You won’t see too many headlines about it, but one of the big changes between Windows Vista and Windows 7 is the taskbar.

Above, I’ve taken a grab of the three different ways it’s looked over the last eight years – from Windows XP at the top through Vista in the middle and Windows 7 at the bottom.

Compared to Vista, at first glance it may seem like Microsoft has simply made the quick launch icons larger, as you might expect with an OS that’s designed to be touch-friendly. In fact, the changes go a little deeper, and although in some ways they’re better they’re also, in other ways, a little worse.

In Vista, if a program shortcut was in the taskbar pressing it would start a new instance of that program – which is generally what you’d want, but could be a pain if the program was already open and you accidentally launched it again.

Windows 7 “solves” this by giving those shortcuts more than one use. If the program’s open, pressing the shortcut will either bring it to the fore (if you have only one active window) or show thumbnails of the active windows. Hover the cursor over a thumbnail and it will instantly show a preview of that window, minimising everything else.

And if it isn’t open, the program will launch.

There is a minor irritation with this: what if you do actually want to launch a fresh instance of an application? This most frequently happens with Outlook: you close the main window, but there are still a couple of dialogs open (such as reminders or an email).

Then you press the Outlook icon, trying to launch the program, it only shows a preview of those two dialogs.
To actually launch Outlook again you’ve got to right-click the icon and select its name, or go through the usual route (such as pressing the Start menu and typing “Outlook”).

As far as I’m concerned, that’s a bug: Windows should be able to detect if a sub-window of a program is running rather than a full instance, shouldn’t it? Anyway, I’m certainly hoping that will be fixed by the time of final release.

Plus points

Despite this quirk, I’m still a big fan of the taskbar compared to the olde style Vista-cum-XP-cum-even-Windows 95 one. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think it’s fundamentally changed since those early days: if you had a program running it would appear as a rectangular box in the taskbar, and as soon as too many were simultaneously open they’d scrunch up and become unreadable.

Now, if you open a new program – say Calculator – the icon will simply appear in the taskbar and hovering your mouse over it will preview the open window (or windows). Even on a restricted 1,024 x 768 desktop, that means you can easily have a dozen programs open without feeling crowded, and be able to jump between them with ease.

Admittedly, this does assume that you’ve switched to the small icons view (pictured above vs the standard icons view). This is something I’d recommend most people do immediately, unless they’re using a touchscreen, as to me the standard view seems a little too child-like – thanks Microsoft, but my mouse co-ordination is in fact good enough to stretch to icons smaller than a dinner plate.

As with most of the taskbar options, the simplest way to change things is to right-click on the bar. Want to get rid of an icon? Right-click it and choose to unpin it. Want to add a web address shortcut? As with Vista, again just right-click the taskbar and select it from the proffered toolbars.

Third-party insurance

Windows 7 also deals far better with one of the nastier habits of third-party applications: to make a nuisance of themselves by invading the taskbar, as shown here with a screenshot from a colleague’s Vista system.

By default in Windows 7, you’ll only find the time and date, and sitting next to it a small upwards arrow. Click on this to reveal all the other applications and notifications that would normally litter the area: wireless network and battery status, antivirus, and a multitude of others.

This blissful solitude is only interrupted if an application needs to notify of you something; say your battery is running low or your AV database is out of date.

This level of information won’t be enough for many people, but it’s easy to change the behaviours. If you always want to see the wireless network status, simply click on the Customize link shown above (or right-click on the taskbar, click Properties and then select the Customize button) and you’ll be taken to this screen.

Personally, I like to see both battery and network status, plus the Action Center flag. This highlights any security and maintenance issues, and if nothing else gives a certain amount of peace of mind.

Like I said at the top of this blog, I don’t think the taskbar is going to get many headlines, and when someone asks me “why should I upgrade to Windows 7?” I realise it’s going to be a tough sell to point them to this thin strip of black at the bottom of the screen.

But it does make a big difference to everyday working and is yet another small reason why I’m sure Windows 7 is going to be success.

1. Back-up your system

Whilst we’ve been mightily impressed with the stability of Windows 7 ever since the pre-beta launch, this remains a work in progress. If you’re even considering installing Windows 7 on a mission-critical system, make sure you take a full back-up first, so that you’ve got a fall back if it all goes horribly wonky.

2. Take note of your settings and software keys               

If you’re making a fresh install of Windows 7, rather than upgrading a previous OS, make a note of all your crucial settings  - such as your wireless network key and Outlook configuration –  so that you can get online immediately. Also make sure you can lay your hands on keys for any essential software that you’ll need to re-install in Windows 7.

3. Tweak the Taskbar

Beta 1 is the first version of Windows 7 to include the new look Taskbar. If you can’t abide the chunky new icons, you can make them smaller by right clicking on an empty part of the Taskbar, choosing Properties and checking the Use Small Icons box.

4. Uncover the jumplists

One of the best new features of the new UI is the jumplists. Right click on a Taskbar icon and you’ll be presented with a series of shortcut options for that application – selecting a recently-played album in Windows Media Player, for example. You’ll also find jumplists sprouting from application listings on the Start menu.

5. Unpin the default apps

Microsoft has cheekily pinned Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Windows Explorer to the Taskbar, ensuring they remain a constant presence on your desktop. If you want to get shot of them, right click on the app’s Taskbar icon and select Unpin This Program From Taskbar. If you want to replace them with your favourite software, open the application of your choice, right click on its Taskbar icon and select Pin This Program To Taskbar.

6. Tone down the eye candy

Windows 7 will probably install an Aero glass scheme by default, and the good news is that the vast majority of the PCs we’ve installed the new OS on have coped with this effortlessly. However, if you find that windows are juddering, right click on the desktop, choose Personalize, and select one of the Ease of Access Themes, which are far less demanding.

7. Stretch out on extra displays

It’s now far easier to extend the Windows desktop on to secondary displays. Simply press Windows +P and you’ll be presented with options to extend, duplicate or show your desktop only on the secondary display.

8. Boost the text size

The huge screens and high resolutions of today’s flat panel monitors can make it difficult to read on-screen text, particularly if you use your PC as a Media Center on the main living room television. Windows 7 allows you to boost the size of text on screen to up to 150% of its normal size to make it more readable. Right click on the desktop, choose Screen Resolution and select the Make Text And Other Items Larger or Smaller.

9.  Sort out the System Tray

The System Tray now has an overspill area, allowing you to relegate attention-hungry applications to a hidden sin bin. Click on the little up arrow on the left-hand side of the System Tray and click Customize to pick and choose which System Tray icons you want to see, and how much you want them to bother you with alerts.

10.  Silence User Account Controls

The bête noir of Vista has finally been hobbled. To stop UAC interrupting your working day every two-and-a-half-minutes with another inane request, type UAC into the new Windows Start menu search bar, select the Change User Account Control Settings option and drag the slider right down to Never Notify. Just take a little extra care with your day-to-day computing, as you’ll almost certainly be running without security software.

What I don’t like is what happens when some requester leaps up while I’m typing and steals focus from the window I was typing into.

It’s not just the sheer rudeness of the interruption, though that’s obnoxious enough. The big problem is that – well, call me bourgeois, but when I’m typing I sometimes like to hit the space bar between words. And I type fairly quickly, and I don’t always look at the screen as I’m doing so; and so, when a requester suddenly leaps to the fore, I frequently end up hitting the space bar before I’ve noticed it.

The requester, of course, knows nothing and cares less about what I was doing before it appeared. Thinking only of itself, it presumes that my pressing space must constitute carte blanche for it to launch immediately into whatever idiotic behaviour some dullard thought would make a good default action… and lo, my computer is away and there’s no telling what might happen.

It’s particularly annoying when it’s IE7 telling me a download has completed. Never mind that already, right at the start of the process, I clicked the button to run the application after downloading. Once it arrives, Internet Explorer interrupts me with a second requester asking the same question again – and, in flagrant disregard of the decision I have already indicated, the default option is ‘don’t run.’

And so, when, as is inevitable, I inadvertently ‘choose’ the default option, the requester simply closes. Cue a lengthy search of my hard disk for the installation file, which generally turns out to be in a hidden directory buried eight levels down from the root, with a forty character name that’s just a string of hex numbers.

Sometimes I think we should go back to QDOS. No multi-tasking, no directories. Just think of the productivity gains.