Windows 7 - The "Blue Badge" experience

When Microsoft shipped the 6801 build of Windows 7 some of the unfinished features were hidden from view using an elaborate protection mechanism. This mechanism has now been rendered useless thanks to the work of Rafael Rivera who developed a tool called Blue Badge.

The patching process seems painless enough (for 32-bit Vista ... no 64-bit version available yet).

Blue Badge gallery here

Note: Be careful, this does permanently patch a number of files, specifically:     \Windows\Explorer.exe      \Windows\System32\wisptis.exe      \Windows\System32\ieframe.dll      \Windows\System32\shell32.dll      \Windows\System32\stobject.dll      \Windows\System32\TabletPC.cpl      \Windows\System32\themecpl.dll      \Windows\System32\themeui.dll      \Windows\System32\powercfg.cpl If there's a chance you might want to roll back, keep backups!

So, what goodies does Blue Badge unveil. Well, you get new Superbar task bar replacement, which is unfinished ...

Jumplists are unfinished ...

There's are touch-based panning and gesture options available, which work with the right hardware ...

And there's the Desktop Slideshow feature, which seems to work (think DreamScene without needing the Cray) ...

Bottom line, I can see why Microsoft chose to hide these features. I'm waiting until the next build before relying on any of these features.