Win7 taskbar and start menu rocks
I use xmonad with dmenu on linux. I love xmonad because it allows me to switch between full screen applications quickly. (Mod4+1 = shell, Mod4+2 = browser etc.)
I always wanted a similar setup under windows. Recently I made a stunning discovery: after rebooting from linux, I accidentally hit Mod4+1 (win button +1) to open a shell, and windows opened the first program that was pinned to my task bar. It works similar to my xmonad workspaces! In fact I can easily move around the pinned icons, so now I have win+1 for git shell, win+2 for chrome, win+3 for visual studio...
Why did I not know about this for all those years!
Try it!
In fact, I can hit the win key, start typing the name of a program and can easily launch it. Just like dmenu. I can even find documents, email, whatnot the same way.
All these power features in a user friendly interface, that even my lawyer wife can use.
I wonder what other awesomeness MS added that I don't know about.