On our own Celeron 450 test machine, it took a mere two seconds. But the radically redesigned Start menu is where the real action is. The control panel is simplified and organized into more manageable groups. Little-used applications are hidden from view, until a click reveals them. The Start menu itself is much larger, presenting information without scrolling or submenu-hopping.
Windows have slightly rounded edges and subtle, true-colour icons and shading effects.
Hovering the mouse over the close window icon causes it to glow red. Selection rectangles are a translucent colour, blue by default. And, when you start to work with the system, you soon see that the interface and taskbar improvements are more than superficial. Not an easy thing to do. Do this in Windows XP and after a second or two, the documents reassemble themselves into a neat pop-up menu in the taskbar above the application to which they belong.