Way back when Windows Vista shipped one of my favourite features was the Search box in the start menu and in Explorer.
Unfortunately it was a bit unwieldy when you were using the pen. I found this really annoying and even had a go at writing a proof of concept application called SearchPad to try make Vista Start Search and Explorer a little more pen friendly.
The Windows 7 Beta makes this a little better. When you click in a the search field in the start menu and launch the tip your pen strokes are recognised and inserted into the search field as you write – often even before the recognition result appears in the TIP itself.