This micro-release includes a complete makeover in terms of how Sword of Moonlight interacts with the Windows desktop. Windows 7 introduced a number of new taskbar related features that impose restrictions on how applications behave. It took me so long to notice that this is a problem for SOM because these new features are disabled for programs that are not stored on a local disk volume.

The immediate problems stemming from this were addressed by a patch that was made to the previous release. Now I am following up with a full treatment for post-Vista versions of Windows. That said the changes apply to all supported versions of Windows. I had not intended to do so until tests I ran on XP earlier today showed that this is necessary. Anyway, it’s probably for the best.

In the beginning of this release my goal was to decide how to best group the various tools on the taskbar, and how to establish a program that can be “pinned” to the taskbar. Pinning is absolutely essential in Windows 8 since it doesn’t possess a Start menu, although this is rumored to be changing in the next iteration, but one wonders even if it does, will the menu be backported to 8?

I also looked into adding an extended menu to the launcher early on; this is a feature wherein Windows 7 it’s possible to right-click icons in the taskbar and Start menu in order to open a menu that can be customized to a degree. Indeed a lot of the problems arise from an apparent inability to customize the built-in section of this menu.

But I didn’t stop there. I’ve taken the opportunity to completely rethink and rebrand the superficial experience, and in the process I’ve been able to streamline numerous aspects of the initiation process in ways that I find extraordinarily pleasing. By rebrand I mean to say that I put a lot of work into the icons, and even changed some of them, including the shortcut titles that accompany them and the product descriptions embedded in the programs files (I didn’t change any of FromSoftware’s product information, although it could probably stand to be changed. In any case it’s never visible.)

Continued: 7 ways Sword of Moonlight has changed