When I installed the Windows Live Wave 3 pack released by Microsoft Live team recently and run "Windows Live Mail" desktop client, the first thing which I noticed was the new toolbar:
As you can see in the above screenshot, the toolbar background has been changed and surprisingly, they have removed the small icons from all buttons in the toolbar.
First it was looking a bit odd and I had no idea why did they remove the icons and why a new toolbar background cause the previous toolbar background was Vista default which you can see in Vista Explorer as well.
Now all the things are clear to me when I saw the screenshot of Windows 7 M3 Build Explorer:
Above screenshot shows how the Explorer window looks in recently leaked Windows 7 M3 build.
As you can see Windows 7 Explorer has the same toolbar background and it also doesn't have toolbar icons similar to new Windows Live Mail version.
So the things are clear now. Microsoft is trying to make all new applications looking similar to Windows 7. Same as they did in past when Windows Vista was released.
So does it mean they have finalized Windows 7 UI? Are they not going to change it any more? There are many such questions which will only get answered when we'll get the first Beta of Windows 7 very soon.
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows Live.
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Kari
This is nothing new, if I remember correct most of the icons were missing on Wave2 Live tools also.
Nikolaj
i cold be cool to be able to switch between vista and 7 toolbar
Calvin Foo
MS Office: First they shuffled all icons from simple to complicated. and small to big icons in MS Office 2007; I don't know about you, but the whole interface I am still not comfortable until now. even though I have been using it for quite some time.
Windows Live: Now they removed all icons and put text instead. They are planning to move back to Windows 3.1 or Dos-based interface?
WTF are they thinking?!
Karl
Icons are always easier to identify at a glance. Once you get used to them. I want my MS Live buttons back!!! Besides, we are the ones using the program and try to get work done, they just design the software!
Pat
I have no ribbon in WLM, only a few options at top of menu bar. How do I get the ribbon to show?
VG
^^ Download the latest version:
http://www.askvg.com/download-windows-live-essentials-latest-version/