Features and configuration options removed in Windows 8.

Start Menu has been removed. Here's how the Start Menu was superior to the Start Screen:
- No full-screen requirement, it doesn't disturb your workflow and gets out of the way quickly
- Had quick access to shutdown commands
- Special folders 1 click away and expandable
- Expandable Recent documents
- Start Menu jump lists for pinning documents associated with that program
- Frequently used programs list
- Neatly organized All Programs list by folders
- Does not cover the Taskbar and the notification area
- Search results are in a single unified list of Programs, Files and Settings for easy up/down keyboard navigation but still neatly categorized
- Context menu options of our choice not present in Start screen. Whatever limited context menu actions Start Screen has are at the bottom of the screen which means more movement between the tile and the bottom actions
- No context menu options available at all for settings and files on the Start screen
- Launch multiple apps quickly by holding down Shift (Classic Start Menu of 9x and Classic Shell has this feature)
- Less items fit on the screen at a time due to the large size which means more scrolling unnecessarily for keyboard and mouse users
- The hot corner has poor discoverability
●  Built-in (Microsoft provided) DVD playback in Windows Media Player will not be available on the Windows 8 platform even with addition of the Media Center Pack
●  Device Manager no longer shows Non-Plug and Play Drivers/hidden devices. The "Devmgr_Show_NonPresent_Devices=1' environment variable has no effect.
●  Applications can no longer programmatically configure, change or query file associations or set themselves during installation as the default for a file type or protocol!
●  Explorer metadata/property handler for media files is removed which means the Details pane won't show those nice properties
●  Many commands are missing on the Ribbon which were there on Explorer command bar like Compatibility Files, View Remote Printers etc and others for special folders and namespace extensions. They just forgot to add these to these commands!
●  Reduced productivity: The menu bar in Windows Explorer has been removed and replaced with the unproductive Ribbon interface. Keyboard usability of the Ribbon is poor because in a menu, the first letter of any menu command or Alt+keyboard combination key is easier to read sequentially as it is placed in a row either horizontally or vertically. Mouse usability of the Ribbon and discoverability of commands is also poor, because unlike in a menu, where you can switch from one menu to another without clicking again, the Ribbon tabs do not activate unless you click again. The File menu also showed context menu commands but the File button on the Ribbon does not show these. Commands in the menu can be static (always available) irrespective of the location you are at in Explorer or they can be contextual like the File menu. In contrast, commands on the Ribbon are all contextual meaning you have to navigate to a certain location to use that Ribbon command.
●  The ability to boot directly to the desktop and not load the Metro components in memory is not there. Items in various startup locations (Registry, startup folder etc) are all loaded with a delay of few seconds with no way to load them instantly.
●  The Lock screen is the place where you can now display custom background instead of the Logon screen, but unlike the Logon screen, there seems to be no way to programmatically change or cycle through a group of images for the Lock screen background. It must be set manually by the user from PC settings on the Start screen.
●  The "Unblock" button previously available on the file properties dialog for unblocking downloaded files (removing the NTFS Alternate Data Stream from the downloaded file) has been removed.
●  Running Internet Explorer purely in 64-bit mode is not possible unless Enhanced Protected Mode is enabled which disables all addons. Otherwise, 64-bit IE10 opens 32-bit tabs.
●  Search option to use natural language search has been removed.
●  Mouse control panel option to allow or disallow themes to change mouse pointers is removed from the GUI.
●  File operations like Rename, Delete can no longer be undone for UAC-protected locations
●  Security Essentials settings for configuring default actions or real-time protection have been removed. (Security Essentials is now built-in as Windows Defender)
●  In a dual boot scenario, the ability to directly boot into another OS besides Windows 8 is slowed down because the new Windows 8 boot shell/loader reboots to load the other operating system
●  Windows Update settings for showing notifications and allowing all users to install updates have been removed. Windows Update no longer notifies with a balloon notification that there are new updates available.
●  Sound events for 'Exit Windows', 'Windows Logon' and 'Windows Logoff' are removed
●  People Near Me P2P API is removed
●  WinHelp has been completely discontinued. No download will be available.
●  MSConfig's Startup tab has been killed and replaced by the Task Manager's Startup tab that doesn't have the 'Location' column which was useful for example to know if the process started from HKCU or HKLM.

 

●  Previous Versions for Shadow Copies is removed. The half-baked replacement is the File History feature which is only for certain file types (documents, music, videos and pictures) in Libraries, desktop and browser favorites. Previous Versions worked for any generic file type in any folder. File History does not even support EFS-encrypted files! File History is supposed to replace both "Previous Versions for Shadow Copies" as well as "Windows Backup and Restore" and it doesn't do 100% of either of the features it "replaces".
●  Advanced Appearance settings which let you adjust colors, sizes and fonts are removed
●  Explorer copy engine issue: Folder conflict prompt when merging/overwriting folders is removed. Explorer silently merges subfolders in a copy operation, you cannot choose entire subfolders to skip or overwrite
●  Explorer status bar removes the ability to show important details. It is now a private undocumented control (DirectUI) so it also doesn't allow Explorer addons like Classic Shell to show information like free disk space, total size of items without selection, computer zone, infotip information as it could on a standard status bar control.
●  Explorer: Ability to enable both Details pane and Preview pane simultaneously in Explorer for display of file metadata as well as preview, or, Details pane to be always shown and only the Preview pane toggled is gone
●  Flip 3D is gone
●  Chkdsk when run at startup does not display any information about file system repairs besides % complete. The screen with scanning and correction details is gone when Chkdsk runs at startup and replaced by just a % complete.
●  Pen and Touch Input Desktop features no longer included. Some buttons ('num', 'sym' and 'web) are removed from the Handwriting input panel and UI changes to it require more clicks for example to switch from handwriting to keyboard, or access the editing commands (join, split, delete). It is now touch-friendly but no longer stylus-friendly.
●  Network Map feature and some network profile management UI from Network and Sharing Center is missing
●  Memory addresses and other technical information has been removed from the Windows 8 bug check screen (BSOD)
●  The new Task Manager is missing many features of the old one. (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itprogeneral/thread/88256a99-19dd-4ab8-a4f6-90c46b13c10c)
●  View Available Networks (VAN) UI has been crippled with access to the most important dialog: the Network's Status removed. The VAN UI now covers the notification area icons unnecessarily and the Metro look is out of place on the Aero desktop
●  The AutoPlay dialog removes the option to always open a particular program based on the file type
●  The Open With dialog breaks the NoInternetOpenWith and NoFileAssociate Group Policies and browsing for a program with the redesigned Open With dialog requires three clicks instead of just one.
●  The Windows Error Reporting dialog for reporting/debugging crashes does not save the state of "View details"
●  Wireless NICs no longer have in-box drivers for hosted/virtual Wi-Fi whose virtual adapter used to be automatically enabled on Windows 7
●  Windows CardSpace is not installed even after installing .NET 3.0/3.5
●  The keyboard shortcut for Windows Mobility Center has been removed. Previously, Win+X brought it up, now it brings up the power user context menu.
●  Desktop games (no word on whether they will be included or dropped in favor of Metro-style games):
  •  Chess Titans
  •  FreeCell
  •  Hearts
  •  Solitaire
  •  Spider Solitaire
  •  Minesweeper
  •  Mahjong Titans
  •  Purble Place
●  Windows DVD Maker is removed
●  Windows Briefcase
●  Windows Gadget Platform is intact but no gadgets to download as the online Gadget Gallery was killed for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users as well.
●  Some remoting apps that use mirror drivers or some features of mirror drivers for remoting scenarios, accessibility, or desktop duplication may no longer be supported due to the changes required to be made to Desktop Window Manager.
●  Some Audio Compression Manager (ACM) components are broken resulting in ACM-based apps being unable to do format conversion.
Deprecated but not yet removed:
●   Windows Backup and Restore is deprecated. Although the feature is still intact, shell integration of Backup features is removed.
●  The command line tools, DiskPart.exe, DiskRAID.exe, and the Disk Management GUI are being deprecated and replaced by the WMIv2-based Windows Storage Management API with the Storage PowerShell command line utility. Dynamic Disks are being deprecated as part of this transition. (GUI for Disk Management deprecated and replaced by command line? - way to go!)
●  Subsystem for UNIX-based applications is deprecated
●  Some Transactional NTFS (TxF) APIs like savepoints, secondary RM, miniversion and roll forward
PLEASE DOCUMENT THESE SOMEWHERE. What else is removed? What else is silently gone that Windows 7 had and user is not informed????? Anyone notice random features and options missing from Control Panels and Windows components?
Can someone pin this topic please? I need a complete list from Microsoft, not something I have to buy RTM and discover missing features.
If only Microsoft built Windows 8 as Windows 7 + value added OS, it would have been perfect. Limiting choice, removing options and forcing their choice on us (what they call "simplifying") is Microsoft's goal with this release.

 

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