Apart from implementing some of the previously announced changes in post-beta Windows 7 builds, Microsoft has clearly set their sites on providing a desktop environment that users can customize six ways from Sunday.

Don’t take the title too literally: build 7048 has definitely received plenty of attention under the hood. In my normal computing tasks, build 7048 feels more stable even more usable as an everyday OS. However, most of the updates aren’t very obvious. Subtle changes appear here and there, for example:

• the glow on your taskbar button staying put when you mouse onto a taskbar thumbnail
• the increased number of items you can pin to your taskbar
• the start orb is slightly clearer and its glow is brighter
• Send Feedback links no longer appear in window title bars
• a slightly cleaned up Control Panel

One small but very welcome addition is that your Downloads folder can now be added to your panel via start menu customization. Prior to making this change, getting the folder on your list was far too cumbersome and required editing the registry.