I'd love a Windows 7 update of this story. Especially for the case of a language bar that is missing for all applications, is still missing after a reboot (so the minimize theory doesn't seem to be working), but *does* get visible for elevation privilege requests (and only for them)

Well, new version  makes for new rules -- and the old rules may no longer apply.

Now as near as I can tell, they had kind of a "no way to win" scenario down in Language Bar Land for Windows 7.

I mean, there was a slowly building groundswell of people who didn't like the shall we say "harder to support" features that the Language Bar provided.

People hated how their preferences were forgotten when they crossed the "1 to many" border for keyboards, in either direction. They hated how the UI was underfoot when they asked it not to be. And they hated how it simply disappeared seemingly without warning.

So what the owning team apparently did was they changed the rules....

For the people who never change any of the Language Bar settings, they get the old behavior.

On the other hand, for those who want it remembered that they enabled the Language Bar and asked for it on the Desktop, from this dialog:

The UI will always remember that you wanted to be on the desktop.

Even if you got rid of the extra keyboard(s) and then added it/them back later.

And for those who want it to be hidden?

Their Language Bar will always stay hidden, no matter how many input languages they add.

It was now smart enough to remember when you told it to GET LOST!

Until/unless they change this UI again, that is.

Okay, so from now on, the "missing Language Bar" can be deterministically returned to visibility, at will.

This is definitely an improvement, by the way!

Now this leaves one last problem, of course....

The one that jmdesp pointed out, about the privilege elevation requests.

The problem there is that everything that happens there happens in Session 0.

And though after painful bugs and time they have improved the communication between the session from which the elevation request came and Session 0 in regard to the available keyboards, several of the other "per user" settings such as the Language Bar visibility setting really couldn't be brought over as easily. So they basically didn't bring it over....

This can still lead to confusion occasionally, though a lot less often than the previous way.

In my opinion, all of this adds up to a net improvement. More deterministic, easier to fix problems when you get them.

But usage patterns vary. A LOT. So good for me may or may not be good for you, right?

So, is it good for you? How do you feel about all this?