List of features removed in Windows 7

Similar to the transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista, certain capabilities and programs that are present in Windows Vista are no longer present in Windows 7 or have changed. The following is a list of features that originated in earlier versions of Windows and included up to Windows Vista.

Windows Shell

Taskbar

• Icons have been removed from the tooltips for the notification area system icons such as Volume, Network, Power and the taskbar date and time.^[1]
• Floating Deskbands (was deprecated in Windows Vista, now deskband can be only pinned to taskbar).
• Windows Media Player's taskbar-integrated Mini-player has been removed. The thumbnail preview which replaces this lacks volume control and a progress bar.
• The ability to disable grouping (placing next to each other) similar taskbar buttons (for example, Explorer windows). Users can still disable combining multiple taskbar buttons of the same type into one button.
• The configurable registry option TaskbarGroupSize, which allowed fine-grained control over taskbar grouping ^[2] under previous Windows versions is not supported. In Windows 7, users can only configure to either combine buttons, not combine or combine when the taskbar is full.
• The number of combined taskbar windows is not calculated and shown next to the combined buttons.
• Network activity animation on Network Connections icon in the notification area.
• The ability to turn off taskbar window previews (thumbnails) while still using Aero, as was configurable in Windows Vista.^[3]
• The ability to disable the taskbar's "always on top" setting.
• When grouping is disabled, the ability to manage multiple taskbar items using multiselect (Ctrl+click) to tile, cascade, minimize or close the selected group of windows has been removed.
• Only two power plans, one of them always being Balanced, are available to choose from the taskbar. The "High Performance" power plan is hidden by default in the Control Panel.
• Each toolbar or desk band is forced to be on its own row in Windows Explorer. The Explorer forces the RBBS_BREAK style for every band. ^[4]

Start menu

• Classic Start menu.^[5]
• Dynamically pinning default Internet browser and e-mail client software programs on Start menu (programs can be manually pinned to the Start menu in Windows 7).

Other shell features

• Advanced search builder UI (Search Pane).
• ClearType cannot be turned off entirely in order for the user interface font, Segoe UI, to maintain optimal design for certain shell components and Windows Explorer.^[6] Parts of the user interface (such as the start menu and Explorer) still use ClearType regardless of setting.
• For security reasons AutoPlay will support AutoRun only on optical media, such as CDs and DVDs. (Later Microsoft released KB971029 for earlier OSes to make AutoPlay Windows 7-like.)^[7]
• Detection of the discontinued HD DVD format was removed from AutoPlay.
• Customized game shortcuts in Games Explorer.

Windows Explorer

• The entire folder tree view in the navigation pane cannot be collapsed as could be done in Windows Explorer on Windows Vista.
• Full row selection cannot be turned off for details view as was possible in Windows Vista. ^[8]
• The Share overlay icon for shared items in Explorer has been removed.^[9]
• When navigating to a folder from a library, it is not possible to view the folder's contents in the view the user has set or customized. The folder uses the library's view.
• It is not possible to set Windows Explorer to remember individual folder window sizes and positions. Each folder window shares the same size, and their position cascades as more windows are opened.
• Dotted lines that connect folders and subfolders do not appear as the option to turn off simple folder view is missing.^[10][11]
• The size of any selected item and free disk space are not shown on the status bar.
• When no items are selected in a folder, neither the details pane nor the status bar show the total size of files in the folder.
• Icons on the command bar in Windows Explorer and common application dialogs for Open/Save.
• Disabling Auto Arrange and Align to Grid is not available in Windows Explorer windows.^[12] As a result, users can no longer manually arrange items via drag and drop within a folder; this feature is only available on the desktop.
• The Sort bar that appears for any view in Windows Vista only appears for Details view.^[13]
• Automatic horizontal scrolling in the left pane and the horizontal scrollbar.
• The Arrange By/Stack By option is only available for libraries and folders included in libraries. In addition, users can only Stack By predefined categories depending on the library type. For example, users can only Stack By Folder, Album, Artist, Song, Genre, and Rating for the Music library, whereas in Vista, users could Stack By any properties that exist for a file (common examples would be bit rate, year, composer, play count, etc. for audio files).
• Sorting in Explorer de-selects selected items.

Windows Media Player features

• Advanced Tag Editor
• Color Chooser
• Media Link for E-mail
• Party Mode
• Recently added Auto playlist not included by default

Other Windows applications and features

• Internet Explorer 8 on any Windows version does not support inline AutoComplete in its address bar ^[14].
• Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Mail (in favor of downloading respective Windows Live counterparts^[15])
• The web filtering and activity reporting functionality from the in-box parental controls feature.^[16] Windows Live Family Safety replaces the web filtering functionality.
• The DFS Replication Service included in Windows Vista for peer-to-peer DFS Replication service groups.^[17]
• The Aurora, Windows Energy and Windows Logo screensavers and most of the wallpapers that shipped with Windows Vista.^[18]
• Software Explorer feature of Windows Defender^[19]
• Removable Storage Manager (RSM)^[20] (applications dependent on it, such as NTBackup or the NTBackup Restore Tool, cannot back up to physical or virtual tape drives)
• Windows Meeting Space^[21]
• The InkBall game
• Windows Ultimate Extras for the Ultimate edition which included Windows DreamScene, Microsoft Tinker, and the Hold' Em poker game among others. Microsoft had initially announced that they will re-offer Tinker and Hold 'Em in the near future.^[22] On December 15, only Tinker was made available for free as a Games for Windows - LIVE downloadable game which requires signing in to Windows Live ID.
• Microsoft Agent 2.0 Technology
• Windows Calendar
• The sidebar for Desktop Gadgets was removed, although gadgets align to any side of the screen.
• The Contacts, Notes and Stocks Desktop Gadgets have been removed. The Notes gadget has been replaced by Sticky Notes, allowing for both text and ink-based notes. An upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 retains the user's notes from the gadget and transfers them to the Sticky Notes program.
• The import, export, drag and drop and voice note features in earlier versions of Sticky Notes have been removed.
• The Windows Firewall Control Panel does not allow configuring port-based filtering although the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security MMC-based snap-in allows this.
• Filtering policies in Group Policy to show only a specific operating system or application.^{[citation needed]}
• Software Restriction Policies no longer support multiple levels of trust such as "basic user" (only block or allow are still supported); functionality has been superseded by User Account Control and Applocker.
• The choose/change font common dialog does not show the type of font (OpenType, TrueType, Symbol font etc.)
• Windows Registry Reflection for x64 editions replaced with merged 32/64-bit keys.^[23]

See also

• List of features removed in Windows Vista
• Features new to Windows 7

References