Windows 7 Taskbar!

Microsoft has announced some of the new features of Windows 7, and apparently a taskbar-like thing (extremely reminiscent of Mac OSX) is one of them:

YouTube - Inside the Windows 7 desktop, part 1 (CNET)

Do you think Microsoft has finally realized (somewhat) what users need?

batsy said:

Do you think Microsoft has finally realized (somewhat) what users need?

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No, they are just getting better at copying what Apple does... after all, they've had 25 years or so of practice at it.

Well I'm not a Microsoft or Apple Fan boy at all, but after seeing the video's, and using W7 build 7000, the task bar is not like OS X, since Win 95 you have been able to an application shortcut to the taskbar. In Windows 7, all the really did is make it bigger... which can also be done in XP. They just made the icon's bigger for that bar.

Now if it was able to be made smaller or bigger, and have the 'Zoom Effect', than yes I would say it looks like it.

I don't think it's very reminiscent of the OS X dock at all, just an evolution of the standard Windows taskbar, but enhancing the Quick Launch toolbar. It also bears more than a passing resemblance to the "Ribbon" interface in Office.

Either way, Windows 7 is turning out to be a very thoughtful revision of Vista. I've been running it in a VM for a couple of weeks now and am very pleased. Not pleased enough to want to use it on my portable machine, but I'd certainly consider it for my desktop.

I'm not a fanboy either, but it is reminicsient of OS X in that when you hover over the icons in the taskbar, you have the 'thumbnail' view of all windows of that icon...instead of thinking of it as a "contextual Alt+Tab"... think of it as Expose.

cwa107 said:

I don't think it's very reminiscent of the OS X dock at all, just an evolution of the standard Windows taskbar, but enhancing the Quick Launch toolbar. It also bears more than a passing resemblance to the "Ribbon" interface in Office.

Either way, Windows 7 is turning out to be a very thoughtful revision of Vista. I've been running it in a VM for a couple of weeks now and am very pleased. Not pleased enough to want to use it on my portable machine, but I'd certainly consider it for my desktop.

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Are you doing it on your MBP? If so, does your ethernet or wireless work?

D3v1L80Y said:

I'm not a fanboy either, but it is reminicsient of OS X in that when you hover over the icons in the taskbar, you have the 'thumbnail' view of all windows of that icon...instead of thinking of it as a "contextual Alt+Tab"... think of it as Expose.

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Maybe so... but in Vista, I still live by Alt+Tab, just a very convent way of switching apps, I also do this in OS X (depending how many windows I have open)

I like both ways of doing it, but the preview of those apps is nice, with a simple mouseover on the taskbar, Expose needs to be activated by either a button press or a hot corner, and then you still have to search for the window you want to use. All though most of this takes mere seconds to do.

JGruber said:

Are you doing it on your MBP? If so, does your ethernet or wireless work?

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I'm running it in VMWare, not Boot Camp. I would never run Microsoft beta software outside of a sandbox

cwa107 said:

I'm running it in VMWare, not Boot Camp. I would never run Microsoft beta software outside of a sandbox

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I'm not doing it via bootcamp either. Got it installed via Parallels right now. No network conn. at all.

JGruber said:

I'm not doing it via bootcamp either. Got it installed via Parallels right now. No network conn. at all.

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Ah, OK. No, I don't seem to be having a problem in VMware. I also own a Parallels license, but I preferred VMware and switched.

cwa107 said:

Ah, OK. No, I don't seem to be having a problem in VMware. I also own a Parallels license, but I preferred VMware and switched.

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Thanks, I'll give VMWare a shot later today when I get home.

D3v1L80Y said:

I'm not a fanboy either, but it is reminicsient of OS X in that when you hover over the icons in the taskbar, you have the 'thumbnail' view of all windows of that icon...instead of thinking of it as a "contextual Alt+Tab"... think of it as Expose.

Click to expand...

Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never noticed the OS X dock to do anything when you hover over a running application. I know I can invoke Expose and see all of my open Windows, but I never get a preview like what Windows does in both Vista and 7.

D3v1L80Y said:

No, they are just getting better at copying what Apple does... after all, they've had 25 years or so of practice at it.

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I wouldn't say they're really copying OSX...as other users have said, they seem to have had that function for awhile, they're just improving on it. And if you think about it, Apple and Windows copy from each other all the time, and a lot of elements are originally from Linux as well... I didn't start this thread as a Windows blame thread.

For those of you running Win7 in a VM, how did you install it? I am interested in trying it. Did you download a .ISO file or get a disk? Thanks!

SammySlim said:

For those of you running Win7 in a VM, how did you install it? I am interested in trying it. Did you download a .ISO file or get a disk? Thanks!

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I have an actual disk.

SammySlim said:

For those of you running Win7 in a VM, how did you install it? I am interested in trying it. Did you download a .ISO file or get a disk? Thanks!

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My company has an MSDN subscription, so I just downloaded the ISO from Microsoft and told VMWare to use the ISO as the installation disc. 20 minutes later, it was installed (and yes, it does install VERY quickly!).

cwa107 said:

Ah, OK. No, I don't seem to be having a problem in VMware. I also own a Parallels license, but I preferred VMware and switched.

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A bit off-topic, but do you think it is possible to run both Parallels and VMware at the same time, using the Bootcamp XP-installation? I have Parallels, but am not so happy with 4.0 and thought I might try out VMware without having to unistall and redo everything if I do not like that better.

rogerinlondon said:

A bit off-topic, but do you think it is possible to run both Parallels and VMware at the same time, using the Bootcamp XP-installation? I have Parallels, but am not so happy with 4.0 and thought I might try out VMware without having to unistall and redo everything if I do not like that better.

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I know it's possible, but probably not the best way to do it. Both products install virtual network adapters, which increase overhead on the system. I would personally pick one or the other and stick with it.

I chose VMWare over Parallels because their Linux support is much more robust. Additionally, I had a lot of flakiness with 3.0 and when I saw VMware 2.0, I found that it was the best balance for me.

Classic Microsoft: They pulled the beta download, apparently because there was too much traffic on the servers. Man, I am convinced that the only reason MS owns the corporate environment is because Apple doesn't really want it ... the guys in Redmond look like clowns today after not being able to deliver their beta. No word on when product keys will be available, so folks will only be able to use it for 30 days. Some "big rollout." Sheesh.

Thanks for the tip that Fusion will install from the .ISO file - that will save me the trouble of burning a disk (if and when the darn thing actually becomes available).

I use Windows PCs all day at work, and have been using them since the DOS days. There are even things I like about them, but IMO everything went downhill after XP ... Sorry to bash, just frustrated about not being able to get the beta.

Cheers!

this is nothing new. all they did was taking something that was already present in windows (but rarely used) quickbar and make the icons bigger. it does have some added functionality but its main purpose is still the same and was already a feature of windows.

i hope all of windows 7 isnt like that. just a bunch a rehashed features no one used improved and marketed as something brand new.