Apart from the obvious design overhauling, the Date and Time panel comes with an additional feature change. Due to user behavior and feedback, Microsoft has altered the access path to the Date and Time settings. While in XP double-clicking the clock in the bottom right-hand corner brought up the Date and Time Properties Control Panel, a feature absent from Vista.

"Vista creates a new feature based on how users actually use the OS. No matter how many times you click or double-click the clock, you get a new panel that shows the date and lets you browse a full calendar, but doesn't let you change any system settings. It has only one real action, a link that you can click to open the real date and time settings control panel. It even uses some cool graphical transitions, zooming in and out of the calendar to display the days of the month, months of the year, a twelve-year period, or eleven decades (reaching 2099)," stated Nathan Weinberg from InsideMicrosoft.

This is a feature that is bound to come in handy. And in fact I, as many of us did, used the Date and Time Properties panel from XP to access the calendar. Not just once I wound up in the wrong month by doing so.