As you can see, the Internet and Mail icons have been removed from the start menu. Also note that search doesn't exist anymore either.

The Personalization window has been changed yet again to be even webbier. There are now many different themes that display their pretty previews in this window.

Unfortunately they took out the non-webby control panel and replaced it with this webby "Small Icons" view. How great.

The Explorer has significantly changed. There are now these things called "Libraries" that serve really no good purpose as the original folders still exist and can be accessed anyways.

So MS took the ribbon interface from Office and plunked it into Windows 7. Both Paint and Wordpad now are ribbonized.
Personally I think the ribbon is not suited to these kinds of programs that don't have a zillion options and features.