:Moderator's Note - Original post had spam added later, thus now deleted and user banned - nexter:



The replacement taskbar is exactly that - a NextSTART replacement for the Windows taskbar. It is themable (i.e. it changes appearance according to the theme in use) and fully configurable to the way you want it, not the way Windows dictates.

I suggest you have a good read through the various guides on the Winstep website as well as study the multitude of configuration options for the various Winstep components in their respective 'Preferences' (and 'Dock Properties' and 'Shelf Properties' for those specifically as well).

Email notifications can be had through the Email module, the other not as far as I'm aware.

Do you mean something like a toast? Toasts are those little pop-up windows that show up on the bottom-right of Windows telling you about something new. That's where my Discord, Steam, etc., notifications show up and NextSTART doesn't get in the way of that. (They call them toasts because they pop up like toast from a toaster.)

Incidentally, NextSTART is both a new Start Menu replacement (plus you can have the real Start Menu right next to it if you want, as I do) and a new taskbar all in one. It's pretty nice and configurable.