Get ready for Windows 7

Microsoft's Windows 7 is due to be launched soon. We’ll take a look at Windows 7 from a user’s perspective. We’ll explain where the key changes have been made, how well they work and what you can expect from the next generation of Windows.

If you’ve never seen the Windows 7 desktop in action you may find it useful to watch a quick video preview before we start discussing the features in detail: our sister magazine Computeractive has produced a short introductory video.

Taken to Taskbar
The most obvious change you’ll notice when starting Windows 7 for the first time is on the Taskbar. The Taskbar and Start menu are present and correct as usual, but just to the right of the Start button are three large icons: one for Internet Explorer; one to open Windows Explorer; and one for Windows Media Player.

These might appear at first to be large Quick Launch icons, but in fact they effectively replace both the Quick Launch and standard Taskbar buttons.

The three icons are shortcuts that have been pinned to the Taskbar. Like Quick Launch icons in Windows XP or Vista, clicking a pinned shortcut will launch the related program, but unlike Quick Launch doing so will not create a new Taskbar button to the right.

Instead, the pinned shortcut icon is surrounded by a box, making it look like a Taskbar button. If the program is given focus, the box is highlighted. Open multiple instances of the program ­ or, in the case of Internet Explorer, several browsing tabs ­ and the box becomes a stack of boxes (up to three are shown).

One important principle of the ‘Pin to Taskbar’ system in Windows 7 is that only the user can choose which programs are shown in this way. Aside from the three items pinned when Windows is installed, others must be added manually and programs cannot pin themselves during installation. Any program in the Start menu can be pinned by right-clicking and choosing Pin to Taskbar.

Pop-ups and Jump Lists
Programs that are not pinned to the Taskbar appear to the right of the pinned icons when they are launched. Whether pinned or not, Windows 7 makes it possible to preview all running programs represented as buttons in the Taskbar.

Hovering the cursor over a Taskbar button causes a small preview of the application to appear above it; like Flip 3D in Vista this shows the current state of the application window rather than simply a representative icon. If a Taskbar button is stacked, such as when Internet Explorer has more than one tab open, then previews of each instance or tab appear side by side.

Hovering the cursor over a preview brings that window or tab to the front, and clicking the preview will activate that window or tab ready for use. The previews also include a small close button, allowing the program or tab to be closed directly.

Another new tool available from the Taskbar is the Jump List. Right-click an item on the Taskbar, whether it’s a pinned shortcut or a currently running program, and a small menu will appear. Often this will show only three standard options: one to select the program, one to pin it to, or remove it from, the Taskbar, and one to close the program.

Some programs written for Windows 7, however, can include more useful options. Right-click Paint, for example, and you’ll see the option to open recent files. Right-click Internet Explorer and you’ll find quick links to recently opened websites from the browser history.

How useful Jump Lists will be is, of course, up to program developers, but they could be a handy way to access key functions quickly.

If the Windows 7 Taskbar has been thoroughly overhauled, the Start menu has seen more conservative changes. It’s very similar to that used in Windows Vista, but with a few useful tweaks. The search box is still present at the bottom, but many Vista users will be pleased to see that the power button has changed.

In Vista this didn’t shut down the computer unless you altered the default behaviour, but in Windows 7 the button is larger, clearly labelled and defaults to shutting down the computer when clicked.

There are a few other changes, too. Clicking the user name opens the Libraries,, which we’ll discuss later on, and programs shown to the left display an option to open their Jump List if one is available.

Most of the links found on the right of Vista’s Start menu are present, including the Control Panel link, but the Network entry is notably absent.