4.Pin Items to Your Taskbar:

Windows 7 lets you pin programs and documents to your taskbar (instaed of or in adition to creating shortcuts on your desktop). However, it's easy to do something very similar right now: using the built-in (but disabled by default) Quick Launch toolbar. To enable it, right-click on your taskbar, and from the toolbars menu check off "Quick Launch." There you can drop shortcuts to folders, documents, and programs for easy access. (I like to use the large icons instead of the default small ones, as pictured; to turn those on, right-click on the toolbar and frm the view menu choose "Large icons.")