One of the highlights of Windows Vista’s new UI is the task switcher thumbnail feature, which provides a large thumbnail preview of applications minimized on the Vista Taskbar. Simply hover your mouse pointer over the taskbar button for any program to open the image.

While you may be excited to get your hands on Vista to take advantage of this and other cool graphical features, don’t forget that a similar feature is available in PowerToys for Windows XP: the Alt-Tab Replacement tool.

The tool is designed to provide you with icons and titles for all the running applications, as well as a thumbnail view of the currently selected application. However, it’s important to keep in mind that only those applications with open windows on the desktop will display a thumbnail icon; any application minimized on the taskbar will simply display a title bar.

If you release [Tab], it brings the selected application to the foreground. In addition, the Alt-Tab Replacement tool provides you with an alternate way of selecting an application from its window by using your mouse: press [Alt][Tab] and click on any icon in the window to switch to that application.

You can also give WinFlip a try.

WinFlip is a ‘Flip 3D’ function for Windows XP. It provides an alternate window-switcher to the standard Windows Alt-Tab. Winflip displays all open windows in a 3D stack, which the user can flick through and select using either keyboard or mouse.