The icons, as of currently, either do nothing or link to the “Device Manger” properties page, which is useless in my opinion. There is also a link to the Longhorn Control Panel, which is still the same.
As you can see, Microsoft is trying to promote the wizard, task-oriented approach to configuration to make it easier for users to change important settings. However, there is still an option to change to Classic (i.e. Useful) view:
Among the new improvements is a “task-search” button, currently labeled as “More,” which allows the user to search for the task he or she needs to complete.
After searching for tasks that have to do with “add,” here’s what Longhorn gives me (notice the sidebar):
I am beginnning to like the task-oriented approach. Longhorn, as of current, seems to be at an in-between phase between the old Windows approach (dialogue boxes) and the task-oriented approach (wizards). Another new personal folder is the My Contacts folder, which integrates with Outlook Express and most likely the next version of Outlook as well. Here, you can see all of the interesting tasks associated with this folder.
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