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How can I take advantage of the Windows 7 features like Aero Glass, Jump Lists, ect. And minor changes like the icon on the jump list, the color of the jump list. Any good articles?

+8  A: 

Check out the Windows API Code Pack:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack

Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some features of Windows 7 and Windows Vista from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework.

The individual features supported in this version (v1.0.1) of the library are:

  • Windows 7 Taskbar
    o Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars
    • Windows Shell
      o Windows 7 Libraries
      o Windows Shell Search API support
      o Explorer Browser Control
      o A hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities
      o Windows Shell property system
      o Drag and Drop for Shell Objects
      o Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls
      o Known Folders and non-file system containers
    • DirectX
      o Direct3D 11.0, Direct3D 10.1/10.0, DXGI 1.0/1.1,
      Direct2D 1.0, DirectWrite, Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs
    • Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs
    • Sensor Platform APIs
    • Extended Linguistic Services APIs
    • Power Management APIs
    • Application Restart and Recovery APIs
    • Network List Manager APIs
    • Command Link control and System defined Shell icons
Zyphrax
@Zyphrax (repeat of comment made on another thread here on SO) : As you say, some functionality exposed by the W7 API Code Pack is Vista compatible. I can say with certainty that the TaskBarManager functionality is not usable in Vista : based on Visual Studio 2010 beta 2, where I was able to successfully compile a CodeProject example [1] that referenced the W7 API, but was not able to run the project because : "TaskbarManager.IsPlatformSupported" always returns false. [1] codeproject.com/KB/statusbar/Clipz.aspx
BillW
The API Code pack is a set of managed classes for unmanaged Windows API calls. It makes sense that it heavily relies on the user's OS (and supported API calls). The TaskBarManager can't be used on Vista, because the new TaskBar was simply not implemented in Windows Vista.
Zyphrax
So do I just import the right project into my solution or what? I thought it would be like an assembly.
Mohit Deshpande
You can copy a part of the code and integrate it into your project. Or simply compile the desired project(s) and reference those DLLs from your project.
Zyphrax
Oh ok. Thank you.
Mohit Deshpande