Microsoft is laboring to deliver a new level of personalization, choice and control with the Windows 7 desktop, according to Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, Steven Sinofsky. The new graphical user interface designed for the next iteration of the Windows client made its first appearance at the Professional Developers Conference 2008 at the end of the past month in Los Angeles. Windows 7 Pre-Beta Build 6801 was sporting a new Taskbar, signaling the UI overhaul prepared by Microsoft complete with features such as Aero Shake, Aero Peek and Jumplists. 

Corporate Vice President, Windows Experience, Julie Larson-Green indicated that Windows 7 would deliver sufficient power to end users to enable them to keep their desktop as clean as possible. “I was surprised to learn when I came to the Windows team how many people actually personalize and change their desktops. Over 95 percent of our users change the desktop, some of them doing it many more times a month. Now, lots of people change them in different ways. Some of you power users probably like a plain, dark background and someone else might want something a little more colorful,” Larson-Green stated.

The new Taskbar in Windows 7 is no longer separated into the basic areas that have become traditional, the Start button, Quick Launch, the space reserved for opened programs, and the notification area. The Windows 7 Taskbar, even with the pre-beta build 6801 release, is a much more unitary item, merging both opened applications and the quick launch shortcuts. At the same time, control over the notification area has been handed over to end users.

“Two features that are really important are jump lists and libraries. Jump lists are the little menus down at the start menu on the task bar that show up when you right click on the start menu, and libraries are the way to bring together search and storage locations and multiple computers. The idea of both of these is to integrate deeply with the Windows desktop experience. These are opportunities for [developers and their] software to really work seamlessly through and across and with Windows. It's an opportunity for [developers] to differentiate [their] software, and an opportunity to participate in the personalization, the choice, and the control that Windows 7 promises end users,” Sinofsky stated.