While
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
contains many
new features, a number of capabilities and certain programs that were a part of previous Windows versions up to
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
were removed or changed – some of which were later re-introduced in
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
and later versions.
The following is a list of features that were present in Windows XP and earlier versions but were removed in Windows Vista.
Windows Explorer
*
Windows Briefcase no longer allows synchronizing items across multiple computers and a removable media device.
*''Windows Briefcase'' cannot sync files or folders in locations protected by
User Account Control
User Account Control (UAC) is a mandatory access control enforcement feature introduced with Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems, with a more relaxed . This removes the ability to sync many locations.
*Grouping items by name in Explorer no longer groups them under each individual letter of the alphabet (A, B, C... Z) like in Windows XP. When using Group By Name, items are always combined into just a few groups (A-H, I-P, Q-Z). This removes the ability to locate items by their first letter.
*If hidden files are not allowed to be shown in
Windows Explorer
File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...
, the Status bar does not report how many hidden files are present. In addition, if all items within a folder are selected at once (by pressing or ''Select all''), the user is not alerted to hidden files being selected.
*Even after setting the ''ForceCopyAclwithFile'' and ''MoveSecurityAttributes'' values as documented in KB310316, permissions are not retained/copied when Windows Explorer is used to copy or move objects across volumes or in the same volume. A hotfix is available (KB2617058) to restore the ''MoveSecurityAttributes'' value but not ''ForceCopyAclwithFile''.
*Thumbnails can no longer be forced to regenerate by right-clicking the image and selecting ''Refresh thumbnail''.
*Thumbnail support for .HTM, .HTML, .MHT and .URL files has been removed in Windows Vista.
*The Explorer thumbnail handler and metadata property handler for
.AVI
and
.WAV
files (''Shmedia.dll'') has been removed.
*Ctrl+Enter on the selected folder no longer opens it in a new Explorer window.
*Tiles view only shows the name, type and the size of items. It no longer shows information depending on the criteria by which items are sorted.
*The ''Version'' file properties tab has been replaced by a ''Details'' tab that omits custom version information strings, does not show all of the same information as the ''Version'' tab and does not support copying any of the displayed information to the clipboard.
*Various properties are not visible anymore from the ''Details'' tab, such as ''Audio sample rate'' and ''Audio sample size'' and ''Channels'' for certain audio files.
*The column by which items are sorted is not highlighted unlike Windows XP. Only the column header is highlighted.
* The address bar dropdown displays recently visited folder or file paths typed into the address bar and websites but does not show the complete top level file hierarchy.
* Right clicking on the top-left icon of the Explorer window no longer shows the context menu for that folder. It instead shows the window menu just like left click or Alt+Space does.
* The top-left corner of the window no longer acts like a draggable icon representing the folder.
* The ''Desktop.ini''
Sharing=0
parameter which could prevent a particular folder from being shared is not supported.
* The ''Up'' toolbar button in Windows Explorer, which allowed one to jump to a parent folder in the address hierarchy has been removed. As a result of this, the key combination to open the parent folder in a new window does not work. The keyboard shortcut, , is still available. The link to the parent folder in the ''Other places'' task pane has also been removed. The new method of viewing parent folders is to click the respective folder or its dropdown arrow from the
breadcrumbs bar.
* It is not possible to turn off full row selection in ''List view''.
* It is not possible to turn off autorefresh/autosorting of files and folders as sorting is treated as a state instead of as a verb. As a result, any file modification activity such as copy-paste, creation, rename or deletion makes items move continually to obey the sort order instead of the items appearing at the end and getting sorted only when the view is refreshed.
* It is not possible to set NTFS security ACLs, ownership and audit permissions on more than one selected item using Windows Explorer because the ''Security'' tab has been removed from the ''Properties'' for multiple selected items. Microsoft states that this feature was removed as the UAC prompt which may need to be displayed to gain ownership and reset permissions cannot accommodate the names of multiple selected files. However, this justification would also apply to all other batch actions on multiple selected files such as setting attributes, using NTFS compression or Encrypting File System where a different UAC prompt is displayed and the batch action is not disallowed.
* The IColumnProvider shell extension interface (column handler) has been removed. Shell extensions that display information in Explorer's columns will therefore fail to work. As a result of this API removed, folder sizes cannot be displayed in a column in Windows Explorer Details view. The replacement for column handlers, ''Property Handlers'', cannot be registered for all files.
* It is no longer possible to add a background to folders via a desktop.ini.
* Icons of any
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...
files including
New Executable
The New Executable (abbreviated NE or NewEXE) is a 16-bit .exe file format, a successor to the DOS MZ executable format. It was used in Windows 1.0–3.x, Windows 9x, multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, OS/2 1.x, and the OS/2 subset of Windows NT up to ver ...
s or DLLs are not extracted by Explorer (or any other 32-bit process) even in 32-bit versions, and therefore are not displayed. The shell's ''Change icon'' dialog cannot browse 16-bit icon libraries and DLLs.
* The collapsible ''File and Folder Tasks'' pane actions have been replaced by the ''Organize'' menu which requires an additional click after selecting items.
* The navigation pane (tree view) can only be toggled through the Organize menu. The ''Folders'' button has been removed.
* The Favorites menu has been removed from Explorer (not from Internet Explorer) and replaced by Explorer-specific Favorite Links in the folder navigation pane (tree view). Favorites can now only store folder location shortcuts, unlike the Favorites menu in Windows XP which also supported program and file shortcuts.
* The ability to view and edit
metadata at the file system level – such as description, author, tags, rating etc. stored in a file's
secondary stream – through the "Summary" tab of the file's "Properties" dialog was removed. Metadata is now stored inside files; however, developers must write a ''Property handler'' for any file format in order for users to be able to edit and view its metadata.
* There are limitations to opening more than 15 selected files in a single operation, i.e. by selecting more than 15 files and pressing Enter. The "Open" verb is not present in the context menu when more than 15 files are selected.
* Single click to rename after selecting an item is not available in the navigation (left) pane.
* Arrows indicating subfolders in the left pane cannot be set to always show. They disappear when dragging and dropping if the user clicks in the right pane before starting to drag to the left pane.
* A folder tree does not expand automatically while collapsing the previous one in the navigation pane even after turning on "Display simple folder view".
* It is not possible to display the full path in the
title bar
A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...
when
Aero Glass
Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includi ...
is enabled. When Aero Glass is disabled, the full path can be displayed in the title bar. The full path can be shown in the
address bar
In a web browser, the address bar (also location bar or URL bar) is the element that shows the current URL. The user can type a URL into it to navigate to a chosen website. In most modern browsers, non-URLs are automatically sent to a search eng ...
regardless of the status of Aero, by clicking to the right of the
breadcrumbs
Bread crumbs or breadcrumbs (regional variants including breading and crispies) consist of crumbled bread of various dryness, sometimes with seasonings added, used for breading or crumbing foods, topping casseroles, stuffing poultry, thickeni ...
or pressing Alt+D.
* 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. Though this has no effect on third-party compression tools, such as
WinZip
WinZip is a trialware file archiver and compressor for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. It is developed by WinZip Computing (formerly Nico Mak Computing), which is owned by Corel Corporation. The program can create archives in Zip ...
or
7-Zip
7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999. 7-Zip has its own archive format called 7z, ...
, Windows Explorer can no longer open ZIP files that are protected with a password.
* ''Filmstrip view'' is replaced by the ''Preview pane''; however the state of the preview pane is not saved per folder. It can be globally enabled or disabled. Also, the preview pane does not show previews for folders whereas filmstrip view showed the preview of images within a folder if a folder was selected. Other functions available in filmstrip view such as rotating photos and navigating using Next and Forward buttons are only available in
Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...
.
* Support for enabling a folder for web sharing with
Internet Information Services
Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NN ...
via the Windows Explorer interface was removed.
* The "Computer Description" field is no longer shown on the Explorer view of a workgroup. It can be viewed from the command line using ''net view''.
* The Status bar does not show file information shown in the infotips when the file is selected. It no longer shows the total space used by a folder when displaying a folder's contents. Some file information is displayed in the Details pane.
* The drive mapping dialog box no longer allows a
network path to be mapped without assigning a local drive letter to it.
* It is not possible to view the ''Properties'' of an item in the left pane of Windows Explorer using ''Alt+Enter''.
* Users can no longer browse a domain or workgroup through a tree view. 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.
* The ability to undo more than one delete operation has been removed from the Explorer context menu. Only the last delete operation can be undone or redone.
* The file transfer dialogs for copying, moving or deleting do not show the actual file name which is being copied, moved or deleted at that instant.
* 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 association In computing, a file association associates a file with an application capable of opening that file. More commonly, a file association associates a class of files (usually determined by their filename extension, such as .txt) with a corresponding a ...
s 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 association In computing, a file association associates a file with an application capable of opening that file. More commonly, a file association associates a class of files (usually determined by their filename extension, such as .txt) with a corresponding a ...
s, 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''. Manual registry editing or third-party software is now required to choose default programs, change file type icons, and other advanced tasks. 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.
* The option on the File Types tab to configure particular file types to confirm open after download and others to open without confirmation after downloading has been removed.
* Folders can only display two 3D thumbnails of files within a folder. Previously, up to four 2D images could be shown.
Taskbar
* The ''Power'' icon on the taskbar only appears for laptops, and desktop computers with a USB-based
UPS.
* The ''Network'' icon on the taskbar does not give direct access to the connection settings, connection status, firewall settings, or disabling the connection.
* The
taskbar
A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running.
The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally as ...
cannot be resized to zero height when unlocked, hiding it manually (users were unable to continue using the taskbar buttons after resizing the taskbar to zero height accidentally).
* 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
The Text Services Framework (TSF) is a COM framework and API in Windows XP and later Windows operating systems that supports advanced text input and text processing. The Language Bar is the core user interface for Text Services Framework.
Over ...
is the only toolbar that can float on the desktop.
* Double clicking on the Printer icon in the notification area while printing does not open the printer's status window that allows managing print jobs.
Start menu
* Neither the new nor the Classic Start menu shows infotips for folders stored inside the folder's ''desktop.ini''.
* The ''All Programs'' mode has changed to an inline scrollable menu. As such, it is not possible to expand the ''All Programs'' menu in the Vista Start menu into flyout cascading menus.
* Subfolders inside the ''All Programs'' menu in the Vista Start menu cannot be opened in Windows Explorer by double clicking as was possible with the XP Start menu or Classic Start menu. They also do not expand automatically if the mouse hovers over them (unless working in Windows Classic mode).
* Holding down the
SHIFT
key while clicking an item to retain the Start menu is not possible in the Vista Start menu.
* The Vista Start Menu does not allow expanding ''Connect To'' and ''Printers'' for quick access to network connections or print/fax devices.
* The ''Log Off'' confirmation on the classic Start menu has been removed.
Other Windows shell and usability features
* The setting to configure Recycle Bin maximum allocated size globally (across all drives) has been removed and the equivalent Group Policy is not supported. Recycle Bin maximum size must be configured individually for each drive in MB.
* Some functionality of the shell namespace extension for the ''Downloaded Program Files'' folder which hosts
ActiveX control
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. ...
s is broken. ActiveX controls no longer show "Update" and "Delete" context menu verbs when right clicked. As a result, they can no longer be updated or deleted using the ''Downloaded Program Files'' folder.
* Folders and sub-folders placed inside the ''Send To'' menu will no longer cascade i.e. expand as submenus. As a result, it is not possible to group items in the SendTo menu.
* 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.
* The option to switch between the
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...
/
XP style "Fade" animation for menus and tooltips and the
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...
/
Me style "Scroll" animation has been removed. However, it is still possible to switch between the two options by
registry editing.
* Some functions such as shell execute hooks and named exports have been deprecated or removed from
shell32.dll.
* The
Windows Script Host
The Microsoft Windows Script Host (WSH) (formerly named Windows Scripting Host) is an automation technology for Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides scripting abilities comparable to batch files, but with a wider range of supported fe ...
WshShell.SendKeys() method, as well as the SendKeys() function in development environments such as
Visual Basic 6, no longer work on Vista when
UAC is enabled. Version 3.0 of the
.NET Framework
The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...
has been updated to work around the issue.
* It is no longer possible to copy text fragments and other similar objects from a document, and paste them to a folder as a file (called a shell scrap object or "Document shortcut", but actually an OLE object).
*
Active Desktop
Active Desktop was a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0's optional Windows Desktop Update that allowed users to add HTML content to the desktop, along with some other features. This function was intended to be installed on the then-curre ...
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
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
or
HTA files can run on the desktop, although
Windows DreamScene
Windows DreamScene is a utility that allows videos and .gif and other optimized animations to be used as desktop wallpapers. It is one of the Windows Ultimate Extras for Windows Vista. Prior to its official announcement, DreamScene was rumored t ...
(exclusively for Windows Vista Ultimate) allows using videos as the background and dynamic web content can run as part of
Sidebar gadgets
A gadget is a mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as '' gizmos''.
History
The etymology of the word is disputed. The word first appears as reference to an 18th-century tool in glassmaking that was devel ...
.
* The ''Snap To'' mouse pointer option to move the pointer automatically to the ''default button'' in a dialog is broken on many system and application dialog boxes and windows in Windows Vista and later. The mouse pointer simply does not move or ''snap to'' the default button in several dialogs.
Search
* Unlike the search feature in Windows XP,
Windows Search
Windows Search (also known as Instant Search) is a content index desktop search platform by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista as a replacement for both the previous Indexing Service of Windows 2000 and the optional MSN Desktop Search for Win ...
does not display information about the location being searched in the status bar of Windows Explorer.
* It is not possible to perform a case sensitive search using
Windows Search
Windows Search (also known as Instant Search) is a content index desktop search platform by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista as a replacement for both the previous Indexing Service of Windows 2000 and the optional MSN Desktop Search for Win ...
.
* Unlike the search feature in Windows XP,
Windows Search
Windows Search (also known as Instant Search) is a content index desktop search platform by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista as a replacement for both the previous Indexing Service of Windows 2000 and the optional MSN Desktop Search for Win ...
no longer searches an item's
NTFS
New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...
Alternate Data Stream.
* The Search Companion is no longer available.
Internet Explorer
* The ''About Internet Explorer'' dialog no longer displays the latest installed cumulative update in the "Update Versions" field. This is corrected in Internet Explorer 9 and later.
* 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
File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...
. This can also be seen in
Internet Explorer 7
Windows Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) (codenamed Rincon) is a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on October 18, 2006, as the seventh version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 7 is pa ...
/8 on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
* 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. This is same for users with Internet Explorer 7 or higher on other supported Windows versions.
* 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 also applies for Internet Explorer 7 on other Windows versions.
* Several old and little-used technologies have been removed:
DirectAnimation support,
CDF, view-source protocol handlers and 40-bit
SSL ciphers
In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...
.
User accounts and winlogon.exe configuration
* It is no longer possible to safely relocate the profiles directory (C:\Users) to another partition without using unsupported methods. Microsoft recommends against moving the user profile folder. In Windows XP, the WinNT.sif file allowed relocating "Documents and Settings" to another partition than C: before Windows installation completed. Subfolders under the user's profile can however still be redirected. Windows 7 further alleviates this issue by introducing Libraries which allow user's data to be located on another partition.
*
Windows Installer
Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer, codename Darwin) is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. ...
and the Shell in Windows Vista do not support per-user app installs without the need to show the UAC prompt. This has been corrected in
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
.
*
Winlogon
In computing, Winlogon (Windows Logon) is the component of Microsoft Windows operating systems that is responsible for handling the secure attention sequence, loading the user profile on logon, and optionally locking the computer when a screensa ...
no longer shows details of password complexity policy requirements due to the removal of
GINA.
* The Biologon API to programmatically create a new interactive user session using the InitiateInteractiveLogon function has been removed.
* Unlike Windows XP, an administrator can no longer unlock the computer when another standard user has locked it.
* Protected Storage (PStore) has been deprecated and therefore made read-only in Windows Vista. Microsoft recommends using
DPAPI
Data Protection Application Programming Interface (DPAPI) is a simple cryptography, cryptographic application programming interface available as a built-in component in Windows 2000 and later versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. In the ...
to add new PStore data items or manage existing ones. However existing applications such as
Outlook 2002 which used PStore are unable to save passwords as a result. Any application that tries to create new PStore data items will fail.
* Although classic logon and Ctrl+Alt+Del enforcement can be enabled through
Group Policy
Group Policy is a feature of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems (including Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2003+) that controls the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. G ...
, the classic logon prompt cannot be made to appear by pressing
Ctrl+Alt+Del
at the Welcome screen twice. This makes it impossible to logon to a hidden user account while the Welcome screen is enabled (when Classic Logon is not enforced through Group Policy).
* Because of the classic logon being removed,
domain names are no longer populated on the logon screen and cannot be selected from a drop down list.
* The ability to run a Control Panel applet as a different user by using Shift+Right click has been removed.
* It is not possible to override Autologon and Startup items by pressing the
SHIFT
key before logon. The ''IgnoreShiftOverride'' registry value is ignored. (This problem may be unique to USB keyboards; se
KB977534KB2526967
*
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...
applications launched with administrator-level privileges always run in their own memory space, even if launched via "Start /Shared" on the command line or if the CREATE_SEPARATE_WOW_VDM flag is specified with the CreateProcess() API; 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
In computing, runas (a compound word, from “run as”) is a command in the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems that allows a user to run specific tools and programs under a different username to the one that was used to logon to a com ...
feature in the shell has been replaced with "Run as administrator" of User Account Control. The RunAs feature does not allow a local administrator-equivalent command shell to be started except for the Administrator account.
* 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 (it can, but you must type the complete path to the executable, not just IEXPLORE or IEXPLORE.EXE).
* When
User Account Control
User Account Control (UAC) is a mandatory access control enforcement feature introduced with Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems, with a more relaxed is enabled, any process started with Administrator-level privileges does not inherit the
drive mapping Drive mapping is how Microsoft Windows associates a local drive letter (A through Z) with a shared storage area to another computer (often referred as a File Server) over a network. After a drive has been mapped, a software application on a clie ...
s of the interactively logged on user, despite the same account being used. This can lead to scenarios where non-UAC processes such as Windows Explorer have access to an application on a network drive, but insufficient permissions to execute it; conversely, the UAC-elevated process has sufficient local permissions, but cannot see the network application.
* 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
In computing, Winlogon (Windows Logon) is the component of Microsoft Windows operating systems that is responsible for handling the secure attention sequence, loading the user profile on logon, and optionally locking the computer when a screensa ...
process space to the fullest extent possible in order to provide more reliability and consistency. Consequently, third-party GINA modules must be ported to the Credential Provider model. Credential providers however do not allow customization which GINA allowed. For example, it does not support programmatically using
Fast User Switching
Fast user switching is a feature of a multi-user operating system which allows users to switch between user accounts without quitting applications and logging out.
In Linux
The Linux kernel's VT subsystem dates back to 1993 and does not under ...
.
*
Winlogon
In computing, Winlogon (Windows Logon) is the component of Microsoft Windows operating systems that is responsible for handling the secure attention sequence, loading the user profile on logon, and optionally locking the computer when a screensa ...
Notification Packages are no longer supported in Windows Vista.
* The logon screen does not show the number of running programs or unread email messages when using
Fast User Switching
Fast user switching is a feature of a multi-user operating system which allows users to switch between user accounts without quitting applications and logging out.
In Linux
The Linux kernel's VT subsystem dates back to 1993 and does not under ...
.
* 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
Screen Savers or screensaver or ''variation'', may refer to:
* Screensaver, computer programs intended to preserve CRT monitors from "burn-in"
** GNOME ''Screensaver'', GNOME Project's screen blanking tool
** Google Pack ''Screensaver'', a termi ...
can no longer be changed. (Replacing the screen saver was a common method of unauthorized
privilege escalation
Privilege escalation is the act of exploiting a bug, a design flaw, or a configuration oversight in an operating system or software application to gain elevated access to resources that are normally protected from an application or user. The re ...
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 file system 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 only supported method of manually deleting a roaming profile is via the System applet of the
Control Panel or via the commandline DelProf utility, which uses the DeleteProfile() API.
* The "Network Configuration Operators" built-in group no longer delegates permissions to manage system network connections; only system-wide administrator-level permissions can now be used to achieve this. Operations like the "Repair" action of a network connection can therefore be carried out by an administrator only.
* The ability to change the stored password of a
domain in ''Stored User Names and Passwords'' while the computer is connected to a workgroup has been removed.
* The ''Stored User Names and Passwords'' credential manager does not accept the
\* syntax which allowed users to wildcard all passwords in a domain.
Win32 console
* The Windows Display Driver Model
Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) is the graphic driver architecture for video card drivers running Microsoft Windows versions beginning with Windows Vista.
It is a replacement for the previous Windows 2000 and Windows XP display driver model ...
(WDDM) does not support all DOS video modes and therefore DOS-based and Win32 console
Windows Console is the infrastructure for console applications in Microsoft Windows. An instance of a Windows Console has a screen buffer and an input buffer. It allows console apps to run inside a window or in hardware text mode (so as to oc ...
programs can no longer run in full-screen mode. If Windows XP Driver Model (XPDM) graphics drivers are installed or if booted into safe mode, console programs can be run in full-screen mode, however they do not support DWM and therefore Windows Aero
Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includin ...
.
* 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
Windows Console is the infrastructure for console applications in Microsoft Windows. An instance of a Windows Console has a screen buffer and an input buffer. It allows console apps to run inside a window or in hardware text mode (so as to oc ...
window no longer pastes the path of the folder or file. This no longer works as a result of User Interface Privilege Isolation
User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI) is a technology introduced in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 to combat shatter attack exploits. By making use of Mandatory Integrity Control, it prevents processes with a lower "integrity level" (I ...
.
Graphics
* When using Windows Aero
Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includin ...
, all GDI
GDI may refer to:
Science and technology
* Gasoline direct injection, a type of fuel injection
* Graphics Device Interface, a component of Microsoft Windows
* Guanosine nucleotide dissociation inhibitor, a protein
Organisations
* Gabriel Dumont I ...
, GDI+ and DirectDraw applications run in the new compositing window manager known as Desktop Window Manager
Desktop Window Manager (DWM, previously Desktop Compositing Engine or DCE) is the compositing window manager in Microsoft Windows since Windows Vista that enables the use of hardware acceleration to render the graphical user interface of Windows ...
. The GDI or DirectDraw render paths are redirected through DWM; however GDI or DirectDraw are not hardware-accelerated
Hardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware designed to perform specific functions more efficiently when compared to software running on a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU). Any transformation of data that can be calcul ...
when they are redirected.
* The Windows Display Driver Model
Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) is the graphic driver architecture for video card drivers running Microsoft Windows versions beginning with Windows Vista.
It is a replacement for the previous Windows 2000 and Windows XP display driver model ...
specification does not support horizontal and vertical desktop spanned modes, that is, stretching the desktop across multiple monitors. although ''Dual View'' is still available.
* In Windows Vista, the Windows Display Driver Model
Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) is the graphic driver architecture for video card drivers running Microsoft Windows versions beginning with Windows Vista.
It is a replacement for the previous Windows 2000 and Windows XP display driver model ...
(WDDM) does not support two different display adapters. When using two display adapters, both must use the same WDDM driver. Although Windows Vista still supports XPDM drivers, a WDDM driver is required for the Windows Aero
Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includin ...
user experience.
* Windows Vista restricts the amount of memory DPMI programs can have to 32 MB (33,554,432 bytes). The limitation applies to DPMI programs running inside NTVDM
Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware.
Overview
Virtual DOS machines can operate eit ...
. The same is not true for previous versions of Windows.
* For certain CRT monitors, Windows Vista and later no longer support refresh rates higher than 85 Hz.
Audio
* The ability to choose a different hardware or software MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...
synthesizer other than the default Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth
A software synthesizer or softsynth is a computer program that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the sam ...
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 Registry may refer to:
Computing
* Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry
* Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names
* Local Internet registry
* Metadata registry, information system for re ...
or using third party MIDI default output device configuration tools. Even though the default MIDI output device is changed, not all programs that use waveOut MME use the selected MIDI synth; they continue to use the default MS Software Synth. Also, not all MIDI synths are compatible with Windows Vista and later Windows versions.
* As DirectMusic DirectMusic is a deprecated component of the Microsoft DirectX API that allows music and sound effects to be composed and played and provides flexible interactive control over the way they are played. Architecturally, DirectMusic is a high-level se ...
was based on DirectSound
DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can h ...
which is no longer hardware accelerated in Windows Vista, DirectMusic also is software-emulated in Windows Vista. As a result, MIDI playback which is greatly sensitive to latency, timing and CPU usage can be choppy.
* Sounds cannot be played for balloon notifications anymore. This was partially rectified (but not corrected) in Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
and Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
, when toast notifications became prevalent (especially in the latter case where all balloon notifications have been changed to toast notifications). However, balloon notifications still remain silent even on Windows 8 and Windows 10.
* Sounds do not play for the Classic Start menu anymore, even though sounds have been assigned to "Menu command" and "Menu popup" events in Sound control panel.
* Some SAPI 5.1 and SAPI 5.2 voices and applications do not work in Windows Vista and later. Only SAPI 5.3 compatible voices and applications work.
* The controls to adjust per speaker/per channel volume have been removed from the volume mixer.
* It is not possible to minimize the volume control window or change its size using Ctrl+S.
* It is no longer possible to double click the ''Volume'' icon in the notification area to show the volume mixer.
* The position of the volume mixer window is not saved.
* In Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
, 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 separate digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities, it is limiting in cases where audio has to be streamed to multiple devices such as headphones, speakers, HDMI out to AV receiver or analog audio to one device and digital to another.
* The ability to customize the Windows startup sound has been removed, however the logon and logoff sounds can still be customized.
* Windows Media Center
Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate ...
drops support for the Caller ID
Caller identification (Caller ID) is a telephone service, available in analog and digital telephone systems, including voice over IP (VoIP), that transmits a caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment when the call i ...
and Windows Messenger
Windows Messenger is a discontinued instant messaging client included in Windows XP. Designed for use by both corporate and home users, it was originally created, in 2001, as a streamlined and integrated version of MSN Messenger. It was upgrade ...
features.
* In the ''Sound'' Control Panel applet, the ability to preview a sound from the ''Browse'' dialog box has been removed.
* The option to enable or disable digital CD audio is not available in the CD/DVD drive's properties in Device Manager.
* The ability to change the recording device to mono mixer or stereo mixer has been removed.
* Several features have been eliminated from Windows Sound Recorder, such as the ability to import sounds, change the speed, add an echo, play in reverse mode, inserting or mixing files.
* Windows Sound Recorder no longer saves to wave (.wav) format anymore. Instead, it saves as Windows Media Audio (.wma) format. In the Home Basic N and Business N variants of Windows Vista, the wave format is still used. The wave format would become the default format again in Windows 10's Voice Recorder.
* PC Speaker
A PC speaker is a loudspeaker built into some IBM PC compatible computers. The first IBM Personal Computer, model 5150, employed a standard 2.25 inch magnetic driven (dynamic) speaker. More recent computers use a tiny moving-iron or pie ...
is now deprecated and all programs utilizing PC Speaker will now be redirected to the existing default playback device instead.
Windows Media Player features
* The List Pane no longer allows deleting or editing items by right clicking items.
* Categories in the player library such as ''Music'', ''Pictures'', ''Videos'', ''Recorded TV'' show limited media information (metadata) columns, relevant only to their content type. In previous versions, all possible metadata columns were shown for all category types.
* Buttons to always show full-screen controls, show or hide the playlist while in full-screen mode and directly close Windows Media Player from full-screen have been removed.
* Auto sorting in the media library (similar to auto sorting in Windows Explorer) cannot be turned off.
* Grouping cannot be turned off. Library content is always grouped by the criteria by which it is sorted.
* The ability to add media to the library for searching local or network files and selectively adding only new files or existing files has been removed. Media can only be added from monitored folders.
* The seek slider cannot be always shown when playing media. The mouse must be hovered over the progress bar above the playback controls to reveal the seek slider.
* The sort order is not preserved in the library like Windows Media Player 10 as long as the player is open.
* The file list of selected files has been removed from the Advanced Tag Editor.
* ''Next'' and ''Previous'' buttons to cycle through visualizations have been removed.
* Most ''Auto Playlists'' included by default in Windows Media Player 10 have been removed.
* Library options to configure what action to take when double clicking files (Add to List, Play All, Play Selected Items) have been removed.
* The total playlist time is no longer shown in the Now Playing list or in the Library without selecting items. It is only shown in the Library for selected items.
* Total number of tracks is also only shown after selecting all tracks. The total size in MB is not shown in any view.
* The expandable tree view was removed from the navigation pane/left side of the media library.
* The ''Quick Access Panel'', located next to the "Now Playing" tab in Windows Media Player 10 which enabled browsing the library via a pop-up/dropdown menu, has been removed. As an example of this, the library cannot be browsed through a menu and without having to switch to library view.
* It is not possible to change the media player's background to black. Instead, the background is a near-white shade of the color chosen in the color chooser.
* In previous versions of Windows Media Player, the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + I" could be used to capture the frame of video being displayed at the time the shortcut was initiated. This feature was removed for Windows Media Player 11.
* The ''License Management'' tool available in prior versions of Windows Media Player has been removed since version 11. It is not possible to back up and restore licenses. This prevents users of music download services from directly using Windows Media Player to back up their licenses and restore them to another computer. The user now must depend on the download service being able to assist with re-acquiring that license. Not all services support this so in some circumstances the user could lose the ability to play media which they've purchased for use with Windows Media Player 11. e.g. Walmart states: "Important Note: In many cases, we cannot replace song and license files if they are lost. We strongly suggest you back up your music by creating an audio CD or CDs using Windows Media Player 11"
* Windows Media Player 10, which is downloadable for Windows XP and part of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 includes the Fraunhofer MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
ACM codec for ripping to MP3 format. Because of licensing restrictions, Windows Media Player 11 includes only an MP3 decoder, not an ACM encoder.
* The HighMAT burning capability integrated into Windows Media Player 10 is not available in Windows Media Player 11.
* ''Display Anchor window when in skin mode'' option has been removed.
* ''Enable picture support for devices'' option has been removed.
* The ''9SeriesDefault'', ''Atomic'', ''Bluesky'', ''Canvas'', ''Classic'', ''Compact'', ''goo'', ''Headspace'', ''heart'', ''iconic'', ''Miniplayer'', ''Optic'', ''Pyrite'', ''QuickSilver'', ''Radio'', ''Roundlet'', ''Rusty'', ''splat'', ''Toothy'', ''Windows Classic'', and ''Windows XP'' skins has been removed.
* The ''Ambience'', ''Particle'', ''Plenoptic'', ''Spikes'', and ''Musical Colors'' visualizations have been removed.
* The options to use the legacy renderer, overlay mixer, video mixing renderer (VMR-7) or high quality mode (VMR-9) are not available in the Windows Vista version of Windows Media Player 11. The Windows Vista version can use only the ''Enhanced Video Renderer'' (EVR).
* Support for live scrubbing or live seeking, that is, the ability to show the video frame after seeking with the mouse or after clicking with the mouse while paused is not available in the version of Windows Media Player 11 in Windows Vista and later but is supported in Windows Media Player 11 on Windows XP.
* The configuration tab to associate with media file types has also been removed from Windows Media Player 11 options in Windows Vista.
* The ability to remove or reinstall Windows Media Player 11 is not present as it is integrated with the operating system. The only exceptions are the "N" editions of Windows Vista, which do not come with Windows Media Player preinstalled.
* Windows Media Player 6.4 (mplayer2.exe) has been removed like with Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) is a version of the Windows XP operating system which was the first version of Windows to include Windows Media Center, designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub. The last version, Windows XP Media Cen ...
2005. The MCI version of Media Player (mplay32.exe) has also been removed.
DirectX features
* Since Windows Vista features a rewritten audio stack and does not inherit the Hardware Abstraction Layer
Hardware abstractions are sets of routines in software that provide programs with access to hardware resources through programming interfaces. The programming interface allows all devices in a particular class ''C'' of hardware devices to be acce ...
for audio that was present under prior versions of Windows, there is no hardware acceleration of ''DirectSound
DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can h ...
'' and ''DirectSound3D
DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can h ...
'' APIs. DirectSound and DirectMusic are emulated entirely in software. As a result, hardware accelerated audio and 3D spatialization in games utilizing ''DirectSound3D
DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can h ...
'' is no longer supported.
* Direct3D Retained Mode (D3DRM) has been removed.
* DirectPlay
DirectPlay is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. It is a network communication library intended for computer game development, although it can be used for other purposes.
DirectPlay is a high-level software interface between applications and commu ...
was removed.
** Furthermore, DirectPlay
DirectPlay is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. It is a network communication library intended for computer game development, although it can be used for other purposes.
DirectPlay is a high-level software interface between applications and commu ...
Voice and DirectPlay's NAT Helper have been removed.
* Some DirectInput
In computing, DirectInput is a legacy Microsoft API for collecting input from a computer user, via input devices such as the mouse, keyboard, or a gamepad. It also provides a system for ''action mapping,'' which allows the user to assign specif ...
functionality (action-mapper UI) has been removed as well.
* The DirectMusic DirectMusic is a deprecated component of the Microsoft DirectX API that allows music and sound effects to be composed and played and provides flexible interactive control over the way they are played. Architecturally, DirectMusic is a high-level se ...
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
The original Visual Basic (also referred to as Classic Visual Basic) is a third-generation programming language, third-generation event-driven programming, event-driven programming language from Microsoft known for its Component Object Model ( ...
was removed in Windows Vista.
Media features
* Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) is a version of the Windows XP operating system which was the first version of Windows to include Windows Media Center, designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub. The last version, Windows XP Media Cen ...
2005 digital media components such as Windows Audio Converter, Windows Dancer, Windows CD Label Maker, Party Mode, Plus! screensavers and Windows Media Player skins and visualizations have been removed.
* Video content support is removed from Windows Image Acquisition Windows Image Acquisition (WIA; sometimes also called Windows Imaging Architecture) is a proprietary Microsoft driver model and application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows Me and later Windows operating systems that enables graphi ...
for Windows Vista in favor of the newer ''Windows Portable Devices'' API. As a result, the Windows Vista version of Windows Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker (known as Windows Live Movie Maker for the 2009 and 2011 releases) is a discontinued video editing software program by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows Me on September 14, 2000 and in Windows XP on October 25, 2001 ...
or other analog video capture software which used WIA no longer supports importing, streaming or capturing analog video over USB or FireWire from such an analog video source as a VCR
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recording. ...
, an analog camcorder
A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-swa ...
or from a Web camera
A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral ...
. Windows Explorer also does not therefore display a webcam preview. Microsoft recommends using DirectShow
DirectShow (sometimes abbreviated as DS or DShow), codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's ea ...
-based software to capture or stream video from such sources.
* Legacy Video for Windows
Video for Windows was a suite of video playing and editing software introduced by Microsoft in 1992. A runtime version for viewing videos only was made available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1, which then became an integral component of Windows ...
and ACM codecs such as Microsoft H.261, H.263, ACELP.net and G.723.1
G.723.1 is an audio codec for voice that compresses voice audio in frames. An algorithmic look-ahead of duration means that total algorithmic delay is . Its official name is ''Dual rate speech coder for multimedia communications transmitting at ...
were removed. Indeo Video is deactivated by default.
* The Device Manager no longer allows showing and configuring properties for VCM and ACM codecs.
* The Windows Media source filter has been removed resulting in MMS: WMV files being unable to be streamed using GraphEdit GraphEdit is a utility which is part of the Microsoft DirectShow SDK. It is a visual tool for building and testing filter graphs for DirectShow. Filters are displayed as boxes, with a text caption showing the name of the filter. Pins appear as sm ...
or other DirectShow applications.
Setup and servicing
* Windows Vista can no longer be installed on a volume with the FAT
In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food.
The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...
file system, although reading and writing FAT data volumes is still supported.
* It is not possible to install hotfixes/updates in unattended mode while displaying the progress bar. Updates can only be installed in silent unattended mode. The ''/passive'' switch is not supported.
* Because of setup design changes for faster installation, it is not possible to slipstream
A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid (typically air or mustard) is moving at velocities comparable to that of the moving fluid, relative to the ambient fluid through which the object is churning. The term sli ...
service packs or hotfix
A hotfix or quick-fix engineering update (QFE update) is a single, cumulative package that includes information (often in the form of one or more files) that is used to address a problem in a software product (i.e., a software bug). Typically, hotf ...
es into the core operating system files as was possible with Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
, Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...
and Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...
. Microsoft released an updated Windows Vista disc media that integrates Service Pack 1
In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a ...
. However, the updated media is available only 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 Installation Kit
Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK), formerly Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK or WAIK), is a collection of tools and technologies produced by Microsoft designed to help deploy Microsoft Windows operating system imag ...
(WAIK) can be used to alter the image.
* Because of setup design changes, it is not possible to perform an in-place repair reinstall of Windows Vista and later over an existing installation of Windows Vista or later. Any existing data is moved to Windows.old, Users.old folders and previously installed programs need to be reinstalled.
* 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. As Windows Vista performs no cleanup of operating system files in ''%Windir%\WinSxS'' for superseded updates, this folder's disk usage can increase considerably over time.
* There is no longer a progress bar shown for each individual downloaded update in the Windows Update UI. There is only a total progress bar. Windows Update also no longer shows a detailed progress of how many megabytes or kilobytes of the updates have been downloaded; it only shows a total size and a percentage of progress completion.
File system, drivers, memory and hardware
* Windows Task Manager
Task Manager, previously known as Windows Task Manager, is a task manager, system monitor, and startup manager included with Microsoft Windows systems. It provides information about computer performance and running software, including name of r ...
no longer shows the peak commit charge. It only shows current commit charge and the maximum limit.
* The driver-signing policy post installation is always set to ''Warn'', eliminating the ''Ignore'' and ''Block'' options that were available in Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000.
* For Plug-and-play
In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving reso ...
hardware which is plugged in after Windows Vista is installed, it is not possible to choose from a list of available staged or on-disk device drivers in the ''Found new hardware'' wizard which starts automatically. The ''Found new hardware'' wizard automatically searches for the driver and fails if it does not find a driver in the driver store or Windows Update. Only the ''Update Driver'' wizard which can be invoked from Device Manager then allows manually choosing a driver from a list.
* Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) consists of a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's impl ...
Driver Extensions to WDM are no longer supported.
* Unsigned
Unsigned can refer to:
* An unsigned artist is a musical artist or group not attached or signed to a record label
** Unsigned Music Awards, ceremony noting achievements of unsigned artists
** Unsigned band web, online community
* Similarly, the c ...
64-bit
In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A compu ...
kernel-mode device drivers can no longer be installed.
* Advanced settings for PS/2 mice such as ''sample rate'', ''input buffer length'' and ''fast initialization'' are not available in Mouse properties in Device Manager.
* Offline Files (Client Side Caching) has been completely rewritten for Vista, dropping backward compatibility of registry configurability XP supported as described i
KB811660
dropping API support for various support tools such as CscCmd.exe and CacheMov.exe in the process. Furthermore, if the cache is encrypted (per the default setting), then multiple users of a machine can no longer make the same file available offline, as the cache is now encrypted by user-specific EFS.
*Offline Files cannot be set to automatically synchronize at logoff. This was removed for performance reasons.
*Administrator-level access and a reboot are now required to point files pinned in the Offline Files cache to a new location following any change in the UNC path to a network share.
* USB devices no longer turn off their indicator light after being safely removed with the icon from the notification area. The USB port to which a device is attached but safely removed still remains powered.
Boot, shutdown, power management
* The ''Low Battery Action'' cannot be set to run an external program any more.
* Although the ''Low Battery Alarm'' and ''Critical Battery Alarm'' sounds were updated in Windows Vista, the operating system's battery meter only displays an onscreen notification when a battery's energy reaches a low or critical level; the use of these sounds is reserved for third-party battery meter applications. Microsoft states that this is by design.
* Detailed battery information, such as the battery name, unique ID number, chemistry type, and manufacturer information has been removed from Power Options.
* There is no longer a built-in graphical user interface to configure boot options. The command-line tool, '' BCDEdit.exe'' has to be used.
* The Startup Hardware Profiles feature in ''System Properties'' has been removed.
* Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows Vista does not display a progress indicator
A progress indicator is an element of a command-line interface, a textual user interface, or a graphical user interface that is intended to inform the user that an operation is in progress, to reassure that the system is not hung or waiting for ...
during hibernation. Microsoft states that this is by design. Windows Vista does display a progress indicator after resuming from hibernation, but it is an ''indeterminate progress bar'' instead of a ''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.
* The Shutdown menu has been removed from Windows Task Manager
Task Manager, previously known as Windows Task Manager, is a task manager, system monitor, and startup manager included with Microsoft Windows systems. It provides information about computer performance and running software, including name of r ...
, not from the Start menu.
* The ''Shutdown.exe'' command line tool no longer displays a real-time countdown timer when the system is set to a timed shutdown or restart.
* The shutdown
command-line tool limits the delay option (-t
) to 600 seconds (10 minutes).
* The uninterruptible power supply
An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power syste ...
(UPS) service which monitors a UPS connected through a COM port
COM (communication port) is the original, yet still common, name of the serial port interface on PC-compatible computers. It can refer not only to physical ports, but also to emulated ports, such as ports created by Bluetooth or USB adapters. ...
is no longer available.
Windows applications and features
;System Restore
System Restore is a feature in Microsoft Windows that allows the user to revert their computer's state (including system files, installed applications, Windows Registry, and system settings) to that of a previous point in time, which can be used ...
* System Restore no longer supports configuring its settings through the registry.
* The GUI to configure the disk space utilized for System Restore points is not available in Windows Vista.
* File types and directories can no longer be included or excluded from monitoring by System Restore by editing ''%windir%\system32\restore\Filelist.xml'' as was possible in Windows XP. This file no longer exists in Windows Vista.
;Backup
* Unlike NTBackup, it is not possible to include or exclude specific files or folders during a backup using the Windows Vista backup application. Only categories of file types can be archived. Because of this, it is not possible to backup files located in a specific path or a network location(s).
* The backup application in Windows Vista does not support the use of tape drives
A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and a long archival stability.
A ...
to back up data.
* In the RTM release of Windows Vista, files encrypted using the Encrypting File System
The Encrypting File System (EFS) on Microsoft Windows is a feature introduced in version 3.0 of NTFS that provides filesystem-level encryption. The technology enables files to be transparently encrypted to protect confidential data from attackers ...
(EFS) were not archived by the operating system's backup application; this feature was reinstated in Service Pack 1.
* Windows Vista Backup does not have all the features and command line parameters supported by NTBackup. It also does not support the NTFS archive bit
The archive bit is a file attribute used by CP/M, Microsoft operating systems, OS/2, and AmigaOS. It is used to indicate whether or not the file has been backed up (archived).
Usage
In Windows and OS/2, when a file is created or modified, th ...
and granular restores.
;Diagnostics and maintenance
* The Disk Cleanup handler to compress old files has been removed.
* The graphical representation and progress indicator of the defragmentation process or its analysis have been removed from Windows Disk Defragmenter. It is no longer possible to pause the defragmentation process. Moreover, in the RTM release of Windows Vista, it is not possible to select individual drives to defragment without using the ''defrag.exe'' command line utility; Service Pack 1 removes this limitation.[*
* ]
* Disk Defragmenter no longer provides an analysis report with volume information such as the volume's file system, storage capacity, remaining free space and percentage, cluster size, and number of contiguous files. However, this information can still be accessed from the ''defrag.exe'' command line utility.
* The Dr. Watson
John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel ''A Study in Scarlet'' (1887). The last work by Doyle f ...
application debugger
A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the programmer to track its executi ...
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
DirectX Diagnostic Tool (DxDiag) is a diagnostics tool used to test DirectX functionality and troubleshoot video- or sound-related hardware problems. DirectX Diagnostic can save text files with the scan results. These files are often posted in tech ...
) only shows information; it is no longer possible to test the hardware and the various DirectX components.
* Certain command line switches for System Information (MSInfo32) are not supported.
;Group Policy
* Several Group Policies that were applicable to various Windows XP components no longer apply to equivalent Windows Vista or later OS components due to design change. Therefore, a lot of customizability and functionality made possible by many Group Policies on XP is lost on Windows Vista and later.
* The Resultant Set of Policy snap-in no longer shows the full set of configured Group Policy settings. The command line tool, gpresult.exe has to be used to view all settings.
;Connectivity
* Because of Session 0 isolation, the console session has been removed from RDP server and corresponding /console switch removed from the RDP client.
* The following MDAC/Windows Data Access Components have been deprecated: 16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...
ODBC, Jet Database Engine
The Access Database Engine (also Office Access Connectivity Engine or ACE and formerly Microsoft Jet Database Engine, ''Microsoft JET Engine'' or simply ''Jet'') is a database engine on which several Microsoft products have been built. The firs ...
and its Replication Objects (JRO), Remote Data Services Remote Data Services (RDS, formerly known as Advanced Data Connector or ADC) is an older technology that is part of Microsoft SQL Server, and used in conjunction with ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). RDS allowed the retrieval of a set of data from a dat ...
(RDS), AppleTalk and Banyan Vines SQL Network Libraries, OLE DB
OLE DB (''Object Linking and Embedding, Database'', sometimes written as OLEDB or OLE-DB), an API designed by Microsoft, allows accessing data from a variety of sources in a uniform manner. The API provides a set of interfaces implemented using ...
Simple Provider (MSDAOSP), ODBC Setup, ODBC Cursor Engine and OLE DB Interface Remoting.
; Windows Fax and Scan
* The Faxing components (Fax Console and Fax wizards) have been removed. Windows Fax and Scan is their replacement, however it is only included in Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions.
* Unlike Windows XP Fax, Windows Fax and Scan in Windows Vista and later does not support the V.34bis standard which allows higher fax transfer speeds.[Fax & Scan – V.34 compatibility and TWAIN](_blank)
* Windows Fax and Scan does not support TWAIN
Twain may refer to:
People
* Mark Twain, pen name of American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910)
* Norman Twain (1930–2016), American film producer
* Shania Twain (born 1965), Canadian singer-songwriter
Places
* Twain, California, a ...
scanners. It only supports WIA scanners.
* Windows Fax and Scan does not support copy/paste, drag and drop or import/export of previous faxes like Windows XP's Fax Console did.
* Windows Fax and Scan does not allow specifying the fax recipient's name if it is not added as a contact in Windows Contacts
Windows Contacts is a contact manager that is included in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11. It replaced but retains most of the functionality of Windows Address Book and worked with Windows Live Mail and the Vista v ...
.
;E-mail and contacts
* ''Block sender'' is not available in Windows Mail
Mail (formerly Windows Mail) is an email client developed by Microsoft and included in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows. The main function of Mail is sending and receiving email. It is available as the successor to Outlook Express, wh ...
for newsgroups; it is only available for e-mail.
* The ability to send email as plain text (without HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
) only to a specific contact is not available in Windows Contacts
Windows Contacts is a contact manager that is included in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11. It replaced but retains most of the functionality of Windows Address Book and worked with Windows Live Mail and the Vista v ...
.
* It is not possible to share Microsoft Office Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as cale ...
contacts with Windows Contacts
Windows Contacts is a contact manager that is included in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11. It replaced but retains most of the functionality of Windows Address Book and worked with Windows Live Mail and the Vista v ...
, whereas in Windows XP, configuring the "''UseOutlook''" value in the registry allowed sharing Outlook contacts with the Windows Address Book
''Windows Address Book'' was a component of Microsoft Windows that lets users keep a single list of contacts that can be shared by multiple programs. It is most commonly used by Outlook Express. It was introduced with Internet Explorer 3 in 1996 a ...
.
;Imaging
* The wizard for transferring photos from the camera had some of its functionality removed in Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...
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''.
* Selective pages of multi-page TIFF
Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word process ...
files cannot be printed from Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...
; all pages are printed.
* TIFF
Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word process ...
annotations cannot be edited or created in Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...
or Windows Live Photo Gallery.
* Support for animated .GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987 ...
files has been removed in Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...
which replaced the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer
Windows Photo Viewer (formerly Windows Picture and Fax Viewer) is an image viewer included with the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was first included with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 under its former name. It was temporarily r ...
. Only the first frame of the GIF animation is shown in Windows Photo Gallery. Animated GIF files still display properly in Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...
. Support for WMF and EMF formats has also been removed from Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...
.
;Microsoft Agent
Microsoft Agent was a technology developed by Microsoft which employed animated characters, Speech synthesis, text-to-speech engines, and speech recognition software to enhance interaction with computer users. Thus it was an example of an embodie ...
* Microsoft Agent character preview is not supported in the Agent Character file's property sheet.
* Microsoft Agent no longer supports multiple languages per edition of Windows. The Agent language will always be the same as the language of the Windows edition.
* Due to Microsoft Agent using SAPI 5 for Agent characters instead of SAPI 4, pitch and speed settings of the characters are broken/ignored unless new SAPI 5 compatible XML tags are used.
;Help and Support
* Help and Support content does not have an index.
* Help and Support no longer supports dual pane navigation.
* Favorites, History and advanced search options from the Windows XP Help and Support Center are not available in Windows Vista Help. It is not possible to share and install help content to and from other Windows computers or to install or switch to help for other operating systems.
* 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 no longer supported. The viewer for viewing .HLP
files is available from the Microsoft Download Center, but some features present in previous versions are disabled. Support for the 16-bit .HLP
format remains.
* Context-sensitive help
Context-sensitive help is a kind of online help that is obtained from a specific point in the state of the software, providing help for the situation that is associated with that state.US patent 5285709
Context-sensitive help, as opposed to gener ...
is not available in Windows Vista, since it was dependent on WinHelp
Microsoft WinHelp is a proprietary format for online help files that can be displayed by the Microsoft Help browser ''winhelp.exe'' or ''winhlp32.exe''. The file format is based on Rich Text Format (RTF). It remained a popular Help platform from ...
. Although the HTML Help
Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a Microsoft proprietary online help format, consisting of a collection of HTML pages, an index and other navigation tools. The files are compressed and deployed in a binary format with the extension .CHM, for Comp ...
technology also supports context-sensitive help (including "What's this" help), Windows Vista dialogs remove the "What's This" button and context sensitive and the "What's This" help functionality.
;Other features
* The ScriptPW.Password COM automation object to mask passwords from the command line is removed.
* Sound Recorder in Windows Vista can no longer open audio files. Moreover, it cannot save in lossless
Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...
(uncompressed) WAV
Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...
format when run without using any switches
In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...
; instead, it saves in lossy
In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
96 kbit/s WMA format. Only the version of Sound Recorder from the ''N'' editions of Windows Vista saves audio in WAV
Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...
format by default. Also, all the basic audio processing features such as format conversion, sample rate conversion
Sample-rate conversion, sampling-frequency conversion or resampling is the process of changing the sampling rate or sampling frequency of a discrete signal to obtain a new discrete representation of the underlying continuous signal. Application ...
, 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.
* Support for Microsoft Office Word documents (*.DOC) has been removed from WordPad
WordPad is the basic word processor that has been included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 onwards. It is more advanced than Windows Notepad, and simpler than Microsoft Word and Microsoft Works (last updated in 2007 ...
, partial support for the newer Office Open XML-based DOCX format with limited features was added later in Windows 7 and later versions. Microsoft recommends the freely downloadable ''Word Viewer'' for viewing these documents.
* The Unicode IME has been removed. It is included again in Windows 7.
* ClipBook Viewer
ClipBook Viewer is a discontinued utility included in the Windows NT family of operating system that allows users to view the contents of the local clipboard, clear the clipboard or save copied and cut items. A feature restricted version, called C ...
is not included.
* Internet Backgammon
Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...
, Internet Hearts (not to be confused with Hearts), Internet Reversi
Reversi is a strategy board game for two players, played on an 8×8 uncheckered board. It was invented in 1883. Othello, a variant with a fixed initial setup of the board, was patented in 1971.
Basics
There are sixty-four identical game pieces ...
, Internet Spades, and Internet Checkers
Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...
have been removed. Although freely playable online on MSN Games
MSN Games (also known as Zone.com - formerly known as The Village, Internet Gaming Zone, MSN Gaming Zone, and MSN Games by Zone.com) is a casual gaming web site, with single player, multiplayer, PC download, and social casino video games. Games ...
, they now require signing into a Windows Live ID
A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on Microsoft user account for Microsoft customers to log in to Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices running on on ...
. Internet Backgammon, Spades and Checkers returned in Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
and were later removed again in Windows 8. Pinball
Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...
has also been removed.
* SerialKeys, an accessibility feature for augmentative communicative devices, is no longer supported.
* Many of the screensaver
A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor ...
s introduced in earlier versions of Windows are not included with Windows Vista.
** Specifically, the screensavers, '3D FlowerBox', '3D Flying Objects', '3D Pipes', 'Beziers', 'Marquee', 'Mystify' and 'Starfield' were removed from Windows Vista.
** The My Pictures Slideshow screensaver was replaced by the Photos screensaver.
** A different screensaver named 'Mystify' (not to be confused with the previous 'Mystify' screensaver) was added in Windows Vista.
Networking
* The SMB 2 protocol unlike SMBv1 does not support determining if a file on a remote volume is a hard link or not.
* There is no longer a notification area icon for Ethernet connections and quick access to enable/disable/repair them, or view their status and properties.
* Windows Vista no longer automatically creates shortcuts to previously visited network shares in the Network Explorer which replaces ''My Network Places''.
* There is no balloon notification when a new connection is connected or when the wired or wireless adapters have limited or no connectivity.
* NetDDE
In computing, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a technology for interprocess communication used in early versions of Microsoft Windows and OS/2. DDE allows programs to manipulate objects provided by other programs, and respond to user actions affec ...
and NetBEUI
NetBIOS () is an acronym for Network Basic Input/Output System. It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network. As strictly an API, NetB ...
are no longer included.
* IPsec
In computing, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network. It is used in ...
tunneling when the computer is behind an NAT device is no longer possible.
* The ''Wireless Provisioning Services'' feature to automatically configure wireless hotspots by downloading XML files supplied by Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) is not supported.
* Audio (voice) sessions and sending invitations via ''mailto:'' are not supported in Windows Remote Assistance
Quick Assist is a Microsoft Windows feature that allows a user to view or control a remote Windows computer over a network or the Internet to resolve issues without directly touching the unit. It is based on the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). It ...
.
* The 1-click "Repair" function to perform a series of steps that quickly reset the network connection has been replaced by the ''Network Diagnostics'' feature which attempts to perform troubleshooting and offer suggestions.
* The Web Folders client is not included by default in any version in favor of the WebDAV mini-redirector. It is not available for 64-bit versions.
* UPnP IGD devices do not show up in ''Network Connections'' or in the notification area. Status information and statistics of the connection through the internet gateway is not available as could be viewed in Windows XP. NAT port mappings can be set up from the gateway device's ''Properties'' -> Settings in ''Network Explorer''.
* The ''Network Setup Wizard'' and the ''Wireless Network Setup Wizard'' have been removed.
* 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
Multihoming is the practice of connecting a host or a computer network to more than one network. This can be done in order to increase reliability or performance.
A typical host or end-user network is connected to just one network. Connecting t ...
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 and/or internet gateways, 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.
* The ability to connect automatically to available non-preferred wireless networks in range and to wireless ad hoc network
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...
s has been removed due to security reasons. It is also not possible to save the network profile of an ad hoc wireless connection if the connection has been created/initiated by another computer.
* 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
Direct Cable Connection (DCC) is a feature of Microsoft Windows that allows a computer to transfer and share files (or connected printers) with another computer, via a connection using either the serial port, parallel port or the infrared port ...
feature is not supported in Windows Vista.
* Unlike Outlook Express
Outlook Express, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News, is a discontinued email and news client included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 through to 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from ...
, Windows Mail
Mail (formerly Windows Mail) is an email client developed by Microsoft and included in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows. The main function of Mail is sending and receiving email. It is available as the successor to Outlook Express, wh ...
does not have support for HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...
mail via the WebDAV
WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which allows user agents to collaboratively author contents ''directly'' in an HTTP web server by providing facilities for con ...
protocol (used by older Hotmail
Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services.
Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
accounts and Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is an email service launched on October 8, 1997, by the American company Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously available with the Yahoo! ...
); Windows Live Mail
Windows Live Mail (formerly named Windows Live Mail Desktop, code-named Elroy) was a freeware email client from Microsoft. It is the successor to Windows Mail in Windows Vista, which was the successor to Outlook Express in Windows XP and Windows ...
however supports WebDAV
WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which allows user agents to collaboratively author contents ''directly'' in an HTTP web server by providing facilities for con ...
.
* 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.
* Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typica ...
(SMTP) and POP3
In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. POP version 3 (POP3) is the version in common use, and along with IMAP the most common ...
servers have been removed from the IIS component in Windows Vista.
* rexec, rsh, finger
A finger is a limb of the body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of most of the Tetrapods, so also with humans and other primates. Most land vertebrates have five fingers ( Pentadactyly). Chambers ...
, and some other command-line tools primarily used to communicate with UNIX
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...
-based systems have been removed from the default installation. The Subsystem for Unix-based applications (SUA) (previously known as Windows Services for Unix
Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) is a discontinued software package produced by Microsoft which provided a Unix environment on Windows NT and some of its immediate successor operating-systems.
SFU 1.0 and 2.0 used the MKS Toolkit; starting with ...
) still provides them as an optional component.
* Windows Messenger
Windows Messenger is a discontinued instant messaging client included in Windows XP. Designed for use by both corporate and home users, it was originally created, in 2001, as a streamlined and integrated version of MSN Messenger. It was upgrade ...
has been removed in favor of a link to Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...
. Windows Messenger support has also been dropped from Windows Media Center
Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate ...
.
* TAPI 3.1 Rendezvous IP Telephony Conferencing API for multicast conferences is not available.
* The RTC Client API 1.3 is not included in Windows Vista.
* Support for built-in H.323 Voice Over IP (VOIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
) capabilities has been removed. NetMeeting
Microsoft NetMeeting is a discontinued VoIP and multi-point videoconferencing client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows (from Windows 95 OSR2 to Windows Vista). It uses the H.323 protocol for videoconferencing, and is interoperable w ...
, H.323 and IP Multicast Conference TSPs
The Traffic Service Position System (TSPS) was developed by Bell Labs in Columbus, Ohio to replace traditional cord switchboards. The first TSPS was deployed in 1969 and used the Stored Program Control-1A CPU, "Piggyback" twistor memory (a propr ...
and MSPs, and HyperTerminal
HyperACCESS (sometimes known as HyperTerminal) is a family of terminal emulation software by Hilgraeve. A version of HyperACCESS called HyperTerminal is included in some versions of Windows.
History
It was the first software product from Hilg ...
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.
* Call answering, connecting to an internet directory, video call and H.323/conference call features have been removed from Phone Dialer.
* IP over 1394 ( FireWire networking) support has been removed.
* The basic firewall/filtering functionality and static IP filter APIs in Routing and Remote Access are not available. The three layers of filtering, TCP/IP port filtering, Windows Firewall
Windows Firewall (officially called Microsoft Defender Firewall in Windows 10 version 2004 and later) is a firewall component of Microsoft Windows. It was first included in Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. Before the release of Windows ...
and IPsec are replaced with a single layer, the Windows Filtering Platform.
* NetDDE
In computing, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a technology for interprocess communication used in early versions of Microsoft Windows and OS/2. DDE allows programs to manipulate objects provided by other programs, and respond to user actions affec ...
, a technology that allows applications using the DDE transport to transparently exchange data over a network, is no longer supported. Windows Chat
Windows Chat (not to be confused with Microsoft Comic Chat) is a simple LAN-based text chatting program included in Windows for Workgroups and, later, the Windows NT-line of operating systems, including Windows NT 3.x, NT 4.0, Windows 2000, W ...
(WinChat) which used NetDDE has also been removed.
;Legacy networking components
* The Gopher protocol
The Gopher protocol () is a communication protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents in Internet Protocol networks. The design of the Gopher protocol and user interface is menu-driven, and presented an alternative to ...
is no longer supported.
* The Windows Messenger service and the Alerter service are no longer available.
* Rarely used protocols such as Bandwidth Allocation Protocol and X.25 support for Serial Line Internet Protocol, SLIP have been removed. SLIP connections are automatically upgraded to use Point-to-Point Protocol, PPP.
* The SPAP, EAP-MD5-CHAP, and MS-CHAP, MS-CHAP v1 protocols are no longer supported for PPP-based connections, in favor of MS-CHAP v2.
* The NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol is no longer supported.
* Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has been removed.
* The NetBIOS Frames, NetBEUI protocol is no longer supported.
* The NTLMSSP, NT LAN Manager Security Support Provider Windows service, service has been removed in favor of the newer Kerberos (protocol), Kerberos authentication protocol.
Legacy features and other changes
* Object Packager, a legacy tool for packaging non-Object Linking and Embedding, OLE objects and embedding/linking them inside OLE objects, is not included; however, objects can still be inserted in OLE applications such as WordPad
WordPad is the basic word processor that has been included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 onwards. It is more advanced than Windows Notepad, and simpler than Microsoft Word and Microsoft Works (last updated in 2007 ...
.
* Program Manager has been removed altogether. Previously, in Windows XP Service Pack 2, running the executable did not launch it (it just acts as a Method stub, compatibility stub to Windows Explorer), but it contained several old icons dating back to Windows 3.1.
* The Web Publishing Wizard is no longer available.
* The Desktop Cleanup Wizard is no longer available.
* The Windows Classic theme colors (Brick, Eggplant, Rainy Day, Wheat, Pumpkin, etc.) have been removed.
* The graphical world map has been removed from the Time Zone tab on ''Date and Time'' control panel setting in Windows Vista.
* The ability to install service packs cumulatively is no longer available in Windows Vista#Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Service Pack 2 as it requires at least Windows Vista#Service Pack 1, Service Pack 1 to be installed first. Cumulative slipstream
A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid (typically air or mustard) is moving at velocities comparable to that of the moving fluid, relative to the ambient fluid through which the object is churning. The term sli ...
ing, however, is still possible and supported.
* Motherboard BIOS 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 as support for the following Hardware abstraction layer, HALs has been dropped: "Standard PC", "MPS Uniprocessor PC" and "MPS Multiprocessor PC".
* 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: Extended Industry Standard Architecture, EISA buses, game ports, MPU-401, AMD K6, AMD K6/2+ Mobile Processors, Mobile Pentium II and Mobile Pentium III SpeedStep, and COM-port based UPSes; ISAPnP[Se]
Microsoft Windows and the Plug and Play Framework Architecture
for a discussion on ISA PnP technology. is disabled by default.
See also
* Windows Server 2008
*
Notes and references
External links
Microsoft's Windows Vista homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Windows Vista, Features Removed
Windows Vista, Features Removed In
Software features
Microsoft lists
Computing-related lists