Su MSDN Flash che ho appena ricevuto leggo di un progetto molto interessate, Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework:
The Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some new Windows 7 features (and some existing features of older versions of Windows operating system) from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework.
La lista delle funzionalità supportate è molto interessante:
Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars. Known Folders, Windows 7 Libraries, non-file system containers, and a hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities. Windows 7 Explorer Browser Control. Shell property system. Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls. Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs. Direct3D 11.0, Direct3D 10.1/10.0, DXGI 1.0/1.1, Direct2D 1.0, DirectWrite, Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs. (DirectWrite and WIC have partial support) Sensor Platform APIs Extended Linguistic Services APIs Power Management APIs Application Restart and Recovery APIs Network List Manager APIs Command Link control and System defined Shell icons. Per l'esecuzione, è necessario il Framework .NET versione 3.5. Dal sito del progetto è anche possibile scaricare alcuni video dimostrativi delle principali funzionalità.