List of features removed in Windows 7

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

Windows Shell

Windows Explorer

1. Running Explorer as administrator is not possible in Windows 7 because of a DCOM restriction.
2. Going to C:\Windows\Fonts opens the Fonts preferences of Control Panel instead of displaying the font files.
3. Control Panel views are limited to Small icons and Large icons (which is actually Tiles view). List view, Details view, Extra large icons view, Large icons view and Medium icons view with text at the bottom are not available.
4. Some Control Panel settings, such as Add Hardware, Bluetooth, Game Controllers, Pen and Touch, People Near Me, Tablet PC Settings, Offline Files, and Scanners and Cameras, are not listed, even under All Control Panel Items. The 32-bit Speech applet is no longer accessible through the Control Panel. While some of these settings are accessible only from Category view, or by searching, they can be made accessible via All Control Panel Items with a modification to the registry.
5. The slide show button from Windows Explorer starts the Windows Photo Viewer, which unlike Windows Live Photo Gallery, does not support viewing slide shows with themes and rich transitions.
6. It is not possible to run the 32-bit version of Windows Explorer as a file manager or as the shell in 64-bit editions of Windows 7. 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows XP allowed executing the 32-bit shell/Windows Explorer and making it the default for compatibility with shell extensions. As a result, all 32-bit shell extensions are incompatible with 64-bit versions of Windows 7.
7. Because of the Software Explorer being removed from Windows Defender, there is no user notification any more if UAC blocks a startup program which needs administrator privileges. Users were notified about blocked startup programs set to run as administrator in Windows Vista. 
8. An undocumented incompatible Items view control replaces the List view control used in Windows Explorer and Start Menu breaking applications that customized the Explorer list view control. The Item view also does not support custom positioning, custom ordering, or hyperlinks, which were supported in the Windows Vista list view. Because the control is undocumented, it is not possible for developers to disable auto arrange or customize views. Because ItemsView is not considered part of the Win32 common controls reusable by developers, the sound for the Select system event no longer plays in Explorer in Windows 7. 
9. The new items view control also ignores certain desktop.ini parameters like IconArea_Image and IconArea_Textpreventing users from setting a background picture for folders. In Windows Vista, this feature was not built-in, however the list view control supported this if shell extensions or folder customization utilities which set the correct desktop.ini parameters and attributes were installed.
10. Each toolbar or desk band is forced to be on its own row in Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer forces the RBBS_BREAK style for every band. 
11. When items are grouped by any criteria, multiple selection of groups by clicking the group header while holding down Ctrl is not possible as could be done in Windows Vista. 
12. The entire folder tree view in the navigation pane cannot be collapsed as could be done in Windows Explorer on Windows Vista.
13. Full row selection cannot be turned off for details view as was possible in Windows Vista. 
14. The Share overlay icon for shared items in Explorer has been removed. 
15. When navigating to a folder from a library, it is not possible to view the folder's contents in the view the user has set or customized. The folder uses the library's view.
16. The Remember each folder's view settings option to set Explorer to persist or not persist folder views and icon sizes per folder has been removed.  
17. It is not possible to set Windows Explorer to remember individual folder window sizes and positions. Each folder window shares the same size, and their position cascades as more windows are opened.
18. Dotted lines that connect folders and subfolders do not appear as the option to turn off simple folder view is missing. 
19. The size of any selected item(s) is not shown on the status bar but is shown in the details pane just above the status bar. Free disk space is not shown on the status bar and the status bar is not visible by default. The details pane only shows the size of 15 selected items by default and viewing the total size of more than 15 selected items requires clicking "Show more details" each time the selection changes.
20. When no items are selected in a folder, neither the details pane nor the status bar show the total size of files in the folder.
21. Icons on the command bar in Windows Explorer and common application dialogs for Open/Save.
22. Disabling Auto Arrange and Align to Grid is not available in Windows Explorer windows. As a result, users can no longer manually arrange items via drag and drop within a folder; this feature is only available on the desktop.
23. The bar with column headers for sorting, grouping, filtering and stacking that appears for any view in Windows Vista Explorer only appears for Details view. Even in details view, the column headers only allow sorting and filtering; they no longer allow grouping and stacking. As a result, grouping must be done from the context menu in all views and sorting must also be done from the context menu in all other views except Details view. Filtering by columns can only be done in Details view.
24. Automatic horizontal scrolling in the left pane and the horizontal scrollbar have been removed.
25. The Arrange By option (called Stack By in Windows Vista) is only available for libraries and folders included in libraries. In addition, users can only Stack By predefined categories depending on the library type. For example, users can only Stack by Folder, Album, Artist, Song, Genre, and Rating for the Music library, whereas in Vista, users could Stack By any properties that exist for a file (common examples would be bit rate, year, composer, play count, etc. for audio files).
26. Changing the sort criteria when multiple items are selected causes all items to be de-selected.
27. Selection of multiple items is not retained across back and forward navigation.
28. Windows Briefcase cannot properly sync files and folders located in a Library.

Taskbar

1. Quick Launch was removed in favor of 'pinned' applications. It is possible to revert to Quick Launch by manually adding it as a custom toolbar. However, the Quick Launch toolbar has compatibility issues with the language toolbar in Windows 7 and if both are enabled, the Quick Launch toolbar will disappear upon restart.
2. Clicking a grouped application's taskbar button or thumbnail when it is active (in the foreground) does not minimize it. Only ungrouped application buttons minimize upon being clicked again.
3. Icons have been removed from the tooltips for the notification area system icons such as Volume, Network, Power and the taskbar date and time. 
4. Floating Deskbands are no longer available. The feature was previously deprecated in Windows Vista; all deskbands can be only pinned to taskbar.
5. The ability to disable grouping (placing next to each other) similar taskbar buttons (for example, Explorer windows) is removed; users can still disable combining multiple taskbar buttons of the same type into one button.
6. The configurable registry option TaskbarGroupSize, which allowed fine-grained control over taskbar grouping under previous Windows versions is not supported. In Windows 7, users can only configure to either combine buttons, not combine or combine when the taskbar is full.
7. The number of combined taskbar windows is not calculated and shown next to the combined buttons.
8. Network activity animation on Network Connections icon in the notification area cannot be turned on. The Network icon only indicates the type of network (wired or wireless) and Internet connectivity.
9. The ability to turn off taskbar window previews (thumbnails) while still using Aero, as was configurable in Windows Vista. It is possible to turn off taskbar thumbnails when two or more windows are combined by setting a registry value, though. 
10. The ability to disable the taskbar's "always on top" setting is removed.
11. When grouping is disabled, the ability to manage multiple taskbar items using multiselect (Ctrl+click) to tile, cascade, minimize or close the selected group of windows has been removed.
12. Only two power plans, one of them always being Balanced, are available to choose from the taskbar. The "High Performance" power plan is hidden by default in the Control Panel.
13. When the taskbar is vertical, there cannot be multiple columns of icons.

Start menu

1. Classic Start menu. Certain features that were present only in the Classic Start menu are not available, such as expanding the menu columns instead of scrolling, expanding folders by hovering instead of clicking, opening folders by double clicking, and launching multiple programs by holding down Shift key while clicking.
2. Dynamically pinning default Internet browser and e-mail client software programs on Start menu is no longer possible. Programs can still be, however, manually pinned to the Start menu in Windows 7.

Windows Search features

1. Advanced search builder UI (Search Pane).
2. The option to always search only file names has been removed from Folder Options, Search tab.
3. The Windows Search protocol handler addin to index network paths is incompatible with Windows 7. The Windows Search service needs to be installed and running on the remote computers to search them.

Other shell features

1. The Snap To mouse pointer option to move the pointer automatically to the default button in a dialog is broken on many re-designed system and application dialog boxes and windows in Windows 7. The mouse pointer simply does not move or snap to the default button in several dialogs which are re-designed.
2. ClearType cannot be turned off entirely in order for the user interface font, Segoe UI, to maintain optimal design for certain shell components and Windows Explorer. Parts of the user interface (such as the start menu and Explorer) still use ClearType regardless of setting.
3. For security reasons, AutoPlay will support AutoRun only on optical media, such as CDs and DVDs. (Later Microsoft released KB971029 for earlier OSes to make AutoPlay Windows 7-like.)
4. Detection of the discontinued HD DVD format in AutoPlay.
5. Properties such as target command line with switches, start in path, icon and compatibility mode cannot be changed for game shortcuts in Games Explorer.
6. In the Personalization control panel, it is not possible to save changes to an existing theme. Changes made after choosing a theme must be saved again and the original theme deleted to prevent duplication. In previous versions of Windows, a theme file could be overwritten with the modified theme.

Windows Media Player features

1. The ability to lock the player while in full-screen mode  using a 4-digit PIN has been removed.
2. The option to adjust the bit rate when burning data CDs has been removed.
3. Windows Media Player's taskbar-integrated Mini-player has been removed. The thumbnail preview which replaces this lacks volume control and a progress bar. The ability to start the miniplayer only for certain files based on specific text in their file names was also removed.
4. Enhancements are only accessible from Now Playing view in a floating window. They do not dock to the Now Playing window, and do not get restored when Windows Media Player is restarted. Even when manually restored, their position does not get saved.
5. Several player preferences are not saved and restored upon restarting the player. The playlist pane in Now Playing view is not shown automatically. Enhancements do not get restored when Windows Media Player is restarted. Even when manually restored, the previous position of the Now Playing window and enhancements is not retained.
6. The context menu entry "Find In Library" which allowed locating the Now Playing song in the library was removed.
7. Advanced Tag Editor, Color Chooser, Media Link for E-mail, and Party Mode features have been removed.
8. The ability to add and show static lyrics and synchronized lyrics has been removed.
9. Recently added Auto playlist is not included by default.
10. Total time for CDs and playlists is rounded up to the nearest minute - i.e. seconds are no longer shown.

Internet Explorer features

1. In Internet Explorer 8, the previous session can no longer be automatically restored the next time. The user must remember to and manually open the session the next time. 
2. Internet Explorer 8 on any Windows version does not support inline AutoComplete in its address bar. 
3. Rating and description of Internet Explorer favorites can no longer be edited from the Details pane in Windows 7 Explorer. 

Other Windows applications and features

1. Windows Remote Assistance does not support file transfer and clipboard sharing in Windows 7. 
2. The Offline Files cache can be relocated, however, an existing cache with previously cached files cannot be moved without resetting it as was possible in Windows Vista using Windows Easy Transfer or in Windows XP/2000 using Cachemov.exe
3. Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Mail has been removed, in favor of downloading respective Windows Live counterparts. However, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Movie Maker do not include all of the features of Windows Mail and Windows Movie Maker respectively. Specifically, Windows Live Mail does not support HTML source editing, scripted stationery and the ability to disable the splash screen. The integrated calendar supports events but not tasks, does not support subscribing, publishing, importing and exporting iCalendar files. The Windows Mail gadget for Windows SideShow does not ship with Windows 7. Windows Live Movie Maker does not include a proper timeline with audio edits and narration, title overlays, filter compatibility settings and other advanced options, cannot export to DV-AVI, and drops the transitions and effects from Windows Movie Maker.
4. The web filtering and activity reporting functionality from the in-box parental controls feature. Windows Live Family Safetyreplaces the web filtering functionality but its user interface for filtering and activity reporting is web-based instead of the native UI used by Windows Vista's parental controls and requires logging in to a Windows Live ID.
5. The DFS Replication Service included in Windows Vista for peer-to-peer DFS Replication service groups, has also been removed. 
6. The Aurora, Windows Energy and Windows Logo screensavers and most of the wallpapers that shipped with Windows Vista were removed. 
7. Software Explorer feature of Windows Defender
8. Removable Storage Manager (RSM) has been removed, so applications that depend on it - such as NTBackup or the NTBackup Restore Tool - cannot back up to physical or virtual tape drives.
9. Windows Meeting Space, and the InkBall game have been removed.
10. Windows Ultimate Extras for the Ultimate edition which included Windows DreamScene, Microsoft Tinker, and the Hold' Em poker game among others, was removed. Microsoft had initially announced that they will re-offer Tinker and Hold 'Em in the near future. On December 15, only Tinker was made available for free as a Games for Windows - LIVE downloadable game which requires signing in to Windows Live ID.
11. Microsoft Agent 2.0 technology was removed, breaking compatibility with Microsoft Agent applications. A separate installation package has been provided by Microsoft "due to customer feedback." 
12. Windows Calendar has also been removed.
13. The sidebar for Desktop Gadgets was removed, although gadgets can align to any side of the screen like they did in Vista.
14. The Contacts, Notes and Stocks Desktop Gadgets have been removed. The Notes gadget has been replaced by Sticky Notes, allowing for both text and ink-based notes. An upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 retains the user's notes from the gadget and transfers them to the Sticky Notes program.
15. The import, export, drag and drop and voice note features in earlier versions of Sticky Notes have been removed.
16. The Windows Firewall Control Panel does not allow configuring port-based filtering although the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security MMC-based snap-in allows this.
17. Filtering policies in Group Policy to show only a specific operating system or application is no longer available. 
18. Software Restriction Policies no longer support multiple levels of trust such as "basic user" (only block or allow are still supported); this functionality has been superseded by User Account Control and AppLocker.
19. The common font selector dialog box does not show the type of font (OpenType, TrueType, Symbol font, etc.)
20. Windows Registry Reflection for x64 editions replaced with merged 32/64-bit keys. 
21. The 3D-Bronze, 3D-White, Conductor, Dinosaur, Hands 1, Hands 2, Variations and Windows Animated cursor schemes are no longer available.
22. File backup to a network share (non system image backup) is only available in Windows 7 Professional and above whereas it was included in Windows Vista Home Premium.

Microsoft Windows Product Line

Original line

• Windows 1.0
• Windows 2.0
• Windows 2.1 (Windows/286 and Windows/386)
• Windows 3.0
• Windows 3.1 (with a respective Windows for Workgroups release)
• Windows 3.11 (also with a respective Windows for Workgroups release)
• Windows 3.2 (a minor update to 3.1 for Simplified Chinese support)

Windows 9x

• Windows 95 (version 4.0)
• Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE (version 4.1)
• Windows Me (version 4.9)

Windows NT

• Windows NT 3.1
• Windows NT 3.5
• Windows NT 3.5123
• Windows NT 4.0
• Windows 2000 (NT version 5.0)
• Windows XP and Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (NT version 5.1)
• Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (NT version 5.2)
• Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (NT version 6.0)
• Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (NT version 6.1)
• Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (NT version 6.2)

History of Microsoft Windows

In 1983, Microsoft announced the development of Windows, a graphical user interface (GUI) for its own operating system (MS-DOS), which had shipped for IBM PC and compatible computers since 1981. The product line has changed from a GUI product to a modernoperating system over two families of design, each with its own codebase and default file system.
The 3.x and 4.x family includes Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 achieved the breakthrough from 16- to 32-bit networking and 32-bit disk access. Windows 95 completed the migration to 32-bit code and started an entirely new user interface, most of which is still used today.
Windows NT family started with Windows NT 3.1 in 1993. Modern Windows operating system versions are based on the newerWindows NT kernel that was originally intended for OS/2. Windows runs on IA-32, x86-64, and Itanium processors. Microsoft is also working to bring Windows NT onto ARM in the next release of Windows.  Earlier versions also ran on the i860, Alpha, MIPS, FairchildClipper, and PowerPC architectures. Some work was done to port it to the SPARC architecture.
With Windows NT 4.0 in 1996, the shell changed from Program Manager to Windows Explorer.

Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0

The first independent version of Microsoft Windows, version 1.0, released on 20 November 1985, achieved little popularity. It was originally going to be called "Interface Manager" but Rowland Hanson, the head of marketing at Microsoft, convinced the company that the name Windows would be more appealing to consumers. Windows 1.0 was not a complete operating system, but rather an "operating environment" that extended MS-DOS, and shared the latter's inherent flaws and problems.
The first version of Microsoft Windows included a simple graphics painting program called Windows Paint; Windows Write, a simpleword processor; an appointment "calendar"; a "cardfiler"; a "notepad"; a "clock"; a "control panel"; a "computer terminal"; "Clipboard"; and RAM driver. It also included the MS-DOS Executive and a game called Reversi.
Microsoft had worked with Apple Computer to develop Desk Accessories and other minor pieces of software that were included with early Macintosh system software.[citation needed] As part of the related business negotiations, Microsoft had licensed certain aspects of the Macintosh user interface from Apple; in later litigation, a district court summarized these aspects as "screen displays". In the development of Windows 1.0, Microsoft intentionally limited its borrowing of certain GUI elements from the Macintosh user interface, to comply with its license.
For example, windows were only displayed "tiled" on the screen; that is, they could not overlap or overlie one another. There was no trash can icon with which to delete files, since Apple claimed ownership of the rights to that paradigm.
Microsoft Windows version 2 came out on 9 December 1987, and proved slightly more popular than its predecessor. Much of the popularity for Windows 2.0 came by way of its inclusion as a "run-time version" with Microsoft's new graphical applications, Excel andWord for Windows. They could be run from MS-DOS, executing Windows for the duration of their activity, and closing down Windows upon exit.
Microsoft Windows received a major boost around this time when Aldus PageMaker appeared in a Windows version, having previously run only on Macintosh. Some computer historians[who?] date this, the first appearance of a significant and non-Microsoft application for Windows, as the start of the success of Windows.
Versions 2.0x used the real-mode memory model, which confined it to a maximum of 1 megabyte of memory. In such a configuration, it could run under another multitasker like DESQview, which used the 286 protected mode.


Later, two new versions were released: Windows/286 2.1 and Windows/386 2.1. Like prior versions of Windows, Windows/286 2.1 used the real-mode memory model, but was the first version to support the High Memory Area. Windows/386 2.1 had a protected mode kernel with LIM-standard EMS emulation, the predecessor to XMS which would finally change the topology of IBM PC computing. All Windows and DOS-based applications at the time were real mode, running over the protected mode kernel by using the virtual 8086mode, which was new with the 80386 processor.
Version 2.03, and later 3.0, faced challenges from Apple over its overlapping windows and other features Apple charged mimicked the ostensibly copyrighted "look and feel" of its operating system and "embodie  and generated a copy of the Macintosh" in its OS. JudgeWilliam Schwarzer dropped all but 10 of Apple's 189 claims of copyright infringement, and ruled that most of the remaining 10 were over uncopyrightable ideas.

Success with Windows 3.0

Microsoft Windows scored a significant success with Windows 3.0, released in 1990. In addition to improved capabilities given to native applications, Windows also allowed users to better multitask older MS-DOS based software compared to Windows/386, thanks to the introduction of virtual memory.
Windows 3.0's user interface was finally a serious competitor to the user interface of the Macintosh computer. PCs had improved graphics by this time, due to VGA video cards, and the protected/enhanced mode allowed Windows applications to use more memory in a more painless manner than their DOS counterparts could. Windows 3.0 could run in real, standard, or 386 enhanced modes, and was compatible with any Intel processor from the 8086/8088 up to the 80286 and 80386. This was the first version to run Windows programs in protected mode, although the 386 enhanced mode kernel was an enhanced version of the protected mode kernel in Windows/386.
A "multimedia" version, Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions 1.0, was released in October 1991. This was bundled with "multimedia upgrade kits", comprising a CD-ROM drive and a sound card, such as the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro. This version was the precursor to the multimedia features available in Windows 3.1 and later, and was part of Microsoft's specification for theMultimedia PC.
The features listed above and growing market support from application software developers made Windows 3.0 wildly successful, selling around 10 million copies in the two years before the release of version 3.1. Windows 3.0 became a major source of income for Microsoft, and led the company to revise some of its earlier plans. It was discontinued on 31 December 2001. 

A step sideways: OS/2

During the mid to late 1980s, Microsoft and IBM had cooperatively been developing OS/2 as a successor to DOS. OS/2 would take full advantage of the aforementioned protected mode of the Intel 80286 processor and up to 16 MB of memory. OS/2 1.0, released in 1987, supported swapping and multitasking and allowed running of DOS executables.
A GUI, called the Presentation Manager (PM), was not available with OS/2 until version 1.1, released in 1988. Its API was incompatible with Windows. (Among other things, Presentation Manager placed X,Y coordinate 0,0 at the bottom left of the screen like Cartesian coordinates, while Windows put 0,0 at the top left of the screen like most other computer window systems.) Version 1.2, released in 1989, introduced a new file system, HPFS, to replace the FAT file system.
By the early 1990s, conflicts developed in the Microsoft/IBM relationship. They cooperated with each other in developing their PC operating systems, and had access to each others' code. Microsoft wanted to further develop Windows, while IBM desired for future work to be based on OS/2. In an attempt to resolve this tension, IBM and Microsoft agreed that IBM would develop OS/2 2.0, to replace OS/2 1.3 and Windows 3.0, while Microsoft would develop a new operating system, OS/2 3.0, to later succeed OS/2 2.0.
This agreement soon however fell apart, and the Microsoft/IBM relationship was terminated. IBM continued to develop OS/2, while Microsoft changed the name of its (as yet unreleased) OS/2 3.0 to Windows NT. Both retained the rights to use OS/2 and Windows technology developed up to the termination of the agreement; Windows NT, however, was to be written anew, mostly independently (see below).
After an interim 1.3 version to fix up many remaining problems with the 1.x series, IBM released OS/2 version 2.0 in 1992. This was a major improvement: it featured a new, object-oriented GUI, the Workplace Shell (WPS), that included a desktop and was considered by many to be OS/2's best feature. Microsoft would later imitate much of it in Windows 95. Version 2.0 also provided a full 32-bit API, offered smooth multitasking and could take advantage of the 4 gigabytes of address space provided by the Intel 80386. Still, much of the system had 16-bit code internally which required, among other things, device drivers to be 16-bit code also. This was one of the reasons for the chronic shortage of OS/2 drivers for the latest devices. Version 2.0 could also run DOS and Windows 3.0 programs, since IBM had retained the right to use the DOS and Windows code as a result of the breakup.

Windows 3.1 and NT 3.x

In response to the impending release of OS/2 2.0, Microsoft developed Windows 3.1, which included several minor improvements to Windows 3.0 (such as display of TrueType scalable fonts, developed jointly with Apple), but primarily consisted of bugfixes and multimedia support. It also excluded support for Real mode, and only ran on an 80286 or better processor. Later Microsoft also released Windows 3.11, a touch-up to Windows 3.1 which included all of the patches and updates that followed the release of Windows 3.1 in 1992. Around the same time, Microsoft released Windows for Workgroups (WfW), which was available both as an add-on for existing Windows 3.1 installations and in a version that included the base Windows environment and the networking extensions all in one package. Windows for Workgroups included improved network drivers and protocol stacks, and support for peer-to-peer networking. One optional download for WfW was the "Wolverine" TCP/IP protocol stack, which allowed for easy access to the Internet through corporate networks. There were two versions of Windows for Workgroups, WfW 3.1 and WfW 3.11. Unlike prior versions, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 ran in 386 enhanced mode only, and needs at least an 80386SX processor.
All these versions continued version 3.0's impressive sales pace. Even though the 3.1x series still lacked most of the important features of OS/2, such as long file names, a desktop, or protection of the system against misbehaving applications, Microsoft quickly took over the OS and GUI markets for the IBM PC. The Windows API became the de-facto standard for consumer software.
Meanwhile, Microsoft continued to develop Windows NT. The main architect of the system was Dave Cutler, one of the chief architects of VMS at Digital Equipment Corporation (later acquired by Compaq, now part of Hewlett-Packard).  Microsoft hired him in August 1988 to create a successor to OS/2, but Cutler created a completely new system instead. Cutler had been developing a follow-on toVMS at DEC called Mica, and when DEC dropped the project he brought the expertise and around 20 engineers with him to Microsoft. DEC also believed he brought Mica's code to Microsoft and sued.  Microsoft eventually paid US$150 million and agreed to support DEC's Alpha CPU chip in NT.
Windows NT 3.1 (Microsoft marketing wanted Windows NT to appear to be a continuation of Windows 3.1) arrived in Beta form to developers at the July 1992 Professional Developers Conference in San Francisco.  Microsoft announced at the conference its intentions to develop a successor to both Windows NT and Windows 3.1's replacement (Windows 95, codenamed Chicago), which would unify the two into one operating system. This successor was codenamed Cairo. In hindsight, Cairo was a much more difficult project than Microsoft had anticipated and, as a result, NT and Chicago would not be unified until Windows XP—albeit Windows 2000, oriented to business, had already unified most of the system’s bolts and gears, it was XP that was sold to home consumers like Windows 95 and came to be viewed as the final unified OS. Parts of Cairo have still not made it into Windows as of 2009 - specifically, the WinFS file system, which was the much touted Object File System of Cairo. Microsoft announced that they have discontinued the separate release of WinFS for Windows XP and Windows Vista  and will gradually incorporate the technologies developed for WinFS in other products and technologies, notably Microsoft SQL Server.
Driver support was lacking due to the increased programming difficulty in dealing with NT's superior hardware abstraction model. This problem plagued the NT line all the way through Windows 2000. Programmers complained that it was too hard to write drivers for NT, and hardware developers were not going to go through the trouble of developing drivers for a small segment of the market. Additionally, although allowing for good performance and fuller exploitation of system resources, it was also resource-intensive on limited hardware, and thus was only suitable for larger, more expensive machines.
However, these same features made Windows NT perfect for the LAN server market (which in 1993 was experiencing a rapid boom, as office networking was becoming common). NT also had advanced network connectivity options and NTFS, an efficient file system. Windows NT version 3.51 was Microsoft's entry into this field, and took away market share from Novell (the dominant player) in the following years.
One of Microsoft's biggest advances initially developed for Windows NT was a new 32-bit API, to replace the legacy 16-bit Windows API. This API was called Win32, and from then on Microsoft referred to the older 16-bit API as Win16. The Win32 API had three main implementations: one for Windows NT, one for Win32s (which was a subset of Win32 which could be used on Windows 3.1 systems), and one for Chicago. Thus Microsoft sought to ensure some degree of compatibility between the Chicago design and Windows NT, even though the two systems had radically different internal architectures. Windows NT was the first Windows operating system based on a hybrid kernel.

Windows 95

After Windows 3.11, Microsoft began to develop a new consumer oriented version of the operating system codenamed Chicago. Chicago was designed to have support for 32-bit preemptive multitasking like OS/2 and Windows NT, although a 16-bit kernel would remain for the sake of backward compatibility. The Win32 API first introduced with Windows NT was adopted as the standard 32-bit programming interface, with Win16 compatibility being preserved through a technique known as "thunking". A new GUI was not originally planned as part of the release, although elements of the Cairo user interface were borrowed and added as other aspects of the release (notably Plug and Play) slipped.
Microsoft did not change all of the Windows code to 32-bit; parts of it remained 16-bit (albeit not directly using real mode) for reasons of compatibility, performance, and development time. Additionally it was necessary to carry over design decisions from earlier versions of Windows for reasons of backwards compatibility, even if these design decisions no longer matched a more modern computing environment. These factors eventually began to impact the operating system's efficiency and stability.
Microsoft marketing adopted Windows 95 as the product name for Chicago when it was released on 24 August 1995. Microsoft had a double gain from its release: first, it made it impossible for consumers to run Windows 95 on a cheaper, non-Microsoft DOS; secondly, although traces of DOS were never completely removed from the system and MS DOS 7 would be loaded briefly as a part of the bootingprocess, Windows 95 applications ran solely in 386 enhanced mode, with a flat 32-bit address space and virtual memory. These features make it possible for Win32 applications to address up to 2 gigabytes of virtual RAM (with another 2 GB reserved for the operating system), and in theory prevented them from inadvertently corrupting the memory space of other Win32 applications. In this respect the functionality of Windows 95 moved closer to Windows NT, although Windows 95/98/ME did not support more than 512megabytes of physical RAM without obscure system tweaks.
IBM continued to market OS/2, producing later versions in OS/2 3.0 and 4.0 (also called Warp). Responding to complaints about OS/2 2.0's high demands on computer hardware, version 3.0 was significantly optimized both for speed and size. Before Windows 95 was released, OS/2 Warp 3.0 was even shipped preinstalled with several large German hardware vendor chains. However, with the release of Windows 95, OS/2 began to lose market share.
It is probably impossible to choose one specific reason why OS/2 failed to gain much market share. While OS/2 continued to run Windows 3.1 applications, it lacked support for anything but the Win32s subset of Win32 API (see above). Unlike with Windows 3.1, IBM did not have access to the source code for Windows 95 and was unwilling to commit the time and resources to emulate the moving target of the Win32 API. IBM later introduced OS/2 into the United States v. Microsoft case, blaming unfair marketing tactics on Microsoft's part.
Microsoft went on to release five different versions of Windows 95:
? Windows 95 - original release
? Windows 95 A - included Windows 95 OSR1 slipstreamed into the installation.
? Windows 95 B - (OSR2) included several major enhancements, Internet Explorer (IE) 3.0 and full FAT32 file system support.
? Windows 95 B USB - (OSR2.1) included basic USB support.
? Windows 95 C - (OSR2.5) included all the above features, plus IE 4.0. This was the last 95 version produced.
OSR2, OSR2.1, and OSR2.5 were not released to the general public; rather, they were available only to OEMs that would preload the OS onto computers. Some companies sold new hard drives with OSR2 preinstalled (officially justifying this as needed due to the hard drive's capacity).
The first Microsoft Plus! add-on pack was sold for Windows 95.
Windows NT 4.0
Main article: Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0 was the successor of 3.51 (1995) and 3.5 (1994). Microsoft released Windows NT 4.0 to manufacturing in July 1996, one year after the release of Windows 95. Major new features included the new Explorer shell from Windows 95, scalability and feature improvements to the core architecture, kernel, USER32, COM and MSRPC. 
Windows NT 4.0 came in four versions:
? Windows NT 4.0 Workstation
? Windows NT 4.0 Server
? Windows NT 4.0 Server, Enterprise Edition (includes support for 8-way SMP and clustering)
? Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server

Windows 98

On 25 June 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98 (codenamed Memphis). It included new hardware drivers and the FAT32 file system which supports disk partitions that are larger than 2 GB (first introduced in Windows 95 OSR2). USB support in Windows 98 is marketed as a vast improvement over Windows 95. The release continued the controversial inclusion of the Internet Explorer browser with the operating system that started with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 1. The action eventually led to the filing of the United States v. Microsoft case, dealing with the question of whether Microsoft was introducing unfair practices into the market in an effort to eliminate competition from other companies such as Netscape. 
In 1999, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition, an interim release. One of the more notable new features was the addition ofInternet Connection Sharing, which was a form of network address translation, allowing several machines on a LAN (Local Area Network) to share a single Internet connection. Second Edition was also much easier to use and much smoother than the first edition of Windows 98. Hardware support through device drivers was increased. Many minor problems present in the original Windows 98 were found and fixed which make it, according to many, the most stable release of Windows 9x family—to the extent that commentators used to say that Windows 98's beta version was more stable than Windows 95's final (gamma) version. 

Windows 2000

Microsoft released Windows 2000 in February 2000. It has the version number Windows NT 5.0. It was successfully deployed both on the server and the workstation markets. Amongst Windows 2000's most significant new features was Active Directory, a near-complete replacement of the NT 4.0 Windows Server domain model, which built on industry-standard technologies like DNS, LDAP, and Kerberosto connect machines to one another. Terminal Services, previously only available as a separate edition of NT 4, was expanded to all server versions. A number of features from Windows 98 were incorporated also, such as an improved Device Manager, Windows Media Player, and a revised DirectX that made it possible for the first time for many modern games to work on the NT kernel. Windows 2000 is also the last NT-kernel Windows operating system to lack product activation.
While Windows 2000 upgrades were available for Windows 95 and Windows 98, it was not intended for home users. 
Windows 2000 was available in six editions:
? Windows 2000 Professional
? Windows 2000 Server
? Windows 2000 Advanced Server
? Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
? Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition
? Windows 2000 Datacenter Server Limited Edition
Windows Millennium Edition (Me)
In September 2000, Microsoft introduced Windows Me (Millennium Edition), which upgraded Windows 98 with enhanced multimedia and Internet features from Windows 2000. It also introduced the first version of System Restore, which allowed users to revert their system state to a prior "known-good" point in the case of system failure. System Restore was a notable feature that made its way into Windows XP. The first version of Windows Movie Maker was introduced also.
Windows Me was conceived as a quick one-year project that served as a stopgap release between Windows 98 and Windows XP. Many of the new features were available from the Windows Update site as updates for older Windows versions, (System Restore andWindows Movie Maker were exceptions). Windows Me was criticised for stability issues, and for lacking real mode DOS support, to the point of being referred to as the "Mistake Edition"  or "Many Errors." Windows Me was the last operating system to be based on the Windows 9x (monolithic) kernel and MS-DOS.

Windows XP

Windows XP desktop

In 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler"). The merging of the Windows NT/2000 and Windows 95/98/Me lines was finally achieved with Windows XP. Windows XP uses the Windows NT 5.1 kernel, marking the entrance of the Windows NT core to the consumer market, to replace the aging 16/32-bit branch. The initial release met with considerable criticism, particularly in the area of security, leading to the release of three major Service Packs. Windows XP SP1 was released in September 2002, SP2 came out in August 2004 and SP3 came out in April 2008. Service Pack 2 provided significant improvements and encouraged widespread adoption of XP among both home and business users. Windows XP lasted longer as Microsoft's flagship operating system than any other version of Windows, from 25 October 2001 to 30 January 2007 when it was succeeded by Windows Vista.
Windows XP is available in a number of versions:
? Windows XP Home Edition, for home desktops and laptops - lacked features such as joining Active Directory Domain, Remote Desktop Server and Internet Information Services Server.
? Windows XP Home Edition N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling
? Windows XP Professional, for business and power users contained all features in Home Edition.
? Windows XP Professional N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling
? Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), released in October 2002 for desktops and notebooks with an emphasis on home entertainment. Contained all features offered in Windows XP Professional and the Windows Media Center. Subsequent versions are the same but have an updated Windows Media Center.
? Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003
? Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
? Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, released on 12 October 2004. Included Windows XP Service Pack 2, the Royale Windows Theme and joining a Windows Active Directory Domain is disabled.
? Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, for tablet PCs
? Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005
? Windows XP Embedded, for embedded systems
? Windows XP Starter Edition, for new computer users in developing countries
? Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, released on 25 April 2005 for home and workstation systems utilizing 64-bit processors based on the x86-64 instruction set developed by AMD as AMD64; Intel calls their version Intel 64
? Windows XP 64-bit Edition, is a version for Intel's Itanium line of processors; maintains 32-bit compatibility solely through a software emulator. It is roughly analogous to Windows XP Professional in features. It was discontinued in September 2005 when the last vendor of Itanium workstations stopped shipping Itanium systems marketed as "Workstations".
? Windows XP 64-bit Edition 2003, based on the Windows NT 5.2 codebase.
Windows Server 2003
On 25 April 2003 Microsoft launched Windows Server 2003, a notable update to Windows 2000 Server encompassing many newsecurity features, a new "Manage Your Server" wizard that simplifies configuring a machine for specific roles, and improved performance. It has the version number NT 5.2. A few services not essential for server environments are disabled by default for stability reasons, most noticeable are the "Windows Audio" and "Themes" services; Users have to enable them manually to get sound or the "Luna" look as per Windows XP. The hardware acceleration for display is also turned off by default, users have to turn the acceleration level up themselves if they trust the display card driver.
December 2005, Microsoft released Windows Server 2003 R2, which is actually Windows Server 2003 with SP1 (Service Pack 1) plus an add-on package. Among the new features are a number of management features for branch offices, file serving, printing and company-wide identity integration.
Windows Server 2003 is available in six editions:
? Web Edition (32-bit)
? Standard Edition (32 and 64-bit)
? Enterprise Edition (32 and 64-bit)
? Datacenter Edition (32 and 64-bit)
? Small Business Server (32-bit)
? Storage Server (OEM channel only)

Windows XP x64 and Server 2003 x64 Editions

On 25 April 2005, Microsoft released Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003, x64 Editions in Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter SKUs. Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture. 
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is based on the Windows Server 2003 codebase; with the server features removed and client features added. Both Windows Server 2003 x64 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition use identical kernels. 
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is not to be confused with Windows XP 64-bit Edition, as the latter was designed for Intel Itaniumprocessors.   During the initial development phases, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition was named Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems. 
Windows Server 2003 R2
Windows Server 2003 R2, an update of Windows Server 2003, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005. It is distributed on two CDs, with one CD being the Windows Server 2003 SP1 CD. The other CD adds many optionally installable features for Windows Server 2003. The R2 update was released for all x86 and x64 versions. Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition was not released for Itanium.
Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
In July 2006, Microsoft released a thin-client version of Windows XP Service Pack 2, called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs(WinFLP). It is only available to Software Assurance customers. The aim of WinFLP is to give companies a viable upgrade option for older PCs that are running Windows 95, 98, and Me that will be supported with patches and updates for the next several years. Most user applications will typically be run on a remote machine using Terminal Services or Citrix.


Windows Home Server
Windows Home Server (codenamed Q, Quattro) is a server product based on Windows Server 2003, designed for consumer use. The system was announced on 7 January 2007 by Bill Gates. Windows Home Server can be configured and monitored using a console program that can be installed on a client PC. Such features as Media Sharing, local and remote drive backup and file duplication are all listed as features.

Windows Vista

Windows Vista Desktop

Windows Vista was released on 30 November 2006 to business customers, consumer versions following on 30 January 2007. Windows Vista intended to have enhanced security by introducing a new restricted user mode called User Account Control, replacing the "administrator-by-default" philosophy of Windows XP. One major difference between Vista and earlier versions of Windows, Windows 95 and later, is that the original start button was replaced with just the Windows icon. Vista also features new graphics features, theWindows Aero GUI, new applications (such as Windows Calendar, Windows DVD Maker and some new games including Chess, Mahjong, and Purble Place),  Internet Explorer 7,Windows Media Player 11, and a large number of underlying architectural changes. Windows Vista has the version number NT 6.0.
Windows Vista ships in six editions: 
? Starter (only available in developing countries)
? Home Basic
? Home Premium
? Business
? Enterprise (only available to large businesses and enterprises)
? Ultimate (combines both Home Premium and Enterprise)
All editions (except Starter edition) are currently available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The biggest advantage of the 64-bit version is breaking the 4 gigabyte memory barrier, which 32-bit computers cannot fully access.
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008, released on 27 February 2008, was originally known as Windows Server Codename "Longhorn". Windows Server 2008 builds on the technological and security advances first introduced with Windows Vista, and is significantly more modular than its predecessor, Windows Server 2003.
Windows Server 2008 ships in ten editions:
? Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (32-bit and 64-bit)
? Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (32-bit and 64-bit)
? Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (32-bit and 64-bit)
? Windows HPC Server 2008
? Windows Web Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)
? Windows Storage Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)
? Windows Small Business Server 2008 (64-bit only)
? Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)
? Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
? Windows Server 2008 Foundation Server

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7 Desktop

Windows 7 is the current major release after Windows Vista and was released to manufacturing on 22 July 2009, and reached general retail availability on 22 October 2009.   It was previously known by the codenames Blackcomb and Vienna. Windows 7 has the version number NT 6.1.
Some features of Windows 7 are faster booting, Device Stage, Windows PowerShell, less obtrusive User Account Control, multi-touch, and improved window management. Features included with Windows Vista and not in Windows 7 include the sidebar (although gadgets remain) and several programs that were removed in favor of downloading theirWindows Live counterparts.
Windows 7 ships in six editions: 
? Starter (available worldwide with new PCs only)
? Home Basic
? Home Premium
? Professional
? Enterprise (available to volume-license business customers only)
? Ultimate (available to retail market with limited availability to OEMs)
In some countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland)[citation needed], there are other editions that lack some features such as Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center and Internet Explorer called names such as "Windows 7 N." Microsoft focuses on selling Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional. All editions, except the Starter edition, are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Unlike the corresponding Vista editions, the Professional and Enterprise editions are supersets of the Home Premium edition.
At the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2008, Microsoft also announced Windows Server 2008 R2, as the server variant ofWindows 7. Windows Server 2008 R2 ships in 64-bit versions (x64 and Itanium) only.


The Windows 7 taskbar

Windows Home Server 2011

Windows Home Server 2011 code named 'Vail'  was released on 6 April 2011.  Windows Home Server 2011 is built on theWindows Server 2008 R2 code base  It follows the release of Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 which added support for Windows 7 to Windows Home Server. Windows Home Server 2011 is considered a "major release".  (its predecessor having been built onWindows Server 2003) and only supports x86-64 hardware.
Windows Thin PC
In 2011, Microsoft introduced Windows Thin PC or WinTPC, which is a feature- and size-reduced locked-down version of Windows 7 expressly designed to turn older PCs into thin clients. WinTPC is available for software assurance customers and relies on cloud computing in a business network. Wireless operation is supported since WinTPC has full wireless stack integration, but wireless operation may not be as good as the operation on a wired connection.  

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012

Bootable USB flash drive, upcoming Windows 8 feature

Screenshot of the new Windows 8 Start Screen

Windows 8 is the upcoming version of Microsoft Windows. It was first mentioned at the 2011Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Microsoft announced that it would include support for system-on-a-chip and mobile ARM processors. On 1 June 2011, Microsoft officially unveiled the operating system at Computex 2011. This release of Windows features a completely new user interface known as Windows Metro. The Metro Interface is designed to make it easier for touchscreen and tablet users to use Windows 8. Metro applications will be launched in fullscreen mode directly from the new Windows 8 Start screen. Metro apps will be able to run on IA-32, x86-64, and ARM processors. The desktop interface will still be present in Windows 8 but ARM tablets will not have the ability to run desktop apps. On the Building Windows 8 blog, it was announced that a computer running Windows 8 can boot up much faster than Windows 7.  New features also include USB 3.0 support, the Windows Store, the ability to run from USB drives with Windows To Go, and others.
The first public preview of Windows Server 2012 was also shown by Microsoft at the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. 
Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows Server 2012 Beta were both released on 29 February 2012.