Al Monro, CEO of NextWindow in New Zealand, a supplier of optical multitouch displays for major manufacturers. For example, rather than click through menu commands to resize fonts on the screen, you can just touch the text directly to make it happen. From Microsoft’s point of view, touch is one of the "natural user interfaces" – vision, ink and speech are others – that reflect a longtime passion of co-founder Bill Gates. The touch capabilities built into the latest Windows share elements with the 30-inch interactive tabletop computers known as Microsoft Surface, which Microsoft first deployed in 2008.

Early Surface tables are in hotels, cruise ships, retail stores and other businesses. From the tabletop, you can order drinks or display maps. Eventually, some cheaper version of the tables might show up in your living room; you or the kids might use them to play games or splatter digital photos across the surface.

Touch has barely scratched the surface on home computers, but putting the capability in the operating system ought to make it more accessible to consumers – and it opens up all sorts of possibilities for programmers. "I think it helps any technology get more popular if it’s included in Windows," Ballmer says.

There are still challenges. Take price. "If it costs me an extra $20, I’ll probably get (touch)," Monro says. "If it’s an extra 500 bucks, probably not."

Dell (DELL) says the rough premium on its touch-ready Studio 17 notebook will be about $100 over a similar system without touch. The Lenovo premium is about $400. If touch machines gain traction, you can expect prices to fall.

Microsoft has been championing touch in Tablet PCs for some time. But though useful for students who take handwritten notes or among business users who must fill out forms, the machines barely make a blip among the masses. Tablets use a digital pen or stylus. That’s not the case with the new crop of mainstream-oriented touch PCs.

Despite the push from Microsoft, the main impetus behind touch these days, at least for ordinary folks, comes from rival Apple. "The iPhone is the real kicker to the touch industry," says Amichai Ben-David, CEO of Israel-based touch-screen hardware maker N-trig.

For its part, Apple (AAPL) has resisted the kind of touch-screen computers now emerging from the PC camp. But there’s speculation, if no actual confirmation from Apple, that the company might unveil a multitouch-based tablet computer relatively soon.

In the meantime, Apple is marketing touch technology in other ways, apart from the iPhone or iPod Touch. The entire top surface of its brand-new $69 Magic Mouse is a multitouch sensor. You can run your finger across the surface of the Bluetooth mouse to scroll in any direction. Or you can use swiping gestures with two fingers to navigate Web pages or to browse pictures. It takes a little getting used to, and you don’t get the full multitouch experience as on an iPhone.

Let your fingers do the talking

To help make touch easier to grasp on PCs, Microsoft has enlarged icons in Windows 7 for the Start Menu, Taskbar and Windows Explorer. In lieu of the mouse, you can open and shut programs by directly tapping or double-tapping with your fingers. You can summon a virtual onscreen keyboard, too, though it’s nowhere near as natural as typing on a physical keyboard.

You can also zoom in on a picture by spreading two fingers apart, or zoom out by pinching them back together. And you can "right-click" by holding down one finger while you tap the screen with a second finger.

Windows 7 can support up to 100 touch points, Microsoft says, though there are hardware constraints (screen size) and the genetic reality of having just so many fingers with which to perform gestures. The behavior on the screen changes depending on how many fingers you use.

Microsoft is making available a free Windows 7 Touch Pack with a Surface-like photo collage application and a few simple games. The idea is for you to become more proficient at using gestures. In Blackboard, you’re meant to solve a puzzle by dragging and rotating gears, seesaws and other game pieces with your fingers against a virtual blackboard. In Garden Pond, the object is to move origami around a pond by creating ripples with your fingers.

If touch ever takes off in a big way, consumers may have to shop differently. Just as you now might eyeball a screen and bang away at a keyboard when comparing models side by side, you may eventually also test a new variable: how responsive a screen is to your touch.

The sense of touch on home PCs is still evolving. But a strong commitment by Microsoft via Windows 7, along with improvements to touch-screen hardware, makes it intriguing technology whose time may have finally come.

Windows 7 could hasten touch-screen computers – USATODAY.com

Getting to know Windows 7? Here are 20 ways to get around the interface and make it act the way you want.

Computerworld – Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story was written when Windows 7 was still in beta. Now that the final version has been released, we’ve overhauled the story, updating some tips, eliminating others that are no longer relevant, and adding seven new tips. Look for the    icon to find the new tips.

Just got your hands on Windows 7 and want to bend it to your will? No problem. We’ve got plenty of tips, hacks and secrets to keep you busy for a long time, including automatically opening Windows Explorer to a folder of your choice, speeding up taskbar thumbnails, finding hidden desktop themes, forcing User Account Control to act the way you’d like, keeping your Explorer searches secret from others, and more.

So check out these tips. If you like them, we’ll keep more coming.

General tips

We’ll start with a few nifty tips that can make your desktop more interesting, make it easier to get around and increase your computer’s power efficiency.

  Use hidden international wallpapers and themes

When you first install Windows 7, it asks for your language, time and currency. Based on your responses, it installs a set of wallpapers and themes. If you choose English (United States) for your time and currency format, for example, the available desktop backgrounds and themes will include a United States section with scenery from locations such as Maine, the Southwest and so on.

Hidden, though, are background scenery and themes from other English-speaking countries — Australia, Canada, Great Britain and South Africa. Normally, you can’t access those backgrounds or themes, but there is a simple way you can install and use them:

1. In the search box in the Start menu, type C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press Enter. (Note: If Windows 7 is installed in a drive other than C:, use that letter instead.)

2. Windows Explorer will launch and show you a list of subfolders under C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT: MCT-AU, MCT-CA, MCT-GB, MCT-US, and MCT-ZA. Each subfolder has wallpapers for a specific country: AU for Australia, CA for Canada, GB for Great Britain, US for the United States, and ZA for South Africa.

For any of the countries whose wallpaper and themes you want to use, go into its Theme folder, for example, C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT\MCT-ZA\Theme. Double-click the theme you see there (for example ZA).

A South Africa theme, ready to use.
Click to view larger image.

3. That will install a shortcut to the theme and wallpapers in the Personalization section of Control Panel.

You can now use them as you would any other theme or background, by right-clicking the desktop, choosing Personalize, and choosing a background or theme. They will be listed in their own section.

Shake your desktop free of clutter

If you frequently run multiple programs simultaneously, your desktop can get extremely cluttered. This can get annoying if you’re working on one program and want to minimize all the other windows — in previous versions of Windows you had to minimize them individually.

With Windows 7’s "shake" feature, though, you can minimize every window except the one in which you’re currently working — in a single step. Click and hold the title bar of the window you want to keep on the desktop; while still holding the title bar, shake it quickly back and forth until all of the other windows minimize to the taskbar. Then let go. To make them return, shake the title bar again.

You can accomplish the same thing by pressing the Window key-Home key combination — although doing that is not nearly as much fun.

READ MORE >> Windows 7 tricks: 20 top tips and tweaks

Microsoft is predicting slower adoption after the initial buzz, do to the state of the economy
Microsoft seems well positioned for the future.  Its new Windows 7 operating system has been largely well-received by the press and public thanks to an unprecedented public testing program, which saw millions taking Windows 7 for a free spin. 

In its latest quarterly results, when factoring in the $1.47B USD in deferred revenue from the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program and sales of Windows 7 to OEMs and retailers before the October 22 launch date, Microsoft posted an overall revenue of $14.39B USD.  While down 4 percent from a year ago, this number represents a decrease in losses from previous quarters.
Recent information from the NPD Group, a leading market research firm indicates that Microsoft has more to cheer about.  The firms suggests that Windows 7 has surpassed Windows Vista’s opening sales in the same time frame by approximately 234 percent — an impressive and much-needed turn around for Microsoft.  According to the NPD Group, PC sales spiked 95 percent in the week following the launch.
Recent reports from a separate research firm Net Applications indicate Windows 7 to gaining marketshare at a faster pace than Vista.  Microsoft’s outspoken CEO, Steve Ballmer celebrated the results, calling them "fantastic".
Despite the good news, Microsoft had some slightly less blithe news to report.  The company announced that it would be laying off 800 more employees, completing a planned layoff cycle of 5,000 employees.  Despite the apparent sales success of Windows 7, Microsoft felt that the cuts needed to proceed, as its wary of reduced sales after an initial boost, as the economy is still struggling to recover.
In order to deal with a slower pace of tech adoption, Microsoft is now operating with a leaner workforce of approximately 91,005 employees worldwide, with an estimated 54,923 of them in the United States.  Microsoft actually cut slightly over 5,000 jobs, with the latest 800 cuts.  A company spokesperson commented, "Continuing to manage our business closely, as we always do, can mean additional headcount adjustments."
Much of Microsoft’s fate rests on whether the economic recovery can continue in 2010.  While some, including U.S. President Barack Obama, say the recession is over, others in the business community warn that we aren’t out of the woods yet.
Another key question for Microsoft is whether the warmer reception of Windows 7 will help sway businesses that were on the fence to move up their upgrade plans.  A Deutsche Bank survey of 120 IT buyers suggests that Windows 7 upgrades will begin "within 12 to 18 months".  Likewise, a survey from ScriptLogic suggested that most companies will wait till the end of 2010 to upgrade to Windows 7 (approximately 14 months).

DailyTech – Microsoft Comments on Windows 7 Beating Vista’s Debut, Job Cuts

Check out the new features and functionality in Windows 7 that you’ll use every day. Eric Geier discusses and shows you the changes from Vista to Windows 7. You’ll get a feel for the new and improved desktop, taskbar, and start menu.

Windows 7 is slated to be on the shelves and available online by late October. You might be asking these questions:

• Will it look much different from Vista?
• Are there any new features?

We’ll try to answer those questions and more in this sneak peek.

You’ll see one of the final Release Candidate versions of Windows 7, in which we’ll examine the desktop, taskbar, and start menu.

You’ll also discover the new taskbar buttons, the improved pinning functionality, the new Jump List feature, tricks to move and manipulate windows, and more.

New Look and Feel of the Taskbar and Start Menu

Back when XP made a hit, we were shocked by the almost-neon blue and grass-green color scheme. Then Microsoft toned it down in Vista with a cool-black taskbar and start menu.

Again, one of the first changes you’ll notice—or at least when you minimize an application—in Windows 7 is the taskbar.

The change to a light chrome-looking blue taskbar and start menu isn’t the big surprise. More shocking is how the taskbar buttons for programs and windows are handled.

In just about every Windows version to date, the taskbar buttons sport the program or window icon and a text title.

However, as you see in Figure 1, you won’t see text titles right off the bat; just the program or window icons are shown.

Figure 1

An icon and text title is shown when hovering over the main icon. Plus, by default, icons don’t appear for each instance of a program/window; they’re combined under the same icon/button on the taskbar.

If your computer supports the new Aero Peek feature, you’ll also see a thumbnail of each window when hovering over its icon/title. This is similar to Vista, but in Windows 7 it shows each file or window; not just the first one when hovering over a grouped icon.

Even better: Hover over the thumbnail and you’ll see a full preview.

TIP

If you find that the taskbar changes are a bit too much, you can bring back the text titles and smaller icons (such as Figure 2 shows): Right-click the taskbar and click Properties.

Then mark the Use Small Icons checkbox and for the Taskbar Buttons option, select Never Combine.

Figure 2

Remember the Quick Launch toolbar that was usually on the left of the taskbar in Vista and previous versions? It might have had the icons for Internet Explorer, the Media Player, and the Show Desktop shortcut. Well now that’s gone (or you could say replaced with another feature).

TIP

Can’t find the shortcut to quickly bring up the desktop? The traditional shortcut is gone, but you can simply click the bar/button on the far right of the taskbar.

If your computer supports Aero Peek, and it’s enabled, you’ll actually see a sneak peek of the desktop when just hovering over the bar/button.

Don’t forget that you can also move to the desktop by right-clicking the taskbar and clicking Show the Desktop.

Now you can "pin" shortcuts to the taskbar and start menu. By default, the taskbar will have a Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player icon pinned to the taskbar, as you saw in Figure 1.

You probably won’t have any icons pinned to the start menu by default. However, you can add some.

They will appear on the top of the start menu, separated from the icons for recently opened applications, as in Vista.

Though it might be confusing at first, the pinned icons look very similar to the regular icons of currently opened programs.

Plus it might be hard to tell at first whether you have a pinned program currently open. When it is open, it will be highlighted, as you see for the Internet Explorer icon in Figure 1.

TIP

If you want to pin a shortcut that’s on the start menu to the taskbar or top of the start menu, simply right-click it and select one of the pin options.

You can also right-click the icon from the taskbar if you have the program already open.

The New Jump Lists Feature on the Start Menu

A totally new feature in Windows 7 is the Jump List. It offers shortcuts for popular tasks, recently opened files, and other related items for programs on or pinned to the start menu or taskbar.

For example, as Figure 3 shows, the Jump Lists for Internet Explorer might show sites you frequently visit and common tasks.

Figure 3

On the start menu, you simply hover to the right arrow and the Jump Lists for that application (if any) will appear.

On the taskbar, right-click the icon. Remember that the exact Jump List types and shortcuts differ depending upon what you do with the program.

Plus you can customize it by pinning files and/or shortcuts to the Jump List.

TIP

Trying to find the pop-out Recent Items menu on the start menu to reopen a file? The Jump Lists are supposed to replace this feature, but if you must, you can bring back the old feature.

Right-click the taskbar, click Properties, select the Start Menu tab, and hit the Customize button. Then mark the Recent Items option and click OK.

Positioning Windows with Snaps and Shake

Two less noticeable—but still helpful—features debuting in Windows 7 are Snaps and Shake. These features give you more ways to move and manipulate your windows around.

For example, to maximize a window, you simply click the title bar (very top of the window) and drag the window to the top of the desktop.

Want to compare two open windows? Simply grab a window and drag it to either side edge of the screen to fill half the screen.

Wanna shake? To get all but one window out of the way, grab the window you want to keep and shake it. This will magically minimize the others to the taskbar. Then simply shake the window again to get ‘em all back.

We’ve discovered the new look and feel of the desktop, taskbar, and start menu.

There’s still more. Don’t forget to check out all the new Windows themes. Right-click the desktop and select Personalize to explore the themes and other settings.

InformIT: Windows 7 Desktop, Taskbar, and Start Menu Enhancements > New Look and Feel of the Taskbar and Start Menu

In Windows 7, Windows Sidebar gets a major overhaul. The gadgets no longer restricts to need to pin to the bar of sidebar anymore, which normally located at the side of the desktop. Gadgets can now roam free and locate anywhere on desktop in Windows 7. Some people may prefer gadgets that stick to Sidebar, or Windows Sidebar that actually runs and exists, and can be closed once to hide all gadgets, there is a workaround to implement such Windows Sidebar system in Windows 7.
The workaround is to install Windows Vista Sidebar into Windows 7, replacing the new version of sidebar component, as similar with resolution to fix gadget not working when UAC is turned off in Windows 7. After the hack found as found by Suicide Solution, Windows 7 gadget will have to run in the sidebar area, which is a bar that can be located on the side of the desktop.

1. Close all gadgets on desktop.
2. Take ownership and grant full control permissions for Administrators user group of the following files located in C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar folder:

   settings.ini
   sidebar.exe

   And inside the en-US Folder:

   sbdrop.dll.mui
   Sidebar.exe.mui

3. Rename to backup the 4 files listed above.
4. Download Win7-Sidebar-Fix.zip.
5. Extract and copy the contents of the ZIP file to their corresponding folders in C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar folder, overwrite and replace existing files if applicable.
6. Re-add gadgets to desktop.

Voila, now Windows 7 has the sidebar program, which can be opened, closed, and exited, together with all gadgets added to it.

Workaround to Run Windows Vista Bar Style Sidebar in Windows 7 » My Digital Life