Over the weekend, I put Windows 7 build 7000 on my desktop and Windows 7 build 7057 on my laptop, and went through trying to spot as many changes between the two as I could. Although I go deeper than I did with build 7048, this is still not a comprehensive list.

There is almost three months difference between the two builds: the beta was compiled on December 12, 2008, at 2:00pm and the leaked build 7057 was compiled on March 5, 2009, at 8:00pm, so there's a lot of work to cover. This post is about tracking every noticeable visual change; although I do mention some fixes here and there, I'm mainly focusing on tweaks that are "tangible" as opposed to the thousands of bugs that have been fixed. As before, the screenshots are lined up like this: build 7000 on the left and build 7057 on the right, or build 7000 above and build 7057 below. Also, remember that the "Send Feedback" link has been removed in build 7057, so that's an easy way to remember if there is a window title bar visible.

Before I get going, I want to underline the by-far most important change in build 7057. It's not a critical bug fix; it's not even a brand-spanking-new feature. It's the expiration date. As you can see in the screenshot above, build 7057 expires March 1, 2010. What this means is that Microsoft is getting very close to readying the Release Candidate build. Very close in fact, but as you'll see, it's not quite there yet.

Getting Started

You may only see this dialog window once or twice, but Microsoft wants to get it right. The Vista-like (Aurora) background has been replaced with a light blue one that we've seen on Windows.com. All the text has been changed as well. "Find out what's new in Windows 7" is now "Go online to find out what's new in Windows 7" and "See more new features" is now "Go online to learn more." Furthermore, the "Learn more about new Windows 7 features" has been replaced with two bullets:

Discover new features that can help you be productive, stay safer, and have fun

Find out everything you need to know about setting up your computer

The new HomeGroup icon makes an appearance here as well, and "Download Windows Live Essentials to communicate, share and publish" has been simplified to "Go online to get Windows Live Essentials." Finally, the "Make text and other times on your screen larger or smaller" has been renamed to "Change the size of the text on your screen" and the "Go online to Windows.com to get help setting up your computer" icon is gone. The Getting Started icon in the Start Menu also has similar changes: "Make text larger or smaller" is now "Change text size," and "Discover Windows.com" has been removed.

Start Menu

The Start Menu button had a huge change from XP to Vista: the "Start" text was removed and the Start Button "orb" was created. That orb has been tweaked in Windows 7, and the above screenshot shows that Microsoft has opted for a more vibrant look between build 7000 and build 7057. From top to bottom, the different buttons are based on how you are interacting with the orb: normal, mouseover, and clicked.

Again, this is important because it is what you first see when you install Windows 7. These are the icons from top to bottom:

Build 7000: Getting Started, Windows Media Center, Sticky Notes, Snipping Tool, Calculator, and Paint

Build 7057: Getting Started, Windows Media Center, Calculator, Paint, Sticky Notes, Snipping Tool, Remote Desktop Connection, Magnifier, and Solitaire

This one I can't quite put my finger on, but for whatever reason Microsoft decided to put Computer and Games together in build 7057, moving it up from its previous grouping below. Also, Devices and Printers has swapped places with Default Programs. The shutdown menu button looks identical between the two builds when you aren't interacting with it, but upon mouseover or click, there's a distinct white border around the button in build 7057. You may also notice that "All Programs" is no longer bolded. If you go in there, you'll see that the Extras and Upgrades folder has been removed, including the web links inside: Small Business Resources, Windows Marketplace, and Windows Web Site

While not turned on by default, you can add two more entries to the Start Menu in build 7057 that you could not in build 7000: Homegroup and Downloads. You can now also set the maximum number of jumplist items.

Taskbar

This screenshot just shows that the default number of jumplist items for 7057 is 10. New items bump older items off the list.

Build 7057 allows you to pin items to programs that aren't associated with that file extension. For example, you can pin a bitmap image to Notepad and even though Paint is set to open it by default, it will now open in Notepad. Many have told me they find this very useful.

Just like in the Quick Launch bar in previous versions of Windows, build 7057 lets you hold down the shift key when dragging an item over a program's icon to have that program open it (think "Open with").

This change is hard to spot at first, but if you look closely, the notification color has been made slightly brighter; Microsoft says this is because users complained they were missing when an application wanted attention.

Finally, here's a very odd tidbit I noticed. If you rename a program and then pin it to the taskbar, it will be renamed back to its previous name. For example, I took UT2004.exe, renamed it to bla.exe, and then pinned it to the taskbar. On build 7000, when I right clicked on the taskbar icon, the program was called bla, but on build 7057, it was UT2004. Yippee for minor changes!

Personalization

Did you want more themes? Done. Windows 7 has now been moved under "Aero Themes" (renamed from "Windows Themes") and "Ease of Acess Themes" has been changed to "Basic and High Contrast Themes." Also, all the themes now have names.

Did you want more user pictures? Done. There are now 24 more pictures to choose from.

Did you want more wallpapers? Done. There are 14 more backgrounds.

Did you want more screensavers? Too bad. Say goodbye to Aurora, Windows Energy, and Windows Logo.

Fonts

The default view for icons has changed from Tiles to Large icons, and there are now 131 fonts instead of 133 (Browallia New and Cordia New have been removed). Also, when you select a font, near the bottom, a few options have been removed (Family, Font type, Date created, and Date modified), others have been added (Category and Font embeddability), and they've all been shuffled around.

Sound

A new Sound icon, and in the Communications tab, the drop down menu has been changed to a bullet list of options.

12 more Sound Schemes have been added: Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata.