Access your Gmail account from your taskbar with Gmail Notifier Plus for windows 7 only

This handy small software lets you check and access your Gmail account without opening the browser. It brings all the new e-mails right on your task bar and sent you notification (not a pop up) once you received a new e-mail.

Its simple, easy to use and safe because it is using Gmail secured RSS feed to retrieve the mails so it should be pretty safe.

So once you installed the software you will be asked to enter your Gmail login information, then you will counts of how many new e-mail you have in your mail box. If you hover over the icon as shown below you will see  a preview of the e-mails.