Hi Phraun, welcome to the forums.
I know exactly what you mean, although i never experienced it in Vista i have seen & used it in XP. To all who are not sure it was basically the ability to drag a folder to the top/bottom/sides & it would create a new taskbar as such.
As far as i know it's not natively available in Windows 7 (Not tested it in Vista) but there may be some 3rd party software that can do what you require. You could try Stardock as they have some very good skin/theme software available.
Hope this helps
Jeff