Does the new Windows 7 taskbar look like the KDE 4 taskbar?
![adrian-kingsley-hughes](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/6f9ac99abaa541291e393a8b765bdffb2fa11559/2022/08/05/11c625de-cb18-4e3f-8614-5010553831f2/adrian-kingsley-hughes.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&frame=1&height=192&width=192)
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:
![Win7](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/2014/10/04/24379395-4b72-11e4-b6a0-d4ae52e95e57/kubuntuvswin7w.png)
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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.