Mike Meyers' Guide to Supporting Windows 7 for CompTIA A+ Certification (Exams 701 & 702)

Comparing Desktops—The Taskbar

Windows 7 unveiled some subtle but important changes to the Windows Desktop, both superficial and technological. Let’s start with the taskbar. Although the taskbar in Windows Vista introduced the rounded start button and a new default look, it worked almost identically to the old Windows XP taskbar. In particular, Vista retained the Quick Launch toolbar and notification area from Windows XP (although they looked nicer), as seen in Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1 Windows Vista taskbar

Windows 7 dumped the Quick Launch toolbar and replaced it with the pinned-icon concept. A pinned icon represents an open or closed program ...