IT Expert Voice

Do user interface changes have your users just a little bewildered? Here are five cool Windows 7 Taskbar features that can help technical support professionals put smiles back on their users’ faces.

Whenever a new user interface emerges, the vendor reassures us that it’s “intuitive.” Yes, of course it is – to the person who designed it. But tell that to the poor souls struggling to cope with it, and support calls can become rather – um – unfriendly. However, with a little guidance from savvy support techs, that new UI can become a boon, not a curse.

Consider, for example, the revamped Windows 7 Taskbar. At first glance, it looks like the one we’ve used in the last few versions of Windows, except, says our perplexed user, there appear to be programs running already. What on earth is that all about?

What indeed.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane …

The new Taskbar is actually a combination of taskbar and toolbar. Those icons for apparently running programs – probably Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and Media Player, to begin with – are actually shortcuts that let you run the programs directly from the Taskbar. Add any other commonly-used programs, files, or folders by dragging and dropping their icons onto the Taskbar (Microsoft calls this “pinning”). Hate the order they appear in? Just drag the icon to where you want it.

The next question you’ll doubtless get from the users whom you support, after you pass on this tidbit, is, “How can I tell what’s running?”

That’s easy – icons for active programs are highlighted. Below, for example, you’ll see that (from left to right) Internet Explorer, Word, the Snipping Tool, Windows Live Mail, Firefox and TweetDeck are running, and the Snipping Tool is currently active. We know this because the active program’s highlighting changes to the icon’s primary color (in this case, red).

Programs that aren’t pinned to the Taskbar appear there when they’re running, also highlighted, but disappear when exited. You may find, however, that some older programs’ icons don’t highlight when they’re running; this will likely be fixed in newer versions.

You may be asked where the heck the old faithful Quick Launch Toolbar has gotten to. It’s gone, but not irretrievable. Do try to convince people to give the new Taskbar functionality a try, but if they really want Quick Launch back, right-click on the Taskbar, click Toolbars, New toolbar, then navigate to %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch and click Select Folder.

Jump to It

Right click on any Taskbar icon to reveal another neat feature: the Jump List. Jump Lists are turbocharged context menus that have a few clever tricks up their sleeves. For example, you may see a list of frequently opened documents or sites, accessible with a click. IE also allows you to launch InPrivate browsing, and Media Player’s Jump List lets you change playlists.

Every program you see on the Taskbar, whether it’s pinned already or just active, has an associated Jump List.  And said Jump List always gives you the option to pin the program to the Taskbar – and to pin a document to the Jump List. That way, if your users always want to open a file with a program that isn’t the default for that file type (for example, to open an HTML file they’re editing with Microsoft Expressions Web rather than with Internet Explorer), they can easily do so.

Peek a Boo

By default each program only appears once on the Taskbar, regardless of how many instances are open (and yes, that’s configurable). But Microsoft gave us a way to check out open documents. It’s called Aero Peek, and you probably got a ”peek” at it while investigating the Jump Lists. As soon as you place the cursor over a running program’s icon, you get thumbnail views of each open document.

And how, your user may ask, does that help – they’re illegible! Ah, but move the cursor over one of those thumbnails, and you get a full-sized view. Click on the thumbnail, and the document is given focus. Click on the red X on the top right of a thumbnail, and the document closes.

Internet Explorer adds another clever wrinkle: Peek shows you the contents of each tab.

Clutter Control

Head over to the right side of the Taskbar, and you’ll see … a lot less. Gone are the icons for programs that traditionally lurk there, such as anti-virus, mail alerts, the ”safely remove device” icon and others. In their place is a little upward-pointing arrowhead.

Click that arrowhead, and you get a compact box full of all of those missing icons. Click it again, and the box disappears.

If complaints come in about “missing” icons for programs such as instant messengers, this is the place to point your caller. TweetDeck also lurks there if you close its UI (as do some other programs); it doesn’t actually exit until you right click the icon in the box and choose “Exit” from the menu.

Lights, Action …

The flag you see next to the box of hidden icons is for the Action Center, an aggregation of alerts and tools to help maintain Windows 7. If help desk callers are reporting system problems, have them hover the cursor over that flag to see if there are pending issues that need attention.  Action Center also provides them with troubleshooters to help diagnose problems, and, if you don’t have a central mechanism in place, a way for them to automatically back up their files.

Naturally, IT can control how much action users can take here – letting them apply patches willy-nilly could break corporate apps, for example – but it’s a handy way to give those so inclined a way to help themselves, and ease the burden on overworked support techs.

The Final Void

You’ll notice one last bit of newness at the far right of the Taskbar: a blank space. Place the cursor on it, and all windows become transparent, allowing a ‘peek’ at the desktop beneath. Click the void, and all windows minimize. Click again, and the desktop is restored.

As will your users’ equilibrium, after you’ve shown them the cool new Windows 7 Taskbar.