Win7 questions from a newbie (to Win7)

I am new to Win7, in fact I just installed 7227 and just love it. I have started to add several programs, and all that I have added so far, work just fine. You probably all know this and I am probably preaching to the choir. Here are a few questions so far:

1) I miss the quick launch toolbar. Is there an equal?
2) I miss the "show desktop" icon in the taskbar. Is there something equal?
3) There are 2 programs (so far) that I may not need. ZoneAlarm Free and ffdshow. Are these necessary? That is, I think I read that the Windows 7 firewall is sufficient and I am not sure about ffdshow.

1) you can pin anything to the new taskbar which includes programs and documents and its better imo than the old quicklaunch.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/397-taskbar-pin-unpin-program-links.html and http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9305-taskbar-pin-unpin-folder.html

2) winkey+d is probably quicker than having to move the mouse
3) personally I just have the Windows firewall installed. The Windows 7 Codec pack includes ffdshow. The codec pack also doesnt interfere with the included codecs. Download: Shark007.net - Windows 7 Codecs

Hello Donny, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Q1) http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-quick-launch-enable-disable.html

Q2) Show Desktop is now built in to the task bar with the far right button in Windows 7.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi,welcome to SevenForums and welcome to the superior world of Windows 7.

Here is a tutorial for getting the quick launch toolbar back
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-quick-launch-enable-disable.html
normal show desktop will also be available within the default quick launch toolbar.
But you can also hover your mouse over the very right of your taskbar, that will enable Aero-peek, and if you click there it will minimize all active windows i.e. show desktop.
What's cool about this function is that if you click it again it restores all the windows that were open before you clicked it to show desktop, so you don't have to manually open each window again.

The tutorials section is very helpfull, don't hesitate to ask, the people here are very friendly.
Andy