Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

is a version of

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

and the successor of

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 ...

. Several features that originated in earlier versions of Windows and that were included in versions up to Windows 7 are no longer present in Windows 8. Following is a list of these.

Windows Shell

Start button 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 na ...

was removed from 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 a ...

(although it was added again in Windows 8.1). Replacement methods for invoking Start screen include a

hotspot Hotspot, Hot Spot or Hot spot may refer to: Places * Hot Spot, Kentucky, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Hot Spot (comics), a name for the DC Comics character Isaiah Crockett * Hot Spot (Tra ...

in the lower left corner of the screen, where the Start screen tile pops up, and a Start button among "

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 ...

". * "Recent documents" menu is removed from Start screen. * Windows 8.1 no longer automatically adds newly installed programs to Start screen. * Unified search is removed. A category-specific search replaces the former. It can search " Apps", " Settings", " Files" or within an app-specific index (such as, for example, e-mails from the Mail app) but not all at once. The default category is Apps, but can be changed before or after performing a search. Windows 8.1 restores this feature partially although unified search still does not search keywords or metadata like scoped search. *

Windows Desktop Gadgets Windows Desktop Gadgets (called Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista) is a discontinued widget engine for Microsoft Gadgets. Desktop Gadgets have been replaced by Windows 10 Taskbar Widgets. It was introduced with Windows Vista, in which it features ...

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 ...

are removed due to security issues associated with the execution of compromised gadgets. * Windows 2000, NT 4.0, Server 2003 and 2008 compatibility modes were removed. * Internet Explorer no longer shares the same navigation buttons as File Explorer. This can also be seen with IE9 on earlier builds of Windows 8, and all later IE versions after 8 on Windows Vista and 7. * The ''Performance Information and Tools'' Control Panel applet introduced in Windows Vista is no longer available with the release of Windows 8.1.

Appearance and personalization

* The Aero Glass theme is replaced by a new theme with a flatter visual appearance in line with the Metro design language. This was done to reduce the amount of skeuomorphism in the UI. Aside from the taskbar, the new theme uses fewer transparency effects than the previous Glass theme. * Flip 3D is removed. now toggles between Windows Store apps and the desktop. * The Windows Classic theme, first introduced in

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

and included up to Windows 8 build 7779, is removed. High-contrast themes (which previously used the Classic appearance) are modified to use the new visual styles. * "Advanced appearance settings...", once found in ''Personalization > Window Color and Appearance'' part of Control Panel is removed. * Sample pictures, sample music clips, sample video clip and preset user account pictures (a form of

avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

) are no longer available. * The sound schemes that were first included with Windows 7: ''Afternoon'', ''Calligraphy'', ''Characters'', ''Cityscape'', ''Delta'', ''Festival'', ''Garden'', ''Heritage'', ''Landscape'', ''Quirky'', ''Raga'', ''Savanna'' and ''Sonata'' are all no longer available; only the folders remain in C:\Windows\Media, and they are empty. However, if Windows 8 is directly upgraded from Windows 7 instead of a clean install, the sound schemes that are included in Windows 7 will be retained as well as the files relating to the sound schemes.

File Explorer

* The ''Briefcase'' option under ''New'' context menu is removed by default, but can be reinstated by editing the registry. * Windows 8.1 no longer shows Libraries by default. * Because of the Details pane being moved to the right instead of at the bottom, it can no longer be enabled at the same time as the Preview pane. If the Details pane was turned on permanently, turning on the Preview pane turns it off every time since only one of them can be enabled at a time.

Games

Chess Titans ''Chess Titans'' is a chess video game with 3D graphics developed by Oberon Games and included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 Home Premium, Business/Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. It is a fully animated, photorealistic interactive chess ...

Mahjong Titans ''Microsoft Mahjong'' (formerly ''Mahjong Titans'', ''Shanghai Solitaire'' and ''Taipei'') is a computer game version of mahjong solitaire published by Microsoft. The version titled ''Mahjong Titans'' was developed by Oberon Games and included ...

Purble Place ''Purble Place'' is a suite of three educational computer games. The games were developed by the now defunct Oberon Media for Microsoft. ''Purble Place'' was made for the Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems and was removed in the Windo ...

, Minesweeper, FreeCell,

Solitaire Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself, usually with cards, but also with dominoes. The term "solitaire" is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout tiles, pegs or stones. These game ...

and Spider Solitaire, as well as Internet Backgammon,

Spades SPAdes (St. Petersburg genome assembler) is a genome assembly algorithm which was designed for single cell and multi-cells bacterial data sets. Therefore, it might not be suitable for large genomes projects. SPAdes works with Ion Torrent, PacBio ...

and Checkers were removed. Updated versions of Mahjong, Minesweeper, FreeCell, Solitaire and Spider Solitaire are available in Windows Store. * The

Games Explorer Games for Windows is a discontinued brand owned by Microsoft and introduced in 2006 to coincide with the release of the Windows Vista operating system. The brand itself represents a standardized technical certification program and online service ...

in Windows 8 build 8128 has been hidden. The feature itself and its command line shortcut (shell:games) remained. Later, in

Windows 10 version 1803 Windows 10 April 2018 Update (also known as version 1803 and codenamed "Redstone 4") is the fifth major update to Windows 10 and the fourth in a series of updates under the Redstone codenames. It carries the build number 10.0.17134. Version histo ...

, the hidden shell was removed permanently.

Networking

* For dial-up networking, some of the options under "Redialing options", such as "Redial attempts" and "Redial if line is dropped", are no longer available. Although dial-up networking using PSTN

telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or ot ...

is becoming increasingly rare, this could affect users that still use it to connect to 2G, 3G and/or

3.5G High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunicat ...

mobile networks and also DSL subscribers that use the system's

PPPoE The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It appeared in 1999, in the context of the boom of DSL as the solution for tunneling packet ...

dialer. * The "Manage wireless networks" option on the task pane of the ''Network and Sharing Center'' control panel is no longer available, although some of its functionality is still available through the

netsh In computing, netsh, or network shell, is a command-line utility included in Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems beginning with Windows 2000. It allows local or remote configuration of network devices such as the interface. Overview ...

command netsh wlan. Some of this functionality is reintroduced with the

Windows 8.1 Update Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...

via the

PC Settings Windows Settings (formerly PC settings) is a component of Microsoft Windows. It allows users to adjust their user preferences, configure their operating system, and manage their connected devices. Microsoft introduced Settings with Windows Serv ...

app. Similarly, creating an

ad hoc Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.) Com ...

wireless connection A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...

via the "Set up a wireless ad hoc" option under "Set up a new connection or network" is no longer available through the

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

; users need to use the same netsh command or a third-party utility such as Connectify. * One can no longer save a

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

connection to a flash drive from the Wireless Network Properties box under the Connection tab. * Shortcuts for the Bluetooth File Transfer wizard, which are added by

on a device with

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

communication, are no longer provided. The utility itself (fsquirt.exe) remains available. * Windows 8.x Bluetooth stack does not support Bluetooth

A2DP In order to use Bluetooth, a device must be compatible with the subset of Bluetooth ''profiles'' (often called services or functions) necessary to use the desired services. A Bluetooth profile is a specification regarding an aspect of Bluetooth-b ...

sink role. So playing audio from other phones or other PCs using Bluetooth to a PC running Windows 8.x is not possible. Windows 7 supported both A2DP source and sink roles. * Network Map is removed from Network and Sharing Center * Connect to a Network Projector (''netproj.exe'') introduced in

is deprecated as an optional component in Windows 8.1.

User accounts and security

Windows CardSpace Windows CardSpace (Microsoft codenames, codenamed InfoCard) is a discontinued Information Card#Selectors, identity selector app by Microsoft. It stores references to digital identity, digital identities of the users, presenting them as visual Inf ...

was removed. *

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 ...

: ** Can no longer schedule automatic system scans; it is now part of

Windows 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 ...

's maintenance schedule ** No longer shows the currently processed item

Media features

* Windows Media Center is no longer included with any of

Windows 8 editions Windows 8, a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was available in four different editions: Windows 8 (Core), Pro, Enterprise, and RT. Only Windows 8 (Core) and Pro were widely available at retailers. The other editions focus ...

and is no longer offered as an add-on by Microsoft. It was available until 2015-10-30 as a US$9.99 add-on (and before 2013-01-31 as a promotional free add-on) from Microsoft's now discontinued Windows 8 Feature Packs web site and through the now discontinued Add features to Windows 8 service for Windows 8 Pro (via the Media Center Pack) and Windows 8 core edition (via the Pro Pack). *

DVD-Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-r ...

and

MPEG-2 Video H.262 or MPEG-2 Part 2 (formally known as ITU-T Recommendation H.262 and ISO/IEC 13818-2, also known as MPEG-2 Video) is a video coding format standardised and jointly maintained by ITU-T Study Group 16 Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and ISO/ ...

codecs are no longer included. Video DVDs can be played in Windows Media Center for those who acquired that add-on while it was available. * Windows DVD Maker was removed in favor of third-party software. * Windows Media Center cannot run on

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

or on top of other

windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

because of "new Windows OS requirements and behaviors". * Windows Media Player no longer has the Media Guide feature and the DVD tab in the Options menu. * Windows 2000 Display Driver Model (XDDM), is discontinued in Windows 8. * MIDI Mapper is removed; programs now need to select a specific

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 re ...

device. No selection means device #0, which is Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth. * Windows 8.1 removes

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and Flickr support from the

Photos A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

app.

File system

Backup and Restore Backup and Restore (formerly Backup and Restore Center) is the primary backup component of Windows Vista and Windows 7. It can create file and folder backups, as well as system images backups, to be used for recovery in the event of data corrup ...

is deprecated and renamed ''Windows 7 File Recovery'' in favor of

File History The transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8 introduced a number of new features across various aspects of the operating system. These include a greater focus on optimizing the operating system for touchscreen-based devices (such as tablet compute ...

. In Windows 8.1, incremental block-based file backup and scheduling backups is removed. Only System Image Backup remains. * Persistent shadow copies are no longer available. Therefore, the ability to browse, search and/or recover older versions of files via the ''Previous Versions'' tab of the ''Properties'' dialog of files was removed for local volumes. Configuring and scheduling of previous versions of files was also removed from the ''System Protection'' tab of the ''Advanced System Properties'' (systempropertiesadvanced.exe) dialog box. *

CHKDSK 

In computing, CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a  system tool and command in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS,  IBM/Toshiba  4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and related operating systems. It verifies the file system integrity of a volume and at ...

utility only shows the progress percentage when running at

Other

* Stop errors are simplified; specifically, several paragraphs of generic advice and auxiliary error codes are removed. Windows 8.1 added a Registry setting to revert the changes, which is also available to Windows 8 users after installing a hotfix. * The sounds played upon login, logout and system

shutdown Shutdown or shut down may refer to: * Government shutdowns in the United States * Shutdown (computing) * Shutdown (economics) * Shutdown (nuclear reactor) Arts and entertainment Music * "Shut Down" (The Beach Boys song), 1963 * ''Shut Down Volu ...

and the sound events themselves were removed. The

sound remains but is disabled by default. *

.NET Framework 3.5 Microsoft started development on the .NET Framework in the late 1990s originally under the name of Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). By late 2001 the first beta versions of .NET 1.0 were released. The first version of .NET Framework was r ...

is no longer installed. Windows requires an Internet connection to install it, although Microsoft has published a workaround that enables users to install it from Windows installation disc. *

.NET Framework 1.1 Microsoft started development on the .NET Framework in the late 1990s originally under the name of Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). By late 2001 the first beta versions of .NET 1.0 were released. The first version of .NET Framework was r ...

is not supported. * Windows 8 only supports

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of ...

and

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...

processors with PAE,

SSE2 SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) is one of the Intel SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2000. It extends the earlier Streamin ...

, and NX. *Features like the

IME Ime is a village in Lindesnes municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is located on the east side of the river Mandalselva, along the European route E39 highway. Ime is an eastern suburb of the town of Mandal. Ime might be considered ...

Pad and the toolbars are removed in Sucheng/Quick, Cangjie and Dayi inputs, but still remain in

Bopomofo Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

inputs. * In Windows 8.1, the

Windows Experience Index The Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) is a module of Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11 that is available in the Control Panel under ''Performance Information and Tools'' (except in Windows 8.1, Win ...

score is removed. * Drivers for OHCI-compliant

FireWire 400 IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...

(IEEE 1394-1995)

host controller In computer hardware, a host controller, host adapter, or host bus adapter (HBA), connects a computer system bus, which acts as the host system, to other network and storage devices. The terms are primarily used to refer to devices for conne ...

s are removed, although they are available from Microsoft Support. Windows 8.x comes with drivers for

FireWire 800 IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...

(IEEE 1394b-2002). * DirectDraw emulation, previously deprecated, now exhibits significant performance degradation in certain legacy games. * The ability to set the time and date on the Windows Setup was removed, which was a feature dating back to the beginning of Windows and

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 ...

References

External links

Features and configuration options removed in Windows 8 - Microsoft Technet
Fuller list of less obvious features and abilities removed.
Add a Start Menu in Windows 8
. Start Menu replacement in Windows 8 {{DEFAULTSORT:Windows 8, Features Removed Features Removed In Software features Microsoft lists Computing-related lists