Win7 shortcoming: Notetaking widget

Oh, I love Win7. I said so after installing the first beta for the first time and I’ve been running my new favorite OS ever since.

But I have one problem with the way Microsoft used their built-in applications to showcase new functionality like jump-lists etc: They broke the Notes widget from the Windows sidebar.

You know, that little widget thingy that allowed you to write down 4 short lines somewhere on your screen.

In Windows Vista it was visible whenever your sidebar was visible (not a perfect solution either), but at least it was visible occasionally.

Windows7 changed this, Notes is now it’s own little application that has to run and that takes away space from my task-bar. And: When I use Aero-Peek to look at my desktop widgets, the Notes app turns transparent too.

So, it became nearly useless, since I want my notes to be a gentle, sometimes visible reminder for things I need to keep track of. Nothing I’d start a program to look at, no – something that is just there sometimes. And the new Win7 implementation of that falls seriously short of that goal. (And I very rarely see my desktop except for Win+D or Aero-Peek – both witch also remove the notes from the screen.)

In fact: I wonder why anyone would sacrifice some valuable taskbar real-estate for such a useless application.