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 ...

is a version of

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...

and the successor of Windows 8.1. Some features of the operating system were removed in comparison to

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 8.1, and further changes in features offered have occurred within subsequent feature updates to Windows 10. Following is a list of these.

Features removed in version 1507: (RTM)

Windows shell

The charms The Charms are an American garage rock band from Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, who were formed in 2002. Following 8 straight years of releasing records and touring the band went on a hiatus and returned for a few one off shows befor ...

are removed, and replaced with the

Action Center Action Center is a notification center included with Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. It was first introduced with Windows Phone 8.1 in July 2014, and was introduced to the desktop with the launch of Windows 10 on July 29, 2015 ...

. In

Windows Runtime Windows Runtime (WinRT) is a platform-agnostic component and application architecture first introduced in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 in 2012. It is implemented in C++ and officially supports development in C++ (via C++/WinRT, C++/CX or ...

apps, a menu button appears on the title bar that can be used to access the functions that previously required its usage. *Users are no longer able to synchronize Start menu layouts across all devices associated with a

Microsoft account 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 ...

. A Microsoft developer justified the change by explaining that a user may have different applications they want to emphasize on each device that they use, rather than use the same configuration across each device. The ability to automatically install a Windows app across all devices associated with an account was also removed. * Dragging and dropping items from or within the

start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

and the list of recent files (accessible from right click on a taskbar shortcut) is no longer possible.

System components

* User control over Windows Updates is removed (except in enterprise versions). In earlier versions, users could opt for updates to be installed automatically, or to be notified so they could update as and when they wished, or not to be notified; and they could choose which updates to install, using information about the updates. Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise users may be configured by an administrator to defer updates, but only for a limited time. Under the Windows

end-user license agreement An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user, generally made available to the customer via a retailer acting as an intermediary. A EULA specifies in detail the rights and rest ...

, users consent to the automatic installation of all updates, features and drivers provided by the service, and implicitly consent "without any additional notice" to the possibility of features being modified or removed. The agreement also states, specifically for users of Windows 10 in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, that they may pause updates by disconnecting their device from the Internet. * Drivers for external (USB) floppy drives are no longer integrated and must be downloaded separately. * While all Windows 10 editions include fonts that provide broad language support, some fonts for Asian languages (Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, etc.) are no longer included with the standard installation "to reduce the amount of disk space that Windows requires", but are available without charge as optional font packages. When software invokes text in languages other than those for which the system is configured and does not use the Windows font fallback mechanisms designed always to display legible glyphs, Windows displays unsupported characters as a default "not defined" glyph, a square or rectangular box, or a box with a dot, question mark or "x" inside. * The ability to create

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

bootdisks has been removed. This means the last remnant of MS-DOS (aside from

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 ...

in 32-bit editions) has been removed.

Media features

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 ...

is discontinued, and is uninstalled when upgrading from a previous version of Windows. Upgraded Windows installations with Media Center will receive the paid app Windows DVD Player free of charge for a limited, but unspecified, time. Microsoft had previously relegated Media Center and integrated DVD playback support to a paid add-on beginning on Windows 8 due to the cost of licensing the required DVD playback related patents, and the increasing number of PCs that have no optical drives.

Internet and networking

* Web browsers can no longer set themselves as a user's default without further intervention; changing the default web browser must be performed manually by the user from the "Default apps" page in Settings app, ostensibly to prevent

browser hijacking Browser hijacking is a form of unwanted software that modifies a web browser's settings without a user's permission, to inject unwanted advertising into the user's browser. A browser hijacker may replace the existing home page, error page, or se ...

.gh * Parental controls no longer support browsers other than Internet Explorer and Edge, and the ability to control browsing by a whitelist was removed. Also removed was the ability to control local accounts, and the ability to scan a machine for applications to allow and block.

Bundled software

* The Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, and Travel apps have been discontinued. * Starting with Windows 10, Microsoft does not offer

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 ...

viewer for this (or higher) version. The last version of Windows on which it was possible to open WinHelp files, using a downloadable component, is Windows 8.1.

Features restored in later versions

Windows Defender Microsoft Defender Antivirus (formerly Windows Defender) is an anti-malware component of Microsoft Windows. It was first released as a downloadable free anti-spyware program for Windows XP and was shipped with Windows Vista and Windows 7. It has ...

could be integrated into

File 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 f ...

's context menu in Windows 8.x, but Microsoft initially removed integration from Windows 10, restoring it in Windows 10 build 10571 in response to user feedback. *The OneDrive built-in sync client, which was introduced in Windows 8.1, no longer supports offline placeholders for online-only files in Windows 10. This functionality was re-added in Windows 10 version 1709, under the name "Files On-Demand".

Features removed in version 1607

* Cortana can now operate in a feature-limited mode with basic web and device search functionality, if users have not opted into data collection and personalization. On previous versions, a generic "Search" experience without Cortana branding was shown if the user had not granted permission to activate Cortana. * In April 2016, Microsoft announced that it will no longer allow Cortana web searches to be executed through any other web browser and search engine combination but

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

and

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

, intentionally disregarding user settings. Microsoft alleges that other web browsers and search engines results in a "compromised experience that is less reliable and predictable", and that only Microsoft Edge supports direct integration with Cortana within the browser itself. * The ability to change the Exit Windows, Windows Logoff and Windows Login sounds was hidden in Version 1607, although these features can be enabled by going to the

Windows Registry The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores low-level settings for the Microsoft Windows operating system and for applications that opt to use the registry. The kernel, device drivers, services, Security Accounts Manager, and ...

and under the EventLabels folder and setting the value to 0. However, even changing these sounds in the sounds panel has not had any effect since Windows 8. * Certain features related to embedded advertising in the operating system can no longer be disabled on non-Enterprise or Education versions of Windows 10 using management settings such as

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 ...

, including disabling Microsoft Store and

Universal Windows Platform Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is a computing platform created by Microsoft and first introduced in Windows 10. The purpose of this platform is to help develop universal apps that run on Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile (discontinued), Windo ...

apps, "Microsoft consumer experiences" (which pushes tiles to the Start menu advertising promoted Microsoft Store apps, typically following a new installation of Windows 10), Windows Tips, turning off the

lock screen A lock screen is a computer user interface element used by various operating systems. They regulate immediate access to a device by requiring the user to perform a certain action in order to receive access, such as entering a password, using a cert ...

(which can optionally display ads as part of "Spotlight" tips), or enforcing a specific lock screen background. Critics argued that this change was meant to discourage Windows 10 Pro from being used in business environments, since Microsoft was reducing the amount of control administrators have over their devices' environments without using an enterprise version of Windows 10. * The ability to share Wi-Fi credentials with other contacts via Wi-Fi Sense was removed; Wi-Fi passwords can still be synced between devices tied to the same Microsoft account. *Support for AGP video cards was removed in this version without any official announcement. Attempting to use an AGP video card in version 1607 or newer will fail and the card will display error code 43 or run in PCI mode depending on the card and board.

Features removed in version 1703

* Windows 10 is no longer supported on devices containing an Intel Atom "Clover Trail" system-on-chip. Affected devices may not be upgraded to 1703 or any future feature updates of Windows 10. Microsoft will continue to provide security patches for version 1607 (the build has a long-term support version for enterprise markets) on these devices through January 2023. * Windows Update will no longer postpone the download of certain critical updates if the device is connected to a network that was designated by the user as being " metered". Although meant to prevent the updates from utilizing data allotments, this behavior had been used as a workaround by users to avoid the requirement for all updates to be automatically downloaded. *The Interactive Service Detection service, introduced in

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 ...

to combat

shatter attack In computing, a shatter attack is a programming technique employed by hackers on Microsoft Windows operating systems to bypass security restrictions between processes in a session. A shatter attack takes advantage of a design flaw in Windows's me ...

s, is removed in 1703. *

Briefcase A briefcase is a narrow hard-sided box-shaped bag or case used mainly for carrying papers and equipped with a handle. Lawyers commonly use briefcases to carry briefs to present to a court, hence the name. Businesspeople and other white collar pr ...

files and shell and sync functionality has been fully removed. Previously it was disabled in Windows 8 but could be enabled with a Registry tweak.

Features removed in version 1709

* The

Syskey The SAM Lock Tool, better known as Syskey (the name of its executable file), is a discontinued component of Windows NT that encrypts the Security Account Manager (SAM) database using a 128-bit RC4 encryption key. First introduced in the Q143475 ...

utility is removed, with Microsoft citing insecure cryptography and increasing use as ransomware in tech support scams. *

Server Message Block Server Message Block (SMB) is a communication protocol originally developed in 1983 by Barry A. Feigenbaum at IBM and intended to provide shared access to files and printers across nodes on a network of systems running IBM's OS/2. It also provide ...

version 1 (SMB1) is disabled by default on version 1709. The Home and Pro editions only disable the SMB1 server but retain the SMB1 client, so they can connect to SMB1 network shares. The Enterprise and Education editions disable the SMB1 entirely. This version of the 30-year-old protocol gained notoriety in the

WannaCry ransomware attack The WannaCry ransomware attack was a worldwide cyberattack in May 2017 by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitco ...

, although Microsoft had been discouraging its use even before. *

3D Builder 3-D, 3D, or 3d may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Relating to three-dimensionality * Three-dimensional space ** 3D computer graphics, computer graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data ** 3D film, a ...

is no longer installed by default. However, it can still be downloaded from

Microsoft Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...

Features removed in version 1803

* Games Explorer, first seen in Windows Vista, has been removed. Running the command shell:games will open an error message. * Language options in Control Panel, first featured in Windows 8, have been moved to Windows Settings. * By default, Windows 10 no longer automatically backs up 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 ...

in the RegBack folder. Microsoft recommends using

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 ...

instead. * HomeGroup, a home network file sharing feature first introduced in Windows 7, is removed. *

XPS Viewer Open XML Paper Specification (also referred to as OpenXPS) is an open specification for a page description language and a fixed-document format. Microsoft developed it as the XML Paper Specification (XPS). In June 2009, Ecma International adopt ...

is no longer installed by default on new installations. * The Phone Companion app is deprecated, with its functionality moved to the Settings app.

Features removed in version 1809

* Windows 10 setup made it more difficult to create a local user account not linked to a

if the PC is able to connect to the internet during the setup process. * The Hologram app has been replaced by the Mixed Reality Viewer.

Features removed in version 1903

* The sync feature of the desktop version of the

Messaging A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus. ...

app has been removed. * The "Product alert" button in

Microsoft Paint Microsoft Paint is a simple raster graphics editor that has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens and saves files in Windows bitmap (BMP), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and single-page TIFF formats. The program can be in c ...

was removed.

Features removed in version 1909

* Roaming of

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 ...

settings is removed. *The

Peer Name Resolution Protocol Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP) is a peer-to-peer protocol designed by Microsoft. PNRP enables dynamic name publication and resolution, and requires IPv6. PNRP was first mentioned during a presentation at a P2P conference in November 2001. It ...

(PNRP) cloud service was removed in Windows 10, version 1809. It's been planned to complete the removal process by removing the corresponding APIs. *The Explorer search box no longer shows the key words for Advanced Query Syntax nor does it populate their values, although the Advanced Query Syntax for Windows Search can still be used.

Features removed in version 2004

* Certain capabilities of Cortana have been removed, such as music and connected home. *

Windows To Go Windows To Go is a feature in Windows 8 Enterprise, Windows 8.1 Enterprise, Windows 10 Education and Windows 10 Enterprise versions prior to the May 2020 update, that allows the system to boot and run from certain USB mass storage devices such ...

is removed. * The Mobile Plans and Messaging apps are removed for non-cellular devices and are not installed by default.

Deprecated features

Microsoft has published a list of Windows features that are no longer actively developed. Microsoft states that these features may potentially be removed in future updates to Windows 10. * My People in the shell no longer developed. *

Hyper-V Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian, and briefly known before its release as Windows Server Virtualization, is a native hypervisor; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. Starting with Windows 8, Hyper-V superseded W ...

vSwitch on LBFO (to be bound via Switch Embedded Teaming) *Package state roaming for UWP apps (being replaced by Azure App Service) * ReFS (volumes can only be created on Windows 10 ''Pro for Workstations'' and ''Enterprise'') * Snipping Tool (replaced by Store app Snip & Sketch) *Language Community tab in Feedback Hub *Software Restriction Policies (replaced primarily by

AppLocker AppLocker is an application whitelisting technology introduced with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. It allows restricting which programs users can execute based on the program's path, publisher, or hash, and in an enterprise can be configu ...

and Windows Defender Application Control) * System Image Backup *

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 ( ...

(permanently disabled by a Microsoft Edge update on SAC versions on February 14, 2023) *Windows Hello Companion Device Framework API for external devices to unlock Windows logon when biometrics are unavailable *Dynamic Disks (will be replaced by Storage Spaces in a future update) *

Math Input Panel Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a mathematical markup language, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web ...

(will be replaced by Math Recognition in a future update)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Windows 10, Features Removed Features Removed In Software features Microsoft lists Computing-related lists