Features removed from Windows Vista

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While Windows Vista contains many new features, a number of capabilities and certain programs that were a part of Windows XP are no longer present or changed, resulting in the removal of certain functionality. The following is a list of features which were present in Windows XP but which have been removed in Windows Vista.
Contents

Windows Shell

* Active Desktop functionality has been removed. As a result, animated GIF files can no longer be set as the desktop background. No other dynamic web content such as HTML or HTA files can run on the desktop, although Windows DreamScene (only released for the Windows Vista Ultimate) allows using videos as the background.
* The File Types tab has been removed from Folder Options. This feature was available from Windows 95 up to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The File Types tab allowed users to change the file associations for various types of files. It allowed configuring which application would open when a user clicked on a certain type of file, or allowed manually defining a new file extension, defining/editing custom secondary actions, showing extensions only for specific file types, or customizing the file icon. While there is a more simplified option to change the file associations, called Default Programs in the Windows Vista Control Panel, this option only allows users to change the default action that occurs when they double click a file. It does not allow users to choose which application would load if the user were to right click on a file and then choose a secondary option such as Edit. The Open With dialog box in Windows Vista also uses the corresponding Default Programs API which limits only one registered application to be set as the default program. It is also not possible to navigate/jump to a particular extension using the alphanumeric keys on a keyboard; scrolling is required.
* The configuration tab to quickly associate with media file types has also been removed from Windows Media Player 11 options in Windows Vista.
* It is not possible to override AutoPlay by pressing the SHIFT key as was possible in previous versions, though it can still be disabled through Control Panel.
* AutoPlay settings cannot be configured per-device; they are set globally. * It is not possible to list fonts by similarity based on PANOSE information or hide font variations such as Bold, Italic etc in the Fonts folder.
* Menus cannot be set to slide anymore using the user interface. Only the fade effect is available.
* The taskbar cannot be dragged to the bottom of the screen to hide it manually.
* Toolbars such as "Quick Launch" can no longer be "dragged off" the taskbar as floating minibars or docked to another edge of the screen, though physical folders can be dragged onto the desktop edge in a similar manner. The Language Bar is the only toolbar that can float on the desktop.
* Some functions and name exports have been removed from shell32.dll.

Windows Explorer

* It is not possible to display the full path in the Title bar when Aero Glass is enabled. When Aero Glass is disabled, the full path can be displayed in the title bar. (Note that the full path can be shown in the address bar regardless of the status of Aero, by clicking to the right of the breadcrumbs or pressing Alt+D).
* The Toolbar button in Explorer to go up one folder from the current folder has been removed. This is now accomplished by selecting a folder in the breadcrumbs bar or by pressing together Alt + Up keys.
* The ability to customize the standard toolbar's layout and buttons was removed.
* Users can no longer make the menu above all other toolbars.
* Ability to add a password to a zip file (compressed folder) has been removed. (This has no effect on third-party compression tools, such as WinZip or 7Zip.)
* The Common Tasks pane (renamed 'Favorite Links') and the Details pane can be removed only through the 'Organize' button.
* Filmstrip view is replaced by the icon view feature which supports multiple sizes, and a new full-screen slideshow mode.
* The ability to view and edit metadata stored in a file's secondary stream through the "Summary" tab of the file's "Property" dialog was removed.
* The Web Publishing Wizard is no longer available.
* Support for enabling a folder for web sharing with Internet Information Services via the Windows Explorer interface was removed.
* The Desktop Cleanup Wizard is no longer available.
* The "Computer Description" field is no longer shown on the Explorer view of a workgroup.
* The IColumnProvider shell extension interface has been removed. Shell extensions that display information in Explorer's columns will therefore fail to work.
* The "Status" bar no longer shows the total space used by a folder when displaying a folder's contents or free space remaining on the disk.
* The drive mapping dialog box no longer allows a network path to be mapped without assigning a local drive letter to it.

Internet Explorer

* The ability to customize the toolbar layout is removed. The position of the address bar and the 'command bar' cannot be readjusted.
* Internet Explorer is no longer integrated with Windows Explorer. This can also be seen in Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
* Several old and little-used technologies have been removed: DirectAnimation support, XBM images (removed from IE 6), CDF, view-source protocol handlers and 40-bit SSL ciphers.
* Image toolbar has been removed. Most of the commands that were on this floating toolbar—Save Picture, E-mail Picture, Set as Background, etc—are now in the context menu that appears when an image is right-clicked.
* Offline Favorites, a feature that automatically synchronized and stored web pages for later perusal when not online, was removed in favor of using RSS feeds.
* The maximum size for the "Temporary Internet Files" folder (downloaded files cache) is limited to 1024 MB in Internet Explorer 7. This is also true for Internet Explorer 7 on other Windows versions.

User account rights and logon

* 16-bit applications launched with administrator-level privileges run in their own memory space; 16-bit inter-process communication therefore only works for non-elevated processes, as these can still be configured to run in the same memory space.
* The RunAs feature in the shell has been replaced with "Run as administrator", and no longer allows alternate credentials to be entered if the interactively logged on user is an Administrator-equivalent on the local machine (only the interactively logged on account can be used to elevate the process in this scenario). However if the interactive user is not a local Administrator, then any credentials can be used to start the process. The RunAs commandline feature does not allow a local administrator-equivalent command shell to be started.
* Internet Explorer can no longer be launched from a command prompt started with alternate credentials using RunAs. This is also true for Internet Explorer 7 running under Windows XP.
* When User Account Control is enabled, a command prompt started with Administrator-level privileges does not inherit the drive mappings of the interactively logged on user, despite the same account being used.
* The GINA library and support for GINA-based authentication has been replaced with Credential Providers so that authentication plug-ins are moved out of the Winlogon process space to the fullest extent possible in order to provide more reliability and consistency. Consequently, third-party GINA modules do not work. However, the Credential Provider model is also pluggable.
* The logon screen does not show the number of running programs or unread email messages, when using Fast User Switching.
* The All Users wallpaper can no longer be changed. All Windows Vista machines now show the same wallpaper at the logon screen.
* Due to security concerns, the All Users screen saver can no longer be changed. (Replacing the screen saver was a common method of unauthorized privilege escalation in earlier versions of Windows.)
* Due to security concerns, system services can no longer natively interact with the user's desktop in Windows Vista. This is a change from all previous NT releases.
* Cached roaming profiles cannot be deleted directly from the filesystem as this renders the account unable to logon to the workstation again, even if the account is also removed from "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList". The legacy commandline profile deletion utility (DelProf.exe) is also no longer supported under Vista. The only supported method of manually deleting a roaming profile is via the System applet of the Control Panel.

Win32 console

* The Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) does not support all DOS video modes and therefore DOS-based and Win32 console programs cannot run in full screen mode.
* In previous versions of Windows, it was possible to save different settings for each console window. Windows would ask the user whether to apply settings for the current window or the shortcut that started the window. Windows Vista however saves settings for all console windows without asking the user.
* Dragging and dropping a folder or file into a Win32 console window no longer pastes the path of the folder or file. The functionality has been disabled due to privilege escalation concerns.

Networking

* Windows Vista uses the strong host model for networking, instead of the weak host model used by all previous Windows versions. A weak host model can accept locally destined unicast packets from any network and transfer them to other interfaces on that network. In a multihomed network setup, a strong host model can considerably limit connectivity although it improves security against multihome-based network attacks.
* A single icon in the notification area (system tray) represents network connectivity through all network adapters, whether wired or wireless and for all different types of connections. It is not possible to set individual connection status icons on the taskbar or hide some or all network icons altogether.
* Changing the KeepRasConnections registry key to remain connected after logging off from a RAS client is not supported in Windows Vista.
* The Direct cable connection feature is not supported in Windows Vista.
* Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and POP3 servers have been removed from the IIS component in Windows Vista.
* The Gopher protocol is no longer supported.
* Rarely used protocols such as Bandwidth Allocation Protocol and X.25 support for SLIP have been removed. SLIP connections are automatically upgraded to use PPP.
* The SPAP, EAP-MD5-CHAP, and MS-CHAP v1 protocols are no longer supported for PPP-based connections, in favor of MS-CHAP v2.
* Unlike Outlook Express, Windows Mail has no support for HTTP mail via the WebDAV protocol (used by older Hotmail accounts and Yahoo! Mail); the addition of Windows Live Mail is likely to be required for similar functionality and there is a link to this from the Welcome Center. Also, unlike Outlook Express, Windows Mail does not allow users to switch Identities or manage multiple identities within one running instance of the program. Instead, identities are now tied to the user account and to create additional users or identities, a new user account has to be created.
* The NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol is no longer supported.
* rexec, rsh, finger, and some other command-line tools primarily used to communicate with UNIX-based systems have been removed from the default installation. The Subsystem for Unix-based applications (SUA) (previously known as Windows Services for Unix) still provides them as an optional component.
* Windows Messenger has been removed in favor of a link to Windows Live Messenger. Windows Messenger support has also been dropped from Windows Media Center.
* The RTC Client API 1.3 is not included in Windows Vista.
* Support for built-in H.323 Voice Over IP (VOIP) capabilities has been removed. NetMeeting, H.323 and IPConf TSPs, and HyperTerminal all are no longer included. Windows Meeting Space is the replacement for NetMeeting, however, features like microphone support, and ability to set up audio or video conferences, are now removed.
* IP over 1394 (FireWire networking) support has been removed.
* Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has been removed.
* The NetBEUI protocol is no longer supported.
* The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol component in Routing and Remote Access was removed.
* Services for Macintosh, which provided file and print sharing via the now deprecated AppleTalk protocol, has been removed.
* NetDDE, a technology that allows applications using the DDE transport to transparently exchange data over a network, is no longer supported.
* The NT LAN Manager Security Support Provider service has been removed in favor of the newer Kerberos authentication protocol.
* Users can no longer browse a domain structure. All computers on the network are displayed in a unified list. The list can be "filtered" to display only computers from the desired domain, but the list is still populated with all computers on the network, slowing the process.

Multimedia

* In Windows XP, essentially, audio would be "broadcast" to all the audio endpoints at once. However, the new audio engine in Windows Vista changes this behaviour. Basically, audio can be sent only to the specific endpoint that the system has set by default, or which the user has configured via the Control Panel setting. Although this new audio behavior provides more flexibility and separate Digital Signal Processing (DSP) capabilities, it is limiting in cases where audio has to be streamed locally or across the network to multiple devices (analog to one and digital to another).
* Since Windows Vista features a rewritten audio stack and does not inherit the Hardware Abstraction Layer for audio that was present under prior versions of Windows, there is no hardware acceleration of DirectSound and DirectSound3D APIs. DirectSound is emulated entirely in software. As a result, hardware acceleration and 3D spatialization utilizing DirectSound3D is no longer supported.
* The ability to choose a different hardware or software MIDI synthesizer other than the default Microsoft GS Wavetable Software synth has been removed from the user interface for audio configuration in Windows Vista. A different output MIDI synth or output device port can be selected only by editing the registry.
* Windows Media Player 10, which is downloadable for Windows XP and part of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 includes the Fraunhofer MP3 ACM codec. Because of licensing restrictions, Windows Vista only includes an MP3 decoder, not an ACM encoder.
* It is not possible to back up and restore licenses in Windows Media Player 11.
* The ability to customize the Windows startup sound has been removed, although the logon and logoff sounds can still be customized.
* Windows Media Center drops support for the Caller ID and Windows Messenger features.
* In the Sound Control Panel applet, the ability to preview a sound from the Browse dialog box has been removed.
* While playing a VCD in Windows Media Player, it is no longer possible to choose the left or right audio channel alone, which is sometimes used for "bilingual" function (stereo audio where the left and right channels contain different audio tracks).
* While previewing GIF's in the Windows File Preview, animated GIF's are not played (Only the first frame is shown). Under XP, the entire animation was shown.

File system, drivers and memory

* Executable images created for the DOS/Windows environment, using any compiler and language which does not link to the Win32 API, are subject to failure or performance degradation when executed in Windows Vista, because Vista arbitrarily restricts the memory space for the executable to 32 MB (33,554,432 bytes). The limitation applies to any compiler, linker, or executable not conforming to the Win32 API. The same is not true for previous versions of Windows.
* Installing Windows Vista on a volume with a FAT32 file system is no longer supported. Windows Vista can be installed only on an NTFS volume. Reading from and writing to FAT and FAT32 volumes is still supported.
* In the Windows Vista implementation of EFS, apparently there is no longer support for the WebDAV protocol.[citation needed] In Windows XP, encrypted files copied from or to WebDAV shares would remain encrypted "on the wire" (which contrasts with the decryption that occurs when copying from or to SMB aka CIFS shares). In Windows Vista, encrypted files copied from or to WebDAV shares would be decrypted "on the wire".
* For Plug-and-play hardware, it is not possible to choose from a list of available device drivers in the Found new hardware wizard which starts automatically. Only the Update Driver wizard which can be invoked from Device Manager allows manually choosing a driver from a list.
* Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions to WDM are no longer supported.
* Unsigned 64-bit kernel-mode device drivers can no longer be installed.

Boot, shutdown, power management

* There is no progress bar indicating the hibernation status on Windows Vista. After users choose to hibernate, Windows Vista simply turns off the screen before saving the data to disk and turning off the computer. Also, when resuming, Windows Vista displays an indeterminate progress bar instead of the determinate progress bar used in previous versions of Windows.
* Although it is possible to customize the action Windows takes when the hardware Power button is pressed, it is no longer possible to set power options to ask the user every time what action to take upon pressing it. Therefore, selecting a different power action in each case is not possible.
* Motherboard support for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is required for Windows Vista; as a result, older motherboards supporting only Advanced Power Management do not work. ACPI 2.0 or later is preferred, as Windows Vista's support of technologies like AMD's Cool'n'Quiet power-saving technology is disabled on ACPI 1.0 enabled motherboards. Other "legacy" hardware technologies no longer supported include: EISA buses, game ports, MPU-401, AMD K6/2+ Mobile Processors, Mobile Pentium II and Mobile Pentium III SpeedStep; ISAPnP is disabled by default.
* The Shutdown menu has been removed from Windows Task Manager.
* The NTLDR boot loader, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI boot files used in previous versions of the NT kernel have been replaced by the BOOTMGR boot loader and BOOT folder.

Windows applications and features

* The graphical representation and progress indicator of the defragmentation process or its analysis have been removed from Windows Disk Defragmenter. It is also not possible in the RTM release to manually specify which drives to defragment from the GUI without using the command line defrag.exe utility. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 includes the ability to control which volumes the disk defragmenter runs on. The ability to view any volume-related information such as its file system, capacity, free space, percentage of free space, cluster size, contiguous files, file and volume fragmentation information in the analysis report of a volume is also absent. It is also impossible to save or print the analysis report or pause and resume the defragmentation mid-way.
* In the Windows Vista version of the Backup application, it is not possible to specify what files and folders to back up and what files and folders are to be excluded. Users can select only document categories to back up. Files from a specific path or over the network also cannot be backed up due to this reason. Backup also does not present a list of files that will be backed up. Also, Encrypting File System (EFS) files are skipped over and not backed up. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 adds support for backing up EFS-encrypted files. Also, Vista's Backup application cannot use tape drives.
* Sound Recorder in Windows Vista can no longer open audio files. Moreover, it cannot save in lossless (uncompressed) WAV format when run without using any switches; instead, it saves in lossy 96 kbit/s WMA format. Only the version of Sound Recorder from the N editions of Windows Vista saves audio in WAV format by default. Also, all the basic audio processing features such as format conversion, sample rate conversion, adding echo, reversing the audio, changing volume and playback speed, splitting, inserting and mixing audio have been removed. The graphical viewing of the sound wave spectrum has been replaced with a level meter.
* Version 6.4 of Windows Media Player (mplayer2.exe) is no longer included. It was also dropped previously from Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 but was present in other Windows XP editions.
* Support for Microsoft Office Word documents (*.DOC) has been removed from WordPad. Microsoft recommends the freely downloadable Word Viewer for viewing these documents.
* The wizard for transferring photos from the camera had some of its functionality removed in Windows Photo Gallery such as the ability to choose which images to transfer from the camera; users had to copy all images even if they had been previously downloaded. However, the previous behavior with options to choose and automatically organize photos into folders is available in Windows Live Photo Gallery. Also, users can still manually copy specific images from the camera by exploring the connected camera from Windows Explorer.
* Support for animated .GIF files has been removed in Windows Photo Gallery which replaced the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Animated GIF files display properly in Internet Explorer. Support for WMF and EMF formats has also been removed from Windows Photo Gallery.
* It is not possible to share Microsoft Office Outlook contacts with Windows Contacts, whereas in Windows XP, configuring the "UseOutlook" value in the registry allowed sharing Outlook contacts with the Windows Address Book.
* The ability to send email as plain text (without HTML) only to a specific contact is not available in Windows Contacts.

Legacy applications and features

* ClipBook Viewer is not included.[citation needed]
* Object Packager, a legacy tool for packaging non-OLE objects and embedding/linking them inside OLE objects, is not included.[citation needed]
* Built-in support for the 32-bit .HLP (WinHelp) help format has been removed to discourage software developers from using the obsolete format and encourage use of newer 32-bit help formats such as Compiled HTML Help. When starting an application which uses the 32-bit .HLP format, Windows will display a warning saying that the format is not supported any more. The viewer for viewing .HLP files is available from the Microsoft Download Center, though features present in previous versions are disabled. Support for the 16-bit .HLP format remains.
* Context-sensitive help is not available in Windows Vista as it was dependent on WinHelp. Although the HTML Help technology also supports context-sensitive help, Windows Vista dialogs remove the "What's this" button and context sensitive help functionality.
* SerialKeys, an accessibility feature for augmentative communicative devices is no longer supported.
* The Dr. Watson application debugger and crash analysis tool has been removed. It is intended to be replaced by the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. However, its functionality is different.
* The DirectX Diagnostic tool (DxDiag) only shows information; it is no longer possible to test the hardware and the various DirectX components.
* Desktop versions of Backgammon, Reversi, Spades, Pinball, and Checkers have been removed.(Many of these games are now freely playable online on MSN Games).
* Program Manager has been removed altogether. Previously, in Windows XP Service Pack 2, running the executable did not launch it, however it stored several old icons.[citation needed]
* Many of the screen savers introduced in earlier versions of Windows are not included with Windows Vista, this includes most of the OpenGL screen savers introduced since Windows 95b and classics such as the Flying Windows screen saver.

Graphics, DirectX and video

* When using Windows Aero, all GDI and GDI+ applications run in the new Compositing window manager known as Desktop Window Manager. In that case the GDI render path is redirected through DWM; however GDI is not hardware-accelerated when it is redirected. But, due to the nature of desktop composition (internal management of moving bitmaps and transparency and anti-aliasing of GDI+ being handled at the DWM core), operations like window moves and resizes can be faster or more responsive because underlying content need not be re-rendered.
* Many popular video codecs are no longer available to the Video for Windows (VfW) interface, thereby breaking most applications which use the VfW API to work with AVI files. The missing codecs are available under Direct Media, but VfW applications will need to be redesigned to use the entirely different API.
* Direct3D Retained Mode (D3DRM) has been removed.
* DirectPlay Voice and DirectPlay's NAT Helper have been removed.
* Some DirectInput functionality (action-mapper UI) has been removed as well.
* DirectPlay has been deprecated.
* The DirectMusic kernel mode synthesizer that supplies the DirectMusic components with a high-resolution timer has been removed.
* Support for the DirectX 7 and DirectX 8 interfaces for Visual Basic 6.0 is not available on Windows Vista.
* Video content support is removed from Windows Image Acquisition for Windows Vista in favor of the newer Windows Portable Devices API. As a result, the Windows Vista version of Windows Movie Maker no longer supports importing video from an analog video source such as a VCR, an analog camcorder or from a Web camera.

Installation and servicing

* Because of setup design changes for faster installation, it is not possible to slipstream service packs or hotfixes into the core operating system files as was possible with Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000. Microsoft released an updated Windows Vista disc media that integrates Service Pack 1, however the updated media is only available to certain enterprise customers, MSDN subscribers and new customers who buy the operating system after the release of SP1; it is not available to pre-SP1 end-users of Windows Vista. As an alternative Windows Automated Install Kit can be used to alter the image though it is rather more complicated.
* Windows Vista uses Package Manager (Pkgmgr.exe) and Windows Update Standalone Installer (Wusa.exe) to install software updates and hotfixes. However, these do not support the various command-line switches like Windows XP's Package Installer (Update.exe) did. Much of the functionality from Update.exe is missing. For example, there is no way to skip backing up uninstall information for hotfixes using the /nobackup or /n switch. Windows Vista backs up files before installing hotfixes to the %Windir%\WinSxS folder. Since the backing up of files cannot be skipped, this folder can get considerably large and take up a lot of disk space.
* It is not possible to backup the activation state for the same computer in Windows Vista. In retail or OEM versions of Windows XP, upon reinstallation, it was not necessary to activate Windows on the same computer without making hardware changes, if the WPA.DBL file was backed up and later restored.

Other minor changes

* The Startup Hardware Profiles feature in System Changes has been removed.
* The Windows Classic theme colors (Brick, Eggplant, Rainy Day, Wheat, Pumpkin, etc.) have been removed.
* The graphical world map has been removed from the Date and Time control panel setting in Windows Vista.
* The program list in the Vista Start Menu cannot be set to anything other than the "scroll programs" option seen in previous versions of Windows. However, if the Start Menu is changed to Classic, the option can be changed.
* The Vista Start Menu does not allow expanding Connect To and Printers for quick access to network connections or print/fax devices.