List of Features Removed in Windows Vista - Other Windows Shell and Usability Features

Other Windows Shell and Usability Features

• The colors for EFS-encrypted files, item hot-tracking (single click hover) and many others cannot be changed as was possible up to Windows XP.
• The setting to configure Recycle Bin maximum allocated size globally (across all drives) has been removed and the equivalent Group Policy is not supported. Recycle Bin maximum size must be configured individually for each drive in MB.
• Some functionality of the shell namespace extension for the Downloaded Program Files folder which hosts ActiveX controls is broken. ActiveX controls no longer show "Update" and "Delete" context menu verbs when right clicked. As a result, they can no longer be updated or deleted using the Downloaded Program Files folder.
• Folders and sub-folders placed inside the Send To menu will no longer cascade i.e. expand as submenus. As a result, it is not possible to group items in the SendTo menu.
• AutoPlay settings cannot be configured per-device; they are set globally.
• It is not possible to list fonts by similarity based on PANOSE information or hide font variations such as Bold, Italic, etc. in the Fonts folder.
• Menus cannot be set to slide anymore using the user interface. Only the fade effect is available.
• Some functions such as shell execute hooks and named exports have been deprecated or removed from shell32.dll.
• The Windows Script Host WshShell.SendKeys method, as well as the SendKeys function in development environments such as Visual Basic 6, no longer work on Vista when UAC is enabled. Version 3.0 of the .NET Framework has been updated to work around the issue.
• It is no longer possible to copy text fragments and other similar objects from a document, and paste them to a folder as a file (called a shell scrap object or "Document shortcut", but actually an OLE object).
• Active Desktop functionality has been removed. As a result, animated GIF files can no longer be set as the desktop background. No other dynamic web content such as HTML or HTA files can run on the desktop, although Windows DreamScene (released only for Windows Vista Ultimate) allows using videos as the background and dynamic web content can run as part of Sidebar gadgets.
• The Snap To mouse pointer option to move the pointer automatically to the default button in a dialog is broken on many system and application dialog boxes and windows in Windows Vista and later. The mouse pointer simply does not move or snap to the default button in several dialogs.