Microsoft announced earlier this month that they would be accelerating Internet Explorer 9 adoption by automatically pushing it through Windows Update. A lot of users might not be happy with this decision since there are websites and web applications that are still being optimized for the browser. Not everyone want’s Internet Explorer 9 automatically installed, so this guide will show you how to stop IE9 from installing automatically through Windows Update.

Microsoft’s Announcement about IE9 installing through Windows Update:

Since its availability on March 14th, IE9 has been available for manual download and we are pleased by the early and continued enthusiasm for IE9. We are seeing not only strong customer and business demand, but some of the highest web and application compatibility rates in IE history, not to mention all the sites that are taking advantage of HTML5 and IE9’s Windows 7 integration. On March 28^th, we began to upgrade existing IE9 Beta and RC users through Windows Update.

How to Prevent Internet Explorer 9 From Automatically Installing

Click Start, type: windows update.

Hit Enter on your keyboard.

Click the link to view important updates are available.

In the list of Important right click Windows Internet Explorer 9 for Windows 7, right click it and click Hide Update.

That’s it! Internet Explorer 9 will not install itself automatically.

When you are ready to install Internet Explorer 9, just go back to Windows Update, and under Control Panel Home click ‘Restore Hidden Updates’.

If Internet Explorer 9 was installed automatically, you can uninstall it manually, and your previous version of Internet Explorer will be restored. For more information, check out our guide on to how to uninstall Internet Explorer 9.

How to Prevent Internet Explorer 9 from Automatically Installing Through Windows Update is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

This week Microsoft introduced us to a new experience, a new way of enjoying the web, the beauty of it specifically. The web browser has changed dramatically over the past 15 years, it has moved from this niche thing that was once a second class citizen to activities such as Word processors, spreadsheets to a driving force of computing. The significant quantity of my time is spent in the browser these days, whether its e-mail, social networking, watching videos, consuming information or productivity using services such as Office Web Apps. The Web browser has become a jack of all trades and its defining computing for us as we spend more time online.

This means the user experience is critical, particularly navigation, performance and presentation. Microsoft’s competitors in the web browser market have been continuously innovating over the past 3 years. Firefox 1.0 which was launched in 2004 focused on providing a secure, simple experience. Google Chrome launched in September 2008 focused primarily on simplicity and performance. Both are continually improving their respective browsers with frequent updates.

Internet Explorer has remained strong, but Microsoft realizes that the pace of innovation needs to be revamped. I recently noted some of the significant improvements that have been introduced over the past four years and a lot of them are notable, such as visual search, web slice, color coordinated tabs, integration with Windows 7 and stronger security with technologies such as Private Mode, Phishing Filter and many other features.

Microsoft is focusing on the most important part of the web browser in Internet Explorer 9, the web page. Internet Explorer 9 offers substantial improvements to Internet Explorer 8: a streamlined interface, full hardware-accelerated HTML5, modern SVG and native JavaScript integration, support for the Web Open Font Format as well as faster overall performance. The new Internet Explorer 9 Beta provides a more secure, stable and fast browsing experience.

Installation

Internet Explorer 9 is BETA, which means it’s currently in development and is probably not recommended for production use. There are some key ways you can test it out, which includes a Virtual Machine such as Windows Virtual PC or a non-production test machine. I currently have a test system setup with Windows 7 Ultimate x64, specifically running Service Pack 1 beta, I also have a VM running Windows 7 Enterprise x64 RTM.

Internet Explorer 9 Beta is compatible with Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 PCs. It is not available for earlier versions of Windows Vista or with PCs running Windows XP – so don’t even bother if you are running that version of Windows.

As Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch puts it “Building a modern browser requires a modern operating system,”

Microsoft said that the reason for dropping Windows XP are based on technical reasons, such as lack of support for Direct2D and DirectWrite DirectX APIs (applications programming interfaces) in Windows XP. These API’s in addition to security technologies are built into Windows Vista and Windows 7 and just cannot be back ported Windows XP. Windows XP is a 9 year old operating system, the extra burden to support 3 separate versions of Windows (XP, Vista, 7 in addition to various editions and Server releases is probably a bit too much even for a Company with the resources of Microsoft). Its time people move on to Windows 7, if you want to experience the benefits of Internet Explorer 9, upgrade to Windows 7 or at least a minimum of Windows Vista SP2 (preferably Windows 7). If Windows XP users cannot accept this decision, then you can download Internet Explorer 8 which works great on that release.

Simple, elegant Setup

Installation quick and easy

Yes, you still have to do this.

Now, onto the installation. Simple, quick and intuitive is how I would describe it. It took approximately 3 minutes to complete the installation. Similar in appearance to Windows Live Essentials wave 4, Microsoft uses a minimal installer. I am a bit disappointed that there isn’t one single 32 and one single 64 bit installer. Users still have to choose which architecture and version of Windows (7 or Vista) they are running. A Restart was required.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 first launch

First Launch

The interface in Internet Explorer 9 has been streamlined to focus on the content of the web page removing some of the overbearing qualities of past versions. It’s a philosophy itself first spoken about with the introduction of the Windows AERO User Experience. The idea of making the content of the window be the star. With Internet Explorer 9, the web page is front and center more than ever. The toolbar area has been exquisitely designed, Microsoft has cut the amount of toolbars down to just one. The Navigation buttons (back and forward), Address Bar and Tabs have been fused together along with a few toolbar controls (Home, Favorites and Tools). This might come across as controversial and I personally am still in the adjustment stages. What I love though is the simplicity of it all, there is not this heap of features presented, just the essentials that a user needs especially since the idea of web pages are more app centric in this release. Having a litter of tabs in one window is not necessarily the best idea, you can read on further to understand why.

I notice when I launched the browser for the first time, I was greeted by a small notification strip at the bottom of the window recommending I Speed up startup and browsing by disabling add-ons.

Clicking the ‘Disable add-ons button, leads to a dialog which will display a list of add ons that might be affecting the web browsers performance. Talk about intuitive, this gives users better insight about how they can improve the performance of their web browsing experience.

As you can see in the above screenshot, add ons with red bar indicate how much time they are taking to load. Those with gray bars are minimal and can be left alone. A really great feature!

Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 9

User Experience

Website’s are probably not something users pay much attention to in the sense that, a lot of the details invested in application development and user experience that are often applied to desktop programs. With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft hopes to change that thinking, the aim is to make website’s more app centric. In fact one of the cool things you can do with Internet Explorer 9 optimized website’s on Windows 7 is pin them to your Taskbar just like any other application such as Word or Photoshop.

A number of high profile web developers have focused on revamping their websites just for IE 9, these include Ebay, CNN, Redbull, Amazon.com and IMDB, to name a few. Microsoft announced 70 partners who have all optimized their sites for the beta. The intention really is to blur platforms a bit, to make the web as much a part of the desktop as possible. It’s an interesting approach. What I believe this will do is create better brand consciousness among web developers to focus more on the quality of the website, such as how easy it is navigate, the use of colors and layout, even down to the most minute details such as the Webicon.

When you pin a webicon to your Taskbar, you will notice familiar Windows 7 functionality, such as the ability to right click the icon and access Jump List. This is great for my favorite sites that I open first thing everyday, such as Twitter, Facebook, CNET News, ZDNET and many others. There is could be more intuitiveness about how you pin a webicon to the Taskbar, I thought you did it by right clicking a Tab, but later discovered this is done by holding down on the web sites emoticon in the Address Bar, then drag it to the Taskbar. Although drag and drop is a natural action over the years, a quicker method I would recommend is to have a right click the webicon menu in the Address bar with a pop menu displaying option to pin to the Taskbar.

Co-branded identity

Here is an interesting branding idea I noticed is a part of Internet Explorer 9. Web developers can now customize IE on the fly to reflect the core identity of their site. An example of this is through elements such as the Back and Forward Navigation buttons with colors specific to that website. Similar color coordinated colors for applications on the Taskbar, such as a blue button representing Microsoft Word. It’s a more engaging way for sites to embrace the desktop and a bit of personality along with clear identification to a user.

Chrome and Firefox have a lot of catching up to do with features like this.

This is just a tip of the iceberg though, the key integration is when you check out the Jump List features, not all sites support it at the moment, but I am sure they will over time. Two examples are Twitter and Facebook. When you pin either social network to the Taskbar, you will see unique Jump List Tasks such as @Mentions, Direct Messages, New Message, Search and Favorites. Facebook offers its own unique task such as News, Messages, Events and Friends. This immediately blows Chrome and Firefox out of the water. The idea of opening up the browser and typing in a URL or click a favorite link to your site, then navigating to a specific location is unnecessary. Jump List integration is just spectacular!

More Windows 7 Integration

The integration doesn’t end there either, Internet Explorer 9 also takes advantage of other Aero functionality such as Snap. One of the cool effects in Windows 7 is Aero Snaps which allows you to snap to windows to the side of the screen which automatically fills the half of the screen. This is great for doing reference or comparison activities. With Internet Explorer 9, it’s a breeze.

Here is an example, I have two tabs open in my Twitter window (my Twitter Home Page and my @Mentions page), suppose I want to compare the two at the same time. With IE 8 or Firefox, I could do a Tear off tab action then use then use the Aero Snaps feature to compare both windows. But why bother going through all that process?

What I will do is simply drag the window with my Twitter Home page to the left of the screen. Now check out the next option

Here you can see I am simply dragging off the tab for my @Mentions window to right.

There I go, as easy as that. Now I can do whatever comparison or reference I want with both windows on-screen. When I decide that I am finished, all I have to do is simply redrag it back into the original window! How amazing is that???

Its synergies like this that show the level of sophistication and thought that has gone into the user’s experience for this release of Internet Explorer 9. It’s another example of why Internet Explorer 9 was not possible on Windows XP.

Performance

Of course, this is probably the most critical area of the Internet Explorer 9 experience. Since March, Microsoft has been releasing a preview of the engine powering this release. Early testers have been impressed. I personally didn’t take the time to try it out and preferred to wait until today when Microsoft released a full featured beta. Microsoft has made some critical improvements, I noted earlier such as the Disable Add on feature. But this is only a minor aspect. Internet Explorer 9 is going at the deepest level meaning the entire computer contributes to the browsers speed, these include processor, memory and in particular Video Graphics or Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). Microsoft calls this Accelerated Graphics. This provides are more dynamic web experience by utilizing the power of the GPU to handle the rendering and processing of video and images to speed up presentation and load time of pages. This is based on low level improvements introduced in Windows 7 and Vista through Direct2D.

I decided to try out 15 of my favorite websites I tried last year in my Internet Explorer 8 review, along with two other browsers, Firefox 3.5.9 and Google Chrome 6.

I did these test on a 8 MB Flow Cable connection.

The results are interesting, of course Internet Explorer 9 is still in development, so we might even see additional improvements as Microsoft continue tweaking under the hood. Also, as more sites become optimized, we might even see greater performance, but for now, these are the results I am seeing. They are unscientific, since I did using a stop watch. Time is listed in seconds.

I tried out loading a wallpaper image off Microsoft’s Windows 7 Personalize Gallery, here is a link to the image I loaded here There wasn’t anything to report as all 4 web browsers loaded the image instantly. Testing browser performance is tricky, the fact that some of the load times are very negligible, I seriously have wonder if its worth doing if you are already on a fast broadband connection.

More Cool Features

I want to start wrapping up this early preview, I have been working on it since this morning. So, I want dive more into changes to user interface. As you can see the interface is major update, its refreshing, inviting and attractive. It makes you want to use it and benefit from it more. Internet Explorer 8 included some well needed improvements to the Address Bar such as auto complete suggestions for sites that you might want to go to, suggestions are based on your history of websites you like to visit, your personal web browsing history and Feeds that you have subscribed to. Typing in a URL offers some address bar tricks, if you click the arrow below the URL in the middle, it will reveal a number of commands:

• Go to Enter
• Navigate to Ctrl + Enter
• Open in a new tab Alt + Enter
• Open in a background tab Alt + Shift + Enter

Autocomplete suggestions in IE 8, as noted, are based on your sites visited, or your browser history. In Internet Explorer 9, you can now get real-time feedback based on Bing results. This is turned off by default and you will have to manually turn it on (privacy reasons). The most dramatic improvement is the fusion of Search into the Address, just like Google Chrome with its Smart Bar feature. So, you not only can enter URLs, you can do web searches right there too.

Here you can see, I don’t get any suggestions for CNN.com in Internet Explorer 8

Suggestions from Bing, I can even choose other locations such as Google Internet Explorer 9.

The new tab button is so much faster than Internet Explorer 8. I am sure many of us know how molasses slow it was, not anymore! It opens instantly and displays a list of your most recently visited websites. It looks like Tab Gallery has been incorporated into the new new tab page. It’s very interesting the changes they have made here with the use of colors. Users will notice that a display of all your popular sites that you visit most often are shown, along with a color coordinated bar below each, indicating how actively you visit the site. The length of the bar is an indication of frequency.

From here you can do task like Reopen closed tabs along with your last browser session. You can also hide sites you don’t see or reveal or even start an InPrivate Browsing session. It would have been nice to have non-adjacent selection support here to quickly close a batch of sites on the fly.

The three buttons at the top right don’t reveal anything new, the Home button does as it suggest, takes you to your home page. The Star reveals all your Favorites, History and Feeds. The Bolt (Tools menu) list all common Options and Settings for the browser. I am disappointed that Internet Explorer 9 does not introduce a new Internet Options window. I personally think its cluttered and need to be revamped with a similar look and feel to the one in Microsoft Office 2007/2010. It would be nice if the IE Team added a File menu tab similar to the one in Office 2010 apps, with a Backstage like interface.

Last year I asked for some things I would have liked to see in IE 8, did they make it in IE 9

• Download Manager – trust me, it needs it, I find it very handy in FireFox and Safari – Pause/Resume, Manage. Yes, finally! Microsoft has introduced an interesting approach for downloading and running an executable in Internet Explorer 9. The old download dialog has now been phased out and replaced by a notification strip at the bottom when you click a download link, you have the option of running it, saving it or click cancel. You can click the View Button which will reveal the all new Download Manager.

The all new Download Manager

You can quickly access the Download Manager by pressing CTRL + J or click the Tools menu and click View Downloads.

• Non-adjacent Selection of text on web pages. Nope, didn’t make it.
• Customizable toolbar, I personally wouldn’t mind if buttons such as Home, Feeds, Print, Page, Tools and Help were on a another toolbar group such as the Address bar group, I need more real estate for Tab’s that’s much cleaner. The new Favorites Bar in particular eats up a lot of space. Nope, and for obvious reasons, the new layout is more focused on putting emphasis on the web page instead of the browser window.
• List View layout for Options, similar to Office 2007 Options dialog. Also make the Advance settings a part of the list view Options, this includes: Accessibility, Browsing, International, Multimedia. Nope, discussed earlier, well, I can still hope.
• Make Print Preview utilize a Tab instead of opening a separate window. Nope, but what I notice is that Printer Preview took a long time to compose a window of the preview.
• Close button Tabs like Firefox. Nope, hopefully by RTM I wish. Since we are on the topic of Tabs, there are some love aesthetics improves, there is a faint level of transparency, color coordinated tabs are more subtle compared to IE 8.
• One unified 32-bit and one unified 64-bit installer. Note, you must download for Windows 7 64 bit, Windows 7 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit and Windows Vista 32 bit. Microsoft, would love if you could simplify this.

I have only touched the surface with this introductory preview, but so far I am most impressed by this release of Internet Explorer, it’s the absolute best in years. The emphasis on engaging more with the web page, allowing web developers to offer unique experiences that integrate more with the desktop make Internet Explorer 9 truly one of a kind. You are not going to see some of these benefits on Windows Vista, which makes it an even better reason to upgrade to Windows 7 if you haven’t already from Windows XP. It’s still early days yet and I am most looking forward to seeing more sites show off their unique experience over time. Again, the streamlined interface, jump list integration, new tab page improvements, superior performance over IE 8 and even competitors such as Firefox and Chrome, deep integration with Windows 7 Aero Effects such as Snaps, I have to say it, I believe Microsoft has the best web browser in the world right now. Stay tuned for more updates.

Download Windows Internet Explorer 9 BETA

Windows Internet Explorer 8 RTM Review

Internet Explorer 9 Beta: Enjoying the Beauty of the Web is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

So you have Windows 7 running on a couple systems and you are loving every moment of it. The increased performance, stability, features, entertainment, aesthetics and customization make it all a great experience. Customization in particular is an area Windows 7 puts a lot of emphasis on.

Although I like running the Home Premium edition on all my systems, I do not necessarily need all the features on all systems. Windows 7 provides a much richer set of options in its ‘Turn Windows Features on or off’ applet. For instance, I am not really using Windows Tablet PC components, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player on my Windows 7 64-bit install, so lets take a look at the ability to remove some of these features.

Click Start, type: Windows Features

Hit Enter

You can customize your Windows installation even more.

What can you remove?

• Internet Explorer 8
• Windows Media Player
• Windows Media Center
• Windows DVD Maker
• Windows Search
• Handwriting Recognition (through the Tablet PC Components option)
• Windows Gadget Platform
• Fax and Scan
• XPS Viewer and Services (including the Virtual Print Driver)

In Windows 7, you can remove Tablet PC components without it removing the Snipping Tool.

The ability to remove Windows Internet Explorer is probably one of the most significant options considering its high level of integration with the Windows operating system over the past 10 years. Microsoft does note there are consequences to removing certain features since third party programs and other Windows Features may have certain requirements or dependencies on functionality built into these critical components.

Application Dependencies are still a factor when removing features like Internet Explorer or Windows Search.

“It is worth describing the details of remove” since this too is a place where there are engineering and customer decisions to be made. We’ve already seen one decision which is to make sure we keep the features staged for future use so that a DVD is not required. A second decision is that we also continue to support the APIs available for features where these APIs are necessary to the functionality of Windows or where there are APIs that are used by developers that can be viewed as independent of the component. As many of you know these are often referred to as dependencies” and with Windows the dependencies can run both internal to Windows and external for ISVs.”

Windows Team member, Jack Mayo

Windows 7 preparing to remove Windows Features and Components

What it suggest though is that Windows 7 is a more open platform to competing solutions that have come with the OS for years. Personally, I think its a good decision, in particular for the systems I plan on running Windows 7 on depending on the SKU (edition) I purchase. Do I want Windows 7 Ultimate on all my PC’s? Yes. But do I really need all the features on all the PC’s? Probably not. So the idea of having the user pick and choose is a great thing. For libraries or class rooms, it will also be a great option for administrators to utilize along with tools such as Group Policy Editor to customize their Windows systems and prevent access to functionality they would prefer students not have access to during class time.

Jenny Craig or Slim Fast couldn’t light a candle to Windows 7′s instant diet 

I have Windows 7 Home Premium on a AMD Sempron, 512 MBs of RAM, a very bare bones system, personally, I use it for nothing more than Email, casual Web surfing and Backup, I don’t even have speakers connected to it, so in addition to reducing disk foot print by removing certain features like Media Center, XPS Viewer and Media Player, I can also improve the systems overall performance even more. However, if the need arises for a particular feature I removed, it can be easily re-enabled without any fuss.

Resources

Engineering Windows 7 : Beta to RC Changes Turning Windows Features On or Off

How to Customize your Windows 7 Installation is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

Two critical elements that have been revamped for the better are the Taskbar and Start Menu. Some persons I have had conversations with about Windows 7 think it’s a minor release and it’s just Windows Vista reloaded. Yes, it is built on Vista and that’s a very good thing, which means, your investments in that version of Windows will be brought forward in areas of application and device driver compatibility. Apart from that, what new user experiences does Windows 7 introduce? What about the learning curve? Office 2007, Microsoft’s desktop productivity suite revamped the user interface in applications such as Word and Excel, there was a small learning curve, but there were huge benefits because of what the new Office Fluent UI did for the Standard and Formatting toolbars by exposing more features that some end users didn’t even know exist in the suite. Windows 7 is pretty much based on some of those principles, exposing more benefits in the Windows interface.

Taskbar

What is the Taskbar? First introduced in Windows 95 as a replacement for Program Manager that was a part of previous Windows releases, it houses your running applications as buttons that you can use to switch between windows on screen. Releases of Windows over the years have added new features and functionality such as the ‘Quick Launch’ desk band in Windows 98, ‘Taskbar Grouping’ in Windows XP and ‘Taskbar Thumbnail previews’ in Windows Vista. Windows 7 combines all those innovations and made them even better. When you load the Windows 7 Desktop for the first time, everything might seem familiar except for the Taskbar which has grown a few inches in size. Shortcuts for applications such as Internet Explorer and the User Folder might look like enlarged Quick Launch icons; well it’s a combination of both. By default, application shortcuts, running applications and non-running applications are not labelled. In previous versions of Windows, a running program would display an icon along with the name of the button on the Taskbar. The Windows Team have changed this based on the probability of users experience identifying programs by clear pictorial representations, the Internet Explorer ‘e’ for web browser, a blue ‘w’ for Microsoft Word, the stacked CD icon with the play identifier for Windows Media Player.

Taskbar with interactive Thumbnail Previews

Improved ways of controlling Notification Behaviour

Of course, if you don’t recognize a program shortcut on your Taskbar, you can hover over its icon which displays a floating balloon describing its purpose. One of the immediate benefits I discovered using the improved Taskbar with applications is a feature called Jump List. What it does is combine the ‘Recent Items’ menu from past versions of Windows and allows each application to have an individual Recent Items menu or Task list right click contextual menu with common activities that you might often associate with the program. Not all applications currently support the new feature, but I have discovered a handful that take advantage of it immediately, such as Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player, Windows Live Messenger, Live Writer, Windows Programs such as WordPad, Paint and Notepad to name a few. Not all programs will reveal radical features in Jump List, as programs are updated, third party developers I am sure will add functionality to programs to harness the benefits of Jump List.

Preview your windows without distractions (left), get a glance at your desktop and Gadgets (right)

Right now, users will mostly see ‘Recent files’ for some applications or your browser History for Internet Explorer, you will discover unique functionality in programs such as Windows Media Player which displays a list of Frequent activity such as your recently played media, search queries, artiste played and Task for playing your library of music in shuffle mode. Windows Live Messenger which is available as a part of Windows Live Essentials includes Task such as changing your status, signing in/out, going to your home page, viewing your Windows Live Profile or check your email. Jump List on the Taskbar is not only restricted to applications, Folders also support it too; users can appreciate seeing a list of the most frequently accessed folders within a directory. If you want to add your favourite application, you can do so by clicking Start, right click a program from the recent programs list or all programs and click the ‘Pin to Taskbar’ link.

Color Hot tracking

Appearances Thumbnail Previews

The Taskbar for some persons might seem radical at first, but I have adjusted to it just fine, beyond Jump List, you will discover some cool effects and features when working with your applications. Thumbnail previews have become interactive. Internet Explorer for example which supports tabbed based browsing benefits from it immediately by displaying previews when you hover over its button on the Taskbar without the need to activate the window. You will be able to see a thumbnail preview of all open tab windows along with the ability see a full size preview when you hover the mouse pointer over each thumbnail. It’s a beautiful effect that saves time and makes working in Windows much faster. Applications and folders that are consolidated into groups automatically compose a group of thumbnails. Windows Media Player 12 Thumbnail supports unique functionality such as Previous, Pause and Next controls when playing an album. In addition to Thumbnail Previews, users can benefit from another significant productivity effect; the enhanced ‘Show Desktop’ button called ‘Desktop Preview’ allows you to get a glance at your Desktop or Gadgets by simply hovering the mouse pointer in the right hand corner of the screen. Your windows will immediately become transparent frames revealing the contents of the desktop. Another key feature is the progress bar which has been integrated into folder activities. For instance, when you are copying files from folder to folder or a network location or downloading a program in Internet Explorer, a progress indicator is displayed on the Taskbar button for that activity.

Various Jump List Activities by supported applications.

New Capabilities and Settings

Notification Area or System Tray features new options, in addition to showing full time and date, users can gain more real estate by controlling notification icon behaviours. A ‘Show hidden icons’ button reveals a floating balloon with a small gallery of icons and option for customizing the behaviour. This leads to a new Notification Area Icons Control Panel item. What I like in particular about this new setting is the clear organization of your notifications and ease of controlling the behaviours, from here you can choose to hide or show an icon at all times or show just the notification. To further clarify things, a link to a separate area available just for Windows 7 System Icons such as Clock, Volume, Network, Power and the new Action Center allows you to turn these settings on or off. If you mess something up or get confused, you can simply click the Restore default icon behaviours. The new ‘Eject’ device contextual is more informative too, displaying the name of the device instead of just the drive letter. Safely ejecting a device can be done more confidently too, in prior versions of Windows, you always closed all open programs and windows launched from a USB device before ejecting yet Windows kept insisting that you need to close all activities before removing the device. Now you can ignore that and force a device close and eject without any concern.

Default appearance Always Combine, hide Labels

Combine when Taskbar is full

Never combine

Never combine with small icons 

One of the most requested functionality for the Taskbar over the years has been the ability rearrange your Taskbar buttons just the way you want. Sometimes we have programs setup up a certain way and would like to set a priority over which is closest to the Start button, now you can with a simple drag and drop action rearrange shortcuts and running applications on the fly. The Taskbar adapts the most predominate RGB value of an icon, making each program use a distinguishing colour effect when hovered over. Taskbar Properties appearance includes options for controlling how and where it is displayed on screen. For novices, you can have your Taskbar positioned on the right, top or left of the screen power users can still use the familiar dragging capabilities that you have known since prior releases. Taskbar button behaviour can also be controlled here too, the default layout in Windows 7 is ‘Always combine, hide labels’, in addition to this, there is a more classic look called ‘Combine when taskbar is full’ which simply enables labels with the large pictorial representations. If you want an even more classical yet familiar Vista style layout the third option ‘Never Combine’ along with ‘Use Small icons’ restores this behaviour.

Improved Start menu supports Jump List, along with new Power Option Settings

Start Menu

The Start menu has been through a few changes throughout the years, also introduced for the first time in Windows 95, the most radical update since was Windows XP which featured a two pane menu with links to recent applications along with common locations such as My Documents, Music, Pictures and default applications for common programs such as Web Browsing and Email and the ability to set default programs for common activities such as Email, Music and Web browsing. Windows Vista introduced additional functionality such as built in Search, a Connect to link for all your network connections and a simplified Power Options area. A major departure in Vista was the cascading Programs menu which was replaced by a hierarchical listing of programs and application groups. Windows 7′s Start menu is more about refining these features. The Start menu integrates Jump List functionality similar to the Taskbar.

Detailed Search Results Windows 7 Start menu (above), comparison in Windows Vista (below) click to enlarge

Search is more detailed displaying more categorized results with total listings within each category. New Categories include Documents, Music, Control Panel Items, Pictures and Videos. Appearances have also changed, instead of utilizing just the recently used application pane for search results; the entire pane is utilized for results. An even more simplified Power Options allows users to set the default setting whether you want it to be Shutdown, Hibernate or Sleep, you can still choose another option from a pop out menu. Searching from the Start menu features a new option; you can search for Task Pane links along with the ability to use natural language queries. New Search areas include Public Folder along with the option to display links and menus for Recorded TV and Videos. Old links that have been turned off include ‘Recent Items’ which makes sense since applications carry their own recent activities and the ‘Connect To’ link now replaced by the more convenient Network notification icon which reveals available wireless Networks, Dial up and VPN connections.

So this was a look at using the new Taskbar and Start menu and realizing its new benefits. It’s radical for the better. It makes application switching less of a puzzle while also enhancing the general user experience of working with your programs in a more convenient way. The Taskbar has come a long way since its days of ‘it works just like switching channels’. Users expect a rich experience and the compelling aesthetics such as interactive thumbnail previews and enhanced search functionality provide a cohesive application experience for end users.

Using the Improved Taskbar and Start Menu in Windows 7 is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.