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Does the new Windows 7 taskbar look like the KDE 4 taskbar?

When I started posting screenshots of the new Windows 7 desktop several people commented both in the TalkBack and via email on how similar the Windows 7 taskbar is to the KDE 4 taskbar. Not being familiar with KDE (I'm more of an Ubuntu user rather than Kubuntu) I didn't think much of this. After all, if you look closely enough, anything can look a bit like something that performs a similar function.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor

When I started posting screenshots of the new Windows 7 desktop several people commented both in the TalkBack and via email on how similar the Windows 7 taskbar is to the KDE 4 taskbar. Not being familiar with KDE (I'm more of an Ubuntu user rather than Kubuntu) I didn't think much of this. After all, if you look closely enough, anything can look a bit like something that performs a similar function.

However, the other day a reader asked me to compare these two images, one of Windows 7 that I posted, and another of Kubuntu 8.10 which runs the KDE 4.0 desktop:

Windows 7:

Win7

Kubuntu 8.10:

Kubuntu 8.10

[poll id=407]

Yeah, I'll admit that there are a few similarities there. That said, there are plenty of differences too.

Personally, I think that the new Windows 7 taskbar will be one of those things that people either love or hate. Initially I hated it but I'll admit that it's grown on me the more I use it (although I do feel that some aspects of it are somewhat vague and counter-intuitive and rely too much on tiny visual cues that are easy to overlook). However, I predict that there'll be a lot of people who'll instantly take a dislike to it and dismiss the entire OS based on this.

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