BANGALORE, INDIA: Windows 7 makes some exciting and very large leaps in changing some of the things that most computer users have been used to since the Windows 95 days and for the better. The new Taskbar itself has enough number of new features that allow for not just better productivity but also make using Windows more cooler than ever before. So let's delve into some of these in this pictorial review.

The TaskBar
One of the biggest changes (visually) that you will notice once you login to Windows is the new appearance of the TaskBar. Not only is it slightly taller than before but is also more glassy. It also contains a completely new way of working with applications and icons.

Application icons
Till Windows Vista, icons on the taskbar could do or represent the following: on the Quick Launch bar, the icons would launch the application and create a new task button on the rest of the taskbar. On the taskbar an icon (and associated text) would represent a running application and its windows.

In Windows 7 however, these distinctions are done away with. The Quick Launch bar no longer exists. Instead the icons that exist on the taskbar represent both icons to launch an application as well as the running applications themselves. This means that on launching an application from the icon on the taskbar, there is no new task button created.

Instead, the icon itself turns into the task button that you can click to switch to the running instance. It may sound confusing at first and might take you a day or two to get used to the idea. Stick with it for the day and you'll realize that this is how it should have always been, with the added advantage of getting tons of free taskbar real estate for other running apps' buttons.

But this is not the only change that's happened. The running and non-running app icons are differentiated by a subtle glass border. Apps with more than one windows or tab open (for instance IE or Word), show that with multiple glass slabs representing multiple windows. Running apps are also differentiated upon when you mouse over the icons.

A color sensitive glow tracks the mouse as it passes over the icon when the app is running making it very clear which is a running app and which is (for now) a launch icon.

Thumbnail previews
Thumbnail previews of running apps are also very much enhanced. Each window or tab gets its own live preview and you can perform a variety of tasks within the preview itself without actually switching to the actual application. For instance, you can use a new feature called Aero Peek to quickly peek at another running application's window without actually losing your place in the current application by simply hovering for a second over the other app's thumbnail preview.