Windows 7 users know that the new and improved taskbar of their operating system is a powerful tool that sets them apart from previous versions of the Windows OS. It is basically possible to link to all kinds of contents, from programs and applications to folders, files and even websites.

The later works only in conjunction with Microsoft’s recently released web browser Internet Explorer 9. While it is possible to pin any website directly to the taskbar, users benefit the most from websites that support the pinning and have customized the menus accordingly.

Before we go into details about how the popular WordPress blogging platform, home to 20 million bloggers, has customized the pinning, we’d like to shortly demonstrate how sites are pinned to the taskbar.

Open Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 and load the website that you would like to pin to the taskbar. All you need to do know is to drag and drop the website’s favicon, the little icon in front of the domain name, to the Windows 7 taskbar to pin it there.

You can then left-click the icon to load the website in Internet Explorer, or right-click it to see jumplists and other custom options, if available.

Back to WordPress.com. The company behind Wordpess.com has added site pinning for all of its hosted blogs, including premium technology sites such as Techcrunch or Venture Beat.

The technique to pin the sites to the taskbar remain the same. You will however notice the difference once you right-click the icon.

The right-click menu lists the five most recent blog posts of the site plus options to subscribe, sign up at WordPress for a free blog or open the WordPress website or support forums. Especially the five most recent posts of a blog can be handy to quickly load articles that spark a user’s interest.

Support by 20 million WordPress.com websites pushes the Internet Explorer 9 feature further into mainstream.

Which leads to the closing question: Are you using the site pinning feature at all? Let us know in the comments.

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I can tell from personal experience that the Windows 7 taskbar has improved the way I interact with the operating system. Before Windows 7, I had to use desktop shortcuts, the start menu, Windows Explorer or application launchers to start programs. With Windows 7, I was able to place the most accessed programs right in the taskbar, to start them with a click of the mouse button.

Microsoft has also changed how themes are handled in the operating system. And with themes I refer to basic themes, not the advanced themes that require system file patching. It has become easier to create, use and distribute themes, as you can see in our Windows 7 themes gallery.

Changing a theme, changes desktop elements that cannot be modified individually; And one of those elements is the taskbar. If you change the theme, the taskbar may change colors as well, depending on how the theme was configured.

I would like to introduce two different options to change the color of the taskbar.

Windows 7 Taskbar Color Changer

The .net application requires the Microsoft .net Framework 4.0 to be installed.

taskbar color changer

The color of the taskbar can be changed by clicking on the Random button, which selects a random color, or by clicking on the color directly, to open the color selection window of the operating system. Please note that the changes can only be applied if Windows Aero is enabled. It throws an error message if a basic theme is used.

taskbar color

The taskbar color changer can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Color Taskbar

The program has been developed by the same developer. It only works with Windows Aero enabled as well, and will automatically cycle through colors in the taskbar. It makes for an interesting effect, but unfortunately lacks the option to select a color scheme to use.

Program can also be downloaded from the developer’s site.

Do you know of another way to change the color of the taskbar? Let us know in the comments.

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I’ve just stumbled across this great little program called “Piles”. What it does is places recently created or altered files in a Windows 7 jump list on the Windows Taskbar so you can quickly access them.

How many times have you downloaded a program or just finished working on a document and then you need to open it up again. You then have to go and navigate through all the directories until you find that file, but with “Piles” it automatically adds the most recent files to a jump list on your taskbar so you can access them in seconds.

After installing Piles for the first time you will get a new icon in your taskbar which is by default linked to your “MyDocuments” folder, so any changes that you make to files in the folder will automatically be added to the jump list.

You can make your own custom target directory by right clicking on the icon and point it to a new directory. Say for instance you point it to the “Download” directory, every time you download a new file it will automatically be added to that jump list for super quick access, saving you from rummaging around your computers hard drive until you find it.

It’s a great little program, and best of all it’s completely free! You can download it here

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The taskbar in Windows 7 offers a feature to pin programs to it so that they are always accessible from there. It uses the same principle that shortcuts use with the difference that the programs are added to the taskbar instead and that they might offer additional functionality depending on the developer’s support of additional taskbar features.

It is however not possible to add anything but an executable file to the Windows 7 Taskbar. Jason some time ago showed how to add folders and other special system tools to the taskbar by adding a new toolbar to it. But that meant that those icons where shown in the toolbar which could be moved around a bit but would still be separate from the taskbar itself.

There is thankfully a much easier way to pin any file or folder to the Windows Taskbar. Here is how you do it:

Create a new text document on your computer desktop or any other location and rename it completely so that it becomes an executable file, for instance downloads.exe instead of downloads.txt. Drag the new file to the Windows 7 Taskbar to pin it there. This is just used as a dummy file that is needed to place the icon on the taskbar.

Now navigate to the file or folder that you want to pin to the taskbar in Windows 7. Hold down the shift button, right-click the folder and select to copy the path of the file or folder. This will copy the path to the Windows Clipboard.

Now right-click the pinned taskbar item and right-click again the name that is shown in the jumplist. Select Properties from that menu. Locate the Target form field in the Shortcut tab. Replace the existing path with the path that has been copied to the Windows Clipboard. You can simply select the old path, right click it and select to paste so that it gets replaced.

You are done but you can click on the Change Icon button in the same menu to replace the icon with another one that is more appropriate.

A click on OK will change the path and the file or folder can from then on be opened from the Windows 7 Taskbar.

This method makes it possible to add any file or folder to the Windows 7 Taskbar. The original file can be deleted in the end as it is no longer needed.

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If you want a simple way to tweak  the Windows 7 Taskbar then AeroWorks could be for you.  AeroWorks is a new Windows 7 skinning tool that comes with seven skins pre-loaded which allows you to make changes to these skins, but only while AeroWorks is running in the free version.   The app makes changes to the  taskbar background and allows users to add their own images and special effect.

This app works only under Windows Vista and Windows 7.

More: AeroWorks

Source: Download Squad

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Although there is some disagreement over whether laptop battery life has got better or worse in Windows 7 (on my laptops it has), the battery  information that Windows 7 provides is limited so it can be hard to ascertain how well your battery is performing.  A great application to install to give more Windows 7 battery information is BatteryBar, which comes in both a free and Pro version.

BatteryBar is a simple, straight-forward, battery meter that monitors the status of your battery and displays your battery’s status in the taskbar.  All data is captured so that historical performance data on your battery can be accessed so that a more accurate battery life remaining estimate can be produced – hopefully your laptop will no longer die when it’s claiming it has 1o mins of power left..

The free version of BatteryBar provides the following features:

• Statistical Time Prediction
• Always-on battery icon showing current battery status
• Create a discharge/recharge profile of your battery
• Determine “time remaining” based on historical usage profile of your battery
• Display popup window with detailed battery information
• Automatic upgrade notification popup for the latest stable release

Which is good enough for most users, although BatteryBar pro adds the following features:

• Automatic upgrade notification popup for the latest beta release
• Show low and critical battery notification warnings
• Change the current Windows power scheme
• Customize the look of BatteryBar with custom themes
• Customize when the battery is reported as at low or critical level
• Show low and critical battery warnings based on time remaining or percent remaining

More: BatteryBar

Source:

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Two things have bugged me with Windows Live Messenger in Windows 7:

1. I don’t like the way the Windows Live Messenger icon stays permanently in the Windows 7 Taskbar
2. I don’t get sound notifications when I get a new message

I have a solution to the first problem, but if anyone has a fix for the 2nd then please let me know. To move the Windows Live Messenger icon from the windows 7 notification area:

• right-click on your windows live messenger icon shortcut and click ‘Properties’
• Go to the Compatibility tab and choose to run it in ‘Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)’ mode

Your Live Messenger icon will now be back in its usual place in your system tray.  If you can’t see it then you might need to customise your notification area settings to ‘show icon and notifications’ for Windows Live Messenger.

I’m not sure if this tweak will work for other programs, but it’s a worth a try.  If it does work then please let me know in a comment.  Thanks to How To Geek for the tweak.

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I’m a big fan of the new Superbar in Windows 7. I find it easy to use, helpful and I just plain like the look of it. I view the taskbar as a way to keep my desktop clean and avoid the clutter that icons can sometimes create. The problem is that there are a few icons that don’t seem to play nice with the Superbar and instead of dragging and dropping the item to the Superbar and it keeping it’s properties and functionality, it doesn’t seem to work the way i’d like it to. Here’s how to fix a few icon issues that you may find to be irritating with the Superbar.

Recycle Bin

First we need to create a link to the Recycle Bin that we can navigate to from the Superbar. To do this, create a new folder on the desktop (name it anything you like or keep it as ‘New Folder’).

Drag your Recycle Bin icon on the desktop over to the New Folder that you created, so it creates a shortcut to the Recycle Bin within that folder.

Move the folder somewhere (I moved it to the C drive (e.g. C:New Folder).

I know, this is a Mac wallpaper, but it's still a nice wallpaper.

With the Taskbar unlocked, right-click and select Toolbars->New Toolbar.

Find the folder containing the Recycle Bin link and select it.

This will put a toolbar with text on the taskbar with a separator. Right click on the Separator and uncheck Show Text and Show Title.

Right-click on the Separator and select View and Large Icons.

To move the Recycle Bin icon around, you will need to play around with the separators by moving them to the right of the icon (Similar to how you adjusted quick link icons in Vista and XP).

You can now lock the taskbar.

Continue to the next page for General Folders

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The Windows 7 Taskbar has been one of the most prominent new features in Windows 7 ever since it was first introduced by Microsoft. The new taskbar changes the way users interact with the taskbar by adding several new features that make it more comfortable to work with the operating system. Many users – even those that have not used Windows 7 yet – know that the new taskbar offers thumbnail previews for selected applications, jumplists and abilities to pin applications to the taskbar. What many do not know is that the taskbar icons are also displaying progress meters where applicably. Copying or moving files in Windows Explorer will for instance display the progress of that operation in the Windows 7 taskbar.

Taskbar Meters is a third party program for Windows 7 that can add up to three new icons to the Windows 7 taskbar displaying the computer system’s computer memory, hard disk and cpu utilization. The program makes use of the aforementioned feature to display meters in the taskbar icons in the operating system.

The portable software program comes with three executables after download and extraction. Each executable will place one new icon in the Windows 7 taskbar that is displaying the utilization level of that component.

It is possible to customize the update frequency and color scheme used by any of the three meters individually. A right-click will open the jumplist containing links to the Windows 7 Resource Monitor and Task Manager.

Each individual icon is using roughly 10 Megabytes of computer memory while running raising the computer memory usage by 30 Megabytes if all three icons are displaying values in the taskbar. Users who are interested in the program can download it from the developer’s website. The software program is only compatible with Windows 7 (and probably Windows Server 2008 R2 as well).

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Some of our readers may read the title and say, “Flip 3D is already in Windows 7″ and this is true, so I am technically not showing you how to add it to Windows, but instead, how to find it and add it to the taskbar. Now that we’ve sorted through that, I wanted to explain why I am dedicating an article to a small feature such as Flip 3D.  It’s simple, I was very pleased when I first used Windows Vista and saw Flip 3D for the first time. It signified an actual visual change to the UI. Of course, the toolbar and start button were redone a bit, but Flip 3D created a 3D style that we had not yet seen in Windows and when I first got my hands on Windows 7, I was suprised to find that it was missing and replaced with the normal, boring, alt-tab windows switcher.

I had assumed that because Flip 3D had been removed from the quick launch menu, that it had been removed from the OS altogether. After finally giving up on Flip 3D, I installed the actual drivers for my mouse, which is a Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000. The software that came with the mouse gave options for button assignments for both Flip and Flip 3D, I thought this was a mistake. After assigning the button and pressing it, I was suprised to see that Flip 3D was still in Windows 7. That’s my introduction, and this is how to find it:

1. Right-click on your desktop, select New, and then select Shortcut.

2. In the location field, type C:WindowsSystem32rundll32.exe dwmapi #105 (assuming that Windows is installed on C:)

3. Click Next, and then type Window Switcher for the shortcut name, then press Finish.

4. Right-click on the Window Switcher shortcut that you just created and then click on Properties.

5. Click on the Change Icon… button.

6. In the Look for icons in this file field type %SYSTEMROOT%system32imageres.dll, and then press Enter.

7. Select the first icon and then click on OK.

8. Click on OK to dismiss the properties dialog.

9. Drag the Window Switcher shortcut from your desktop onto the taskbar.

(Note: Flip 3D will only work if Aero is enabled. You can also access Flip 3D by using Windows Key+Tab)

Yes, I really did just write an article on how to do this. I’m sure some people may find Flip 3D absolutely useless, but I bet there are at least a few users that were like me and wondered why Microsoft got rid of or hid a feature such as this.

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Another new feature that appeared in Windows 7 was ” Jump Lists ” They allow you to quickly access files and shortcuts to documents, webpages etc.. before you even open the program.

If your not entirely sure of what they are, John did a great article on Jump lists that you can find here

A Jump List

I love using jump lists and they are really handy for me, traditionally you would access jump lists by right clicking on a programs icon in the task bar and this would pop up the jump list. Well now I have a new way of doing it that I’d like to share with you.

Some of you may know this already but some may not – you can access jump lists by:

1. Left clicking and holding the icon in the taskbar
2. Slide your mouse/cursor upwards, your jump list will now slide up.

I like to call this the ” Swoosh Effect ” While this may not be a massive time saver, I think it’s a more fluid motion than the regular way of right clicking.

I’ve made a quick video showing how to do this on my own site which I’ve inserted below

Hope you find this helpful

Source:

Techinfo-4u

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For many users, (unless they live in the UK where there are postal strikes) tomorrow will be the first time many users will receive their copy of Windows 7.   Out of the box, Windows 7 needs very little configuring, but here are 10 things you can do get even more out of your new operating system:

1. Setup a Windows 7 Homegroup
2. Download a Windows 7 Theme.  If you need help, then read this guide to installing Windows 7 Themes
3. Make Windows 7 Faster
4. Read our guides to configuring the amazing Windows 7 Taskbar
5. Read 7 ways to make Windows 7 faster
6. Make Windows 7 Search Better
7. Remove all the ‘crap‘ from your new Windows 7 installation
8. Setup Windows 7 Libraries
9. Enable Windows 7 Aero Features
10. How To Use Windows 7 Federated Search

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In a previous post, we looked at  Customizing Window 7’s Taskbar. Now, we’ll go a little further and, while still accessing the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, we’ll work on other sections involving:

• Changing the Taskbar’s Appearance
• Changing the Taskbar’s screen location
• Customize the Taskbar icons and Notifications that appear in the Notification area.
• Take a quick look at Aero Peek

So let’s resume our acquaintance with the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.

1. Right click on a blank area of the Taskbar.
2. In the pop-up menu, select Properties.
3. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box opens.

Changing the Taskbar’s Appearance

Now you have opened the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, let’s begin. We’re working in the section labelled, “Taskbar appearance”. Here there are three unchecked boxes.

1. Check each of these boxes.
2. After you do this, activate the changes by clicking the Apply button, followed by the Ok button.
3. Now let’s see what’s happened to your Taskbar. Incidentally, these changes will have an effect on your Desktop too. The Taskbar has disappeared.

But, what’s happened to the Taskbar icons? Let’s find out!
Just move the mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen. The Taskbar re-appears BUT the icons are now small.

Now, are you happy or concerned?

If you find these settings are not to your liking, re-open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box and uncheck the boxes in the Taskbar Appearance section.

This takes the Taskbar back to its original settings, known as “Default”.

Now we’ve tried the changing the Taskbar Appearance, let’s move onto the next challenge, Changing the Taskbar’s location.

Changing the Taskbar’s Location

Normally, the Taskbar is located at the bottom of your screen. This is the default placement. However, you can relocate it to another position if you wish. You can move it to the top of your screen or to the left and to the right.

Here’s how you go about it. We’ll be working in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box again but this time with the “Taskbar Location on screen” box.

Your Taskbar is currently placed at the bottom of the screen: let’s try positioning it somewhere else.

1. Click the down arrow button.
2. In the drop-down list, select Left.
3. Click the Apply button followed by the Ok button.
4. The Taskbar changes position. It is now located on the left-hand side of your screen.
5. Now you know how to move the Taskbar, how about trying the other locations – right and top. Repeat Steps 1-3 and choose a new location.
6. If none of these re-locations suit you, reverse the process by repeating Steps 1 -3 and put the Taskbar back where it came from, at the bottom of the screen.
7. In the last illustration you can see the four possible locations for the Taskbar.

   

   The Notification Area

   Now let’s take a close look at the third customization option, the Notification area but before we do this, a little explanation about it.The Notification area appears on the far right-hand side of the Taskbar. The set of icons you see here depend on which programs or services you have installed and how your computer manufacturer set up your computer.Its display includes a digital time and date as well as a group of icons. On my computer it looks like this:

The icons on the Notification area indicate the status of active features on your computer and provide access to certain settings. Right clicking on any icon opens a menu providing further access.

Sometimes, the Notification area will display a small pop-up window; this is where the term notification originates. For example, if you add a new hardware device to your computer, you see a similar notification.

In previous versions of Windows some users regarded these pop-up notifications as a pest. Windows 7 comes with better control.

• Click the Close button, the small x on the upper right to dismiss it. Do nothing and the notification will fade away on its own accord after a short time.
• Click the small spanner, also on the upper right, it opens the Action Center. Here you can dispense with these pop-ups completely.

To reduce clutter, Windows 7 hides any icons in the notification area you haven’t used for a while.

If icons become hidden, click the Show hidden icons button to temporarily display the hidden icons. This opens a pop-up window. Double-clicking on an icon opens it.

While you are in this pop-up window, clicking the Customize button opens the Notification Area Icons dialog box. Here you can change the type of icons and their notifications. This is another way to access the Notification Area Icons dialog box.

Customizing the Notification Area

Meanwhile we return to the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box which was our starting point in this exercise.

Let’s look at the Notification area section of this dialog box.

1. Click the Customize button.
2. This opens up the Notification Area Icons dialog box.

Here you can change which icons and notifications appear on the Taskbar.

Inside this dialog box are two lists, Icons and Notifications. On the right of each item is a box with a drop-down list.

Let’s  look at the first three items, Action Center, Network and Volume.

Note: These are represented opn the right-hand side of the Taskbar.

The first three icons in the Icon list, Action Center, Network and Volume, are currently visible as the top option, “Show icon and notification”, is selected.

While these are important features of Windows 7 it’s best to leave them as they are. Having said that let’s see what happens to Action Center, if you select the second option, Hide icon and notifications.

Back on the Taskbar, the Action Center’s icon disappears. You have just hidden it.

Some users may prefer the third option, “Only show notification” which means you’ll only see pop-up messages like the one in the illustration below.

Stopping Annoying Messages

Some applications annoy users by forever popping up their messages on the Taskbar. So if this is bugging you turn off the notification completely by selecting “Hide icon and notification” and you will be free from annoyance.

Making a Blunder

If you make a big mistake and turn off the settings, you can restore sanity to your system by clicking the blue command, “Restore default icon behaviours” at the bottom of the dialog box.

Aero Peek

The last feature we’ll look at on the Taskbar is Aero Peek. This is located in the bottom section of the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.

What is it?

Aero Peek allows you to bypass any open window and see what’s on the Windows 7 Desktop. Just point to the Show Desktop button on the right edge of the Taskbar and the current window you are using will be replaced, temporally, with a view of your Desktop. This is a handy feature for a quick check on other windows.

Aero Peek displays a transparent view of hidden icons, gadgets and other windows.

How do you use it?

As mentioned previously the clicking the Show Desktop button switches you to the Desktop. Just moving the mouse onto this button, no clicking here, displays the Aero Peek view of the Desktop.

1. Pass the mouse pointer over the Show Desktop button.
2. Aero Peek activates displaying the Deskop.

Tip! Should you wish to see what’s on your Desktop, press the Show Desktop button.

Customizing Aero Peek

Meanwhile, back in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, let’s look at the settings for this useful feature.

The information in the section labelled, “Preview desktop with Aero Peek” tells it all.

• To keep it on, leave the box checked.
• To turn it off uncheck the box.

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You can make signifcant changes to Windows 7 Taskbar. In this post you will learn how to do this.

Change the Taskbar buttons

Using the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box you can the look of the buttons. The default option is “Always combine, hide labels”.

Let us look at the three Taskbar options.

Option 1          Always combine, hide labels

This is the default setting for the Taskbar. Windows 7 combines multiple files from the same application, for example Word, by hiding the labels, preserving valuable space on the Taskbar.

Option 2          Combine when taskbar is full

1. In the section labelled, “Taskbar buttons”, click the down arrow button.



2. This opens displaying  a drop-down list of options.
3. Select the second option, “Combine when taskbar is full”.



4. Click the Apply button followed by the Ok button.
5. With multiple files active in several programs, Word, Paintbrush, Notepad, Paint and WordPad, the Taskbar would be too crowded. So, Windows 7 combines the files from the same application.

Note:  Another aspect of the option, “Combine when taskbar is full”, is that the icons display their labels except when the Taskbar is too crowded. The example below shows the labels for each application.

Option 3          Never Combine

1. Re-open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.
2. In the section labelled, “Taskbar buttons”, click the down arrow button.
3. Select the third option, “Never combine”.
4. The Taskbar displays several files from the same applications.

What happens if you have too many applications pinned to the Taskbar?

When you have more application windows open than fit comfortably on the Taskbar, Windows 7 activates the Toggle button.

1. Click the down arrow button on the Toggle button.
2. The additional icons appear on the Taskbar.

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In this part we’ll explain how to open another window of a running application, progress bars, thumbnail toolbars and arranging icons on the taskbar. If you’ve missed the previous parts of the guide, it’s recommended that you read part 1 and part 2 for better understanding.

Opening another Window of a Running Application

In his article, The biggest flaw with the Windows 7 taskbar, Mike Halsey stated that the Windows 7 taskbar can be confusing for new users when trying to open a new window of a pinned running application. Normally when clicking on the icon of a pinned application, Windows 7 opens that application. However, if you try to click on it while the application is running, it would either restore or minimize it - depending on the window’s current state.

To open another window of a running application, you can use any of the following ways:

• Right-click on its icon –> Select its name from the jump list that appears – third item from down to up.
• Click on its icon while holding the SHIFT key
• Click on its icon with the mouse scroll key
• Press: Windows Key + SHIFT + Number. Once again, the number corresponds to application’s position on the taskbar.

This works with applications that are not pinned to the taskbar as well. Needless to say, being able to run another instance of a running application from the taskbar saves you time and clicks.

Progress Bars

Let’s say Joe is downloading a file in Internet Explorer. The file is quite big and would take a few hours to download. Joe is so eager that he checks how much of the downloaded has been completed every few minutes. Because he’s using Windows 7, he doesn’t have to do a single click to find out. Instead, he just looks at Internet Explorer’s button on the taskbar.  Look at the screenshots below, notice anything?

The taskbar automatically displays a progress bar behind the application’s icon, showing how much of the download is complete. So in this case, Joe can have an estimate of the download progress:

This also works when copying or moving files and folders, however, the progress bar will appear in the Windows Explorer icon this time. In addition, we should see new versions of programs – that support Windows 7 – exploiting this feature. At the time of writing this article, Firefox still doesn’t support the Windows 7 taskbar jump lists and progress bars. If you prefer using Firefox and would like to take advantage of these features, you can use WinFox. To learn more about this nifty tool, check out this article written by Martin.

Thumbnail Toolbars

Thumbnail toolbars allow application to add controls right in the context of taskbar buttons. In other words, you can control a program - supporting this feature - right from the taskbar. Thumbnail toolbars are displayed when clicking on, or hovering over, the application’s icon on the taskbar and appear under its thumbnail preview. A good example of a program that uses this feature is Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Player's Thumbnail Toolbar

The thumbnail toolbar allows users to play/pause the open media and move through the current playlist without having to actually switch to the Windows Media Player window. We hope to see more software developers supporting this feature in future versions of their software.

Arranging Icons on the Taskbar

Another thing that makes Windows 7’s taskbar unique is that its buttons can be repositioned by drag-and-drop, as shown in the image below:

Arranging Icons on the Windows 7 Taskbar

This can be done to arrange pinned and unpinned applications. Although not as important as the previous features, it’s still fun to use.

A Closer Look at: The Windows 7 Taskbar -Part 3 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Access, Access!

Whenever you open a program, Windows places its icon on the Taskbar. In Windows Vista access to programs was further improved by allowing the user to add a program icon to the Start menu. Windows 7 has taken this a little further by allowing you to pin program icons to the Taskbar.

Even better, in Windows 7, there is an added bonus, a new feature called a Jump List. This allows you to open current files and documents. The items displayed in the Windows 7 Jump List are actually shortcuts.

The Taskbar and Jump Lists

All program icons on the Taskbar contain Jump Lists. To access a Jump List, right click on any Taskbar program icon and its Jump List appears.

The type of information contained within a Jump List will vary according to the type. In the screen picture below you will see three different programs. The Jump List for each one is slightly different from the others.

What is a Jump list?

A Jump List provides the user with immediate access to recently used files:

Each item listed in Recent is an actual shortcut to that file or document.

So to quickly retrieve a file or document, click on it and the program opens the file. You are off and running!

In the lower section, these are commands, clicking the top item; in this case “Windows Live Mail” would open the program. The last item allows you to remove (unpin) the program from the Taskbar.

What does a Windows 7 Jump list contain?

A Taskbar Jump List is composed of three sections. From the top – Pinned, Recent files and Commands.

Pinned is a useful option as it allows you to pin an important file or files to the Jump List. They stay there as a permanent access point or shortcut to the file. This is handy if you need a file always available.

Where are Jump Lists located?

Jump Lists occur in two places – on the Taskbar and on the Start menu. In the illustration below, you will see Microsoft Word’s Jump Lists in the two locations.

While both Jump Lists contain the same Recent items and any Pinned items, the Taskbar Jump List also has Commands.

Managing Jump Lists

As with all versions of Windows when you open an application, its icon appears on the Taskbar. In Windows 7, you can personally pin program icons to the Taskbar. Both open applications and pinned programs all have Jump lists.

Each Jump List has several menu commands allowing you to:

• Activate the program
• Unpin this program from the taskbar
• Close the window

Start Menu Jump Lists

Back in the Start Menu, only those applications or features that have a small black arrow button contain Jump Lists. Selecting one displays its Jump list.

To access a Start Menu Jump List, click on the black arrow button. This opens the Jump List.

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In part 1, we discussed how to pin commonly-used applications to the Windows 7 taskbar and how to unpin those that have been already pinned. In this part, we’ll speak about window grouping and overlay icons and how they can help users know the status of a program by just looking at its icon on the taskbar.

Windows 7 Taskbar... When does it get full?

Window Grouping

One of the features that were introduced in Windows XP is the ability to group windows of the same application in one button on the taskbar – known as window grouping. This feature has been further improved in Windows 7 and unlike Windows XP, it groups windows of the same application even when the taskbar is not full.

Windows 7 Taskbar - Window Grouping

Again, by looking at the icons on the taskbar you can tell how many windows are grouped in each button. So in the above screenshot:

• Internet Explorer has 1 open window as there’s one border around it.
• Microsoft Word has 2 open windows as there are two buttons that partially overlap one another (two boders seen).
• Calculator has more than 2 windows open – this could be 3 or more - as there are several buttons that overlap each other.

To access a window that has been grouped in the taskbar: Hover over, or click on, its icon on the taskbar.

Accessing a Grouped Window in the Windows 7 Taskbar

As you can see, windows 7 shows up all the windows that have been grouped and their titles for you to choose the one you want to access. Aero Peek displays a live thumbnail of each window so that you can know what’s going on there without actually switching to it. The live preview works on 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and on 32-bit as well so long as the window isn’t minimized. To read more about aero features, check out this article written by Robert.

To close a specific window that is grouped: Place the cursor over the window you want to close –> Click on the close button that appears.
To close ALL grouped windows at once: Right-click on their icon on the taskbar –> Choose “Close all windows”.

Closing All Grouped Windows from the Windows 7 Taskbar

Last but not least, the taskbar treats tabs in Internet Explorer pretty much the same way. When hovering over or clicking on its icon, it shows all the open tabs. This makes it easier to switch between tabs even when they’re not on the same window.

Internet Explorer

Safari

We should soon be seeing newer versions of other browsers, such as Firefox, that support this feature in Windows 7.

Overlay Icons

Overlay icons have been around since Windows 95. For instance, Windows shows a small arrow next to shortcut icons so that you can know that the file is a shortcut; this is an example of an overlay icon. Microsoft has brought this functionality to the Windows 7 taskbar due to the fact that the user can now hide icons in the notification area. This means that you can know the status of your program from its overlay icon. The following are the standard overlay icons:

A good example of a program that uses overlay icons is Windows Live Messenger, which uses them to display the user’s online status:

In Windows 7, Windows Live Messenger‘s icon always stays on the taskbar instead of appearing in the notification area when clicking on the close button. Some people might find this annoying. Luckily, one of our readers, Eithel, has shared with us a way to make it appear in the notification area. Here’s how:

• Click on Start
• Type “msnmsgr” in the search bar (if no results are found, try typing “%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%Windows LiveMessengermsnmsgr.exe”).
• Right-click on its icon
• Choose “Properties”
• Go to the “Compatibility” tab on the top
• Check “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and choose “Windows Vista” from the drop-down list.
• Click “OK”

You should now be able to minimize Windows Live Messenger to the notification area by clicking on the close button just like before.

A Closer Look at: The Windows 7 Taskbar -Part 2 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

As we get closer to the Windows 7 launch (22^nd of October), it’s worth considering the fact that users new to Windows 7 might to face some “learning curves”. Mike Halsey had discussed this earlier in an article that focused mainly on the new taskbar and how it can be confusing for new users. Fortunately, I believe that Windows 7 is easy to learn and have seen people getting used to it quickly. After searching on the internet for a guide about how to use the new taskbar, all what I came across were explanations of the changes made to it and a description of the features. However, I didn’t find any tutorials that actually teach users how to use it. And that’s why this guide is here: to show you how to get the most out of the new Windows 7 taskbar.

The taskbar is the access point for programs displayed on the desktop. With the new Windows® 7 taskbar features, users can give commands, access resources, and view program status directly from the taskbar.
MSDN

When first looking at Windows 7, the most noticeable change we can see is the taskbar. It takes up more space on the screen and has bigger icons, yet it can fit more applications as windows’ titles aren’t displayed. One of the reasons for these changes is that Windows 7 supports multi-touch technology. Windows Touch allows users using a touchscreen monitor to work with their fingers instead of a mouse and keyboard. Hence, to make the taskbar touch-friendly, it now has bigger icons.

Windows 7 Desktop

Pinning Commonly Used Applications

The taskbar displays open applications, but it can also show applications that are not running – remember “Quick Launch” bar in Windows XP and Vista? -. By default, Windows 7 comes with three icons that are lying there on the taskbar even when the applications are not open. These are the icons for: Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Windows Explorer.

These applications have been pinned to the taskbar. This means that they are always there regardless of whether they’re running or not. Why? To allow users to open them directly from the taskbar. You can run a pinned application by just clicking on its icon.

Windows 7 Taskbar - Active and Inactive (Pinned) Icons

You can tell whether the application is running or not from its icon. If the icon has a border frame around it, then it’s running. Additionally, if you hover over it with the cursor, a glowing effect appears. To sum up, by pinning an application that you frequently use, you can easily access it, since it’s always lying there on the taskbar. Not to mention that you can use keyboard shortcuts to do so. Here’s how:

To open, or switch to, an application on the taskbar, you can either:

• Simply click on its icon!
• Or press: Windows Key + Number. (The number corresponds to application’s position on the taskbar. For example in the above screenshot, to open “Windows Media Player”, press Windows Key + 2.

To pin an application to the taskbar, you can either:

• Right-click on its icon –> Choose “Pin to Taskbar”,
• Or drag and drop it into the taskbar

If the application you want to pin is already running:

1. Right click on its icon
2. Choose “Pin this program to taskbar”

Pinning a Running Application to the Taskbar

To remove a pinned application from the taskbar:

1. Right-click on its icon
2. Choose “Unpin this program from the taskbar”.

Unpinning an Application from the Taskbar

As you can see, interacting with the new taskbar is quite easy. You should now understand how to pin commonly used applications to the taskbar and access them. Nevertheless, if you are still unhappy that “Quick Launch” is no longer available in Windows 7 and would like to restore it, check out this article written by Martin.

A Closer Look at: The Windows 7 Taskbar -Part 1 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

The first software programs that are making use of the new features that Microsoft introduced in Windows 7 are slowly appearing on the Internet. One of the first is a program called 7 Stacks which basically allows Windows 7 users to add as much as ten different applications into one icon in the Windows 7 taskbar.

Why would someone want to do that? The answer is space and probably better manageability as well. Instead of having to deal with up to ten separate icons in the taskbar users only have to deal with one that contains all the ten applications that they want to access. This is for instance ideal to combine applications of a similar type, e.g. Internet applications like web browsers, email clients and messengers or Office programs like Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It’s also possible to combine folders with applications in one Windows 7 icon which could be used to open documents quickly this way that are related to the applications.

A new stack is simply created by right-clicking any open stack in the Windows 7 taskbar and selecting the “Create New Stack” option in the jumplist. This will create a new shortcut which can then be pinned to the taskbar and customized there.

The design of the software can be modified heavily. 7 Stack is can also be used on previous versions of the Windows operating system. It can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

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Here is a quick tip for those Windows 7 users who would like to change the number of recent items that are displayed in the jump lists in the Windows 7 taskbar. Jump lists are small context menus for taskbar items that can display all kinds of information and links including the recently opened items. This can be the last documents that have been opened in a text editor or the last websites opened with a web browser.

Windows 7 displays (up to) ten recent items in jump lists. The number can be changed easily by right-clicking on the Windows Orb and selecting Properties from the menu. A click on the customize button in the right upper corner will open the menu where the recent items setting can be changed.

The entry “Number of recent items to be displayed in Jump Lists” controls the amount of items that are displayed in the jump lists. It can be increased or decreased to suite the user’s needs. A click on the ok button will save the changes.

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The Taskbar Overlord application for the Windows 7 operating system was born out of frustration with how some aspects of the Windows 7 taskbar were working. The software developer decided to create the program to fix two issues that he had with the Windows 7 taskbar.

The first issue was that he did not like that a left-click on a taskbar icon would open the thumbnail preview if multiple windows were open which made it difficulty to find the last active window. This also meant that it takes two clicks to restore a minimized window instead of one. The fact that the thumbnails were also being displayed when hovering over the taskbar item made the issue even more pressing.

The second issue was a simpler one. A middle-click on an icon in the taskbar opens a new instance of that window. The very same result can also be achieved by left-clicking the item while holding down the shift key on the computer keyboard.

Taskbar Overlord therefor changes the behavior of the Windows 7 Taskbar the following way:

• A left-click on a taskbar item will now open the last active window immediately. Additional clicks will open the other windows that are grouped into that taskbar item.
• A middle-click on a taskbar item will now close that window instead of opening a new instance of the window.

Taskbar Overlord (via Lifehacker) is a Autohotkey script which can be directly downloaded from the developer’s website.

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One new feature of Windows 7 are thumbnail previews when hovering the mouse over a taskbar item. The default time before the thumbnail is displayed is 400 milliseconds which might be not fast enough for some users while it might be to fast for others. Here is how you change the Windows 7 taskbar hover time.

Load the Windows 7 registry editor by pressing [Windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting [enter]. Navigate to the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelMouse

Locate the Registry key MouseHoverTime. It should have a default value of 400 (milliseconds). Simply double-click that entry and change the number. The thumbnail will appear faster if you enter a lower number or slower if you enter a higher one. You need to logout or restart the computer before the changes take effect.

The same menu contains several addition parameters of the mouse in Windows 7 including the double-click speed, mouse sensitivity or mouse speed.

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Screenshots of the new Windows 7 build 7025 have been making their rounds on the Internet lately which show a quick launch bar in the Windows 7 taskbar. The quick launch bar looks similar to that of Windows Vista. Here is how you can enable the quick launch toolbar in Windows 7 build 7000 (the Windows 7 beta build).

• Right-click an empty space on the Windows 7 taskbar and select Toolbars > New Toolbar.
• Enter the following path: %userprofile%AppDataRoamingMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch
• Click on Select Folder
• The Quick Launch toolbar should appear.
• Right-click the Windows 7 Taskbar again and select Lock The Taskbar from the menu.
• Drag and drop the Quick Launch toolbar into the location where you want it to be.
• Select Lock The Taskbar again to lock the Windows 7 Taskbar in place

The result could look like this:

via WinVistaClub

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The Windows 7 taskbar has seen a major overhaul. It looks and behaves different than the taskbars on previous versions of the Windows operating system. One of those changes is the icon only display in the Windows 7 taskbar.

All open programs will be shown with their icons only. Some users might prefer the old way of displaying items in the Windows taskbar instead.

It is actually possible to change the display of the Windows 7 Taskbar items so that they display both icons and text instead.

To do that right-click empty space in the Windows 7 Taskbar and select Properties from the options. Locate the Taskbar Buttons entry and change the dropdown menu on the right from Always Combine, hide labels to Never Combine and press OK to apply the changes.

From then on icons and text will be displayed in the Windows 7 Taskbar.

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The Engineering Windows 7 blog is finally starting to integrate the operating system into their articles. Most of the previous articles that have been posted at the website were about theoretical aspects and things Microsoft learned from past operating systems.

The Windows 7 Taskbar is a very detailed article about the new and improved Taskbar in Windows 7. It features many screenshots and explains the whole new Taskbar concept in great detail. Some of the new features and concepts have already been mentioned before but the article does contain new information.

Take a look at some of the headlines of the article:

• Refreshed Look
• Pinning
• Unification
• Interactive, Grouped Thumbnails
• Aero Peek
• Jump Lists
• Custom Window Switchers
• Thumbnail Toolbars
• Notification Area
• Overlay Icons and Progress Bars
• Color Hot-track
• Start Menu

The first thing that might catch the attention is the Color Hot-track feature. This is a visual aid that becomes active when the user moves the mouse over a Taskbar icon.

When a person moves her mouse over a running program on the taskbar, she will be pleasantly surprised to find that a light source tracks her mouse and the color of the light is actually based on the icon itself. We calculate the most dominant RGB of the icon and dynamically paint the button with this color.

Overlay Icons and Progress Bars have not been mentioned before as well:

Cleaning the Notification Area warrants us to consider other ways that programs can surface important information. We’ll always had overlay icons throughout Windows (e.g. to show shortcuts in Explorer) so we decided to bring this functionality to the taskbar. An icon can now be shown over a program’s taskbar button. Furthermore, programs can also give feedback about progress by having their taskbar button turn into a progress bar.

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Rafael Rivera did analyze the Windows 7 version that was handed out to the attendees of the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles and discovered that it contained features that were locked in the build by Microsoft. You might remember that Microsoft did a presentation of the desktop elements of Windows 7 at the conference and that part of the presentation was the new taskbar of Windows 7. The build that the attendees of the conference received was apparently a different one from the one that was used for presentation as it did not include the new features of the taskbar.

Rafael found out that the features were available in that build as well but locked by Microsoft. The features were unlocked on a domain and username basis:

1. Must be a member of an allowed domain

• wingroup.windeploy.ntdev.microsoft.com
• ntdev.corp.microsoft.com
• redmond.corp.microsoft.com

2. Must not be an employee with a disallowed username prefix

• a- (temporary employees)
• v- (contractors/vendors)

More interestingly than the criteria is his workaround that he posted on his website to enable the “protected features” of the M3 6801 build of Windows 7. The steps to unlock those features are the following:

• Download the 32-bit or 64-bit executable and put it into the Windows directory.
• Start a comamnd prompt as an administrator and issue the following commands
• takeown /f %windir%explorer.exe
• cacls %windir%explorer.exe /E /G MyUserName:F (replacing MyUserName with your username)
• taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
• cd %windir%
• start unlockProtectedFeatures.exe

Relaunch the shell by clicking on the Launch button afterwards to enable the new features including the new Windows 7 taskbar.

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Microsoft introduced some fundamental design changes in the Windows 7 presentation today. This article will take a closer look at what Microsoft has shown. One of the most talked new features is the new Windows 7 Taskbar. We already talked about the increase in size but Microsoft has revealed some interesting information about the taskbar today. If you look at a picture of the Windows 7 Taskbar you notice that it is displaying icons and no names which is a different approach than before. Each icon still represents an application, file or folder that has been opened. It is possible to change the order of each icon in the taskbar which was one of the most requested features for it. It is even possible to pin applications at a certain position in the taskbar so that they will always be available in the same spot.

The screenshot above is a closeup of the Windows 7 Taskbar as it is implemented in the latest build. Previews of each item of the taskbar are now available by simply hoovering over one. Even more interesting is the ability to display not only the current active window of the application but also other open tabs of it. An Internet Explorer preview would for instance display the open tabs of the browser while a Word preview all open documents. It is likely that there will be a maximum of preview windows that can be displayed at a time. The user can load a window or application by simply moving the mouse over the preview icon. It should be noted that it is now possible to place programs permanently into the Windows Taskbar which was was only possible in the Quick Launch area in previous Windows versions. Open applications and folders are visualized by a border which makes it easy to distinguish between open and closed programs. Multiple open windows will be visualized by icon stacks. The size of the taskbar icons can be altered to provide space for more icons or less but bigger ones.

A right-click on an icon in the Windows 7 Taskbar will open so called Jump Lists. This is another interesting new feature. Jump Lists provide access to the last used files, documents or website history. It can also contain the most common tasks like playing all music tracks or resuming a playlist. A user could use it to open an Excel spreadsheet that he opened previously to continue working on it.

The Windows 7 System Tray has been redesigned as well. A design focus was to design it in a way that it would add less interruption to the user’s workflow. After installation only four icons are displayed in the Windows 7 System Tray: Volume, Power, Network and Action Center. Icons of applications that install a system tray icon will be hidden by default and notifications suppressed which obviously can be changed in the options. Hidden meaning that they can be accessed from the Caret. A right-click provides access to the Customize Notification Icons panel. The user can change the status of any icon in the system tray in the options there.

Date and time can still be configured after the users liking. Versions with both the time and date in two rows and only the time are possible. The far right contains a new feature called Peek. If the user moves the mouse over that panel all open windows become transparent making the desktop shine through. A click on it will show the desktop. Aero Peek comes also in effect when hoovering the mouse over preview windows of the Windows 7 Taskbar. If the user moves the mouse over a preview window all other open windows will turn to glass which means that only the window the user is looking at will come to his attention.

Microsoft added options to customize the Windows Taskbar. Users will be able to change the color of the Windows Taskbar and the transparency levels of the taskbar and the preview windows.

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No one is allowed to talk about the changes of the Windows 7 M3 client that will be presented tomorrow by Microsoft. The German magazine WinFuture got hold of two rather blurred images of the new interface which give a first impression of the changes in that version. The screenshots seem to confirm that the Windows 7 taskbar will be about 1.5 times the size of the Windows Vista taskbar. The program icons on the taskbar will be a bit larger and the date and time will be shown together in two rows.

The magazine mentioned that the desktop is shining through the maximized program windows and that the taskbar looked partially transparent as well. Just follow the link to the page where the two screenshots have been posted. A click will load them in full resolution. Thanks 7fan (Windows 7 News commenter) for letting us now.

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I guess everyone has already seen the touchscreen presentation from the All Things Digital conference a few days ago. While most eyes were glued to that main presentation it turned out that Microsoft was revealing more information than they wanted to reveal at that point. Long Zheng has already written a great article about the taskbar that was shown during the presentation of the multi-touch feature of Windows 7. He discovered the following information about the Windows 7 taskbar:

• The taskbar is higher than usual, probably 1.75x as high as the normal taskbar
• The Windows orb still sticks the upper part out of the taskbar
• The taskbar is divided into different colored sections
• The system tray is not touching the edge of the screen
• Two lines for the date and icons in the middle of the taskbar
• Larger Quick Launch icons

There was another interesting tidbit that could lead to some speculation. During the presentation Julie Larson Green’s opens a circle menu by pressing her finger on the screen for a short period of time.

That circle menu (or pie menu) could be an indication that Microsoft will introduce circle menus in Windows 7 on a broader scale, at least for the time when a user is using the touch interface. It’s not yet clear if the touch menu shown was purely related to the application or if it was a broader menu that works in full screen applications.

From the visible icons (plane, earth) I would say that it is a specific menu of the application which does not mean that other menus or even the Windows desktop will not have a pie menu as well.

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