Microsoft has finally released Windows 7. Well not quite officially. But the company gave its first public demonstration of the new OS at the PDC today. And from what I see it looks just like Vista, or a more complicated Vista skin.

Windows 7 will not be as shocking as Vista in terms of changes. While transition from Windows XP to Vista is somewhat difficult and annoying, current Vista users will have little problems in adjusting to Windows 7. You should expect to have the same problems but hopefully Microsoft will make things run smoother in 7.

Microsoft analyzed user experience by looking at some complicated pie charts and other similar graphs, so we might be in for a better user experience. The taskbar in Windows 7 is newer. The buttons are bigger with no text descriptions. The icons can be arranged at will. Navigation between windows is done differently too. Point the mouse over an icon and you will get to see a set of window thumbnails. Click any of those to switch windows! Right click the icons will get you a new UI device, the “Jump Lists”, which will let you quickly access application features.

Microsoft has also been working on multi-tasking. Drag a window towards the top of the screen to maximize it. Drag it to the bottom to restore the size. Drag it to the left or right sides to make it take 50% of the screen. If you want to take a peek at other windows, scrub the mouse over the taskbar thumbnails to turn every window, except for the one you want to see, into a glass window.

I hope more extensive work has been done to make applications run smoother than they did on Vista. I’d rather have that all those special effects!