What are some of your most missed removed/scrapped features from past Windows versions?  

Britton30, post: 32579, member: 46 said:

I think I miss the part where the OS would quit working once a year and needed a reinstall. I've had this install or Win 7 for over two years now.

Heh. By tempting fate you may be due for a repair install any time now.

MilesAhead, post: 32603, member: 195 said:

Heh. By tempting fate you may be due for a repair install any time now.

If your running Windows 8, the need to reinstall yearly has been replaced by the need to update to keep up with the rapid release cycle.

alphanumeric, post: 32640, member: 152 said:

If your running Windows 8, the need to reinstall yearly has been replaced by the need to update to keep up with the rapid release cycle.

Never thought about before, but yeah, you've hit the nail directly on head.

If you don't lose all your installed programs and updates, then that's an improvement. A Guy

Well, i kinda used computers before acronym "PC" was even invented but never had my own "IBM Compatible" until x386 SX 16. I may be prejudiced because my first computer with GUI was Atari ST but my favorite OS will always be TOS (Tramiel Operating Sytem). On a1040ST I used MsDos emulator that run faster than on a x286 and with an HW adapter Macintosh too.
One nice summer day with BBQ and bear, my neighbor that used to program for "Computer Associates" brought me a diskette or two with something he said will be called "Windows". We immediately stuck it in my Atari and DOS emulator. It had a black screen with some red lined squares that could be moved around and you could run programs in each one using DOS commands. Those squares, he said, were called windows. Having Atari at that time and seeing Macintosh at work, I didn't think too much about those Windows. I kinda skipped and hopped over Win 1.0 and had just a passing interest in 2.0 until my first 386 and Win 3.0 and leter on 3.1 and 3.11 at the end when Win 95 was already on it's way. Than I snapped up a Beta of W95 and used it until that faithful day in July I think when I waited in front of computer store until 2 AM (I was in Toronto than) to buy full version. It took couple of hours to install it and with my astonishment found out that it had many features less than Beta. Later on I found out that it was because of a dispute with Peter Norton and some of his stuff in it. Internet was just starting than so there was not much you had to take out of the system, much more had to be installed extra.
Of coursed after that I vent with all other iterations of Win, 97 (Win9 SE), 98, Millennium with forays into NTs and 2000. Only when XP came out I could say "At last, real windows". Now finally. there was something to take out of, to change bunch of defaults remove and ad/replace.
First thing was to kill some services, security center notifications and rifle thru Windows Components Wizzard, uninstall stupid games, shut down automatic updates, Windows Firewall, set Taskbar to Autohide an Start menu to show Control panel, Run, Write, Calc etc. in Start menu. Besides MS Toys there was a nice program called "Xp-Antispy" that would help with a lot of settings connected to system security. Of the programs to install, first would be "Total Commander", some AV and MM codecs. Drivers are of course a must, between first stuff installed.
With Win 7, there was much less to take out/change. Together with stuff usual in XP I also made sure System Restore would work only with system/boot drive, disable Recycle bin and replace some default programs with some that I already established as working better than M$ ones. After SP1 here was not much else to change, just sit and enjoy windows.
At the end, Win 8 showed up, I started with an Alpha, than Beta but I used it on a separate disk with W7 disk in dual boot with XP Sp3 disconnected because W8 at that stage manged to mangle up rest of systems. Only RC Win8, I kept with W7 as dual boot. With "Full size" Win8, only things I took out were stupid Live tiles except for weather, all other Apps left at "Ignore", almost all other stuff was already set to my liking and same as I had to do manually in previous windows. 8.1 and 8.1.1 took care of most of my wishes, so now I'm looking forward ti see what 8.2 will bring and even more Win9. Who knows,maybe even new Start menu will be more usable than in Win7, never had any use for it there.

I think there are a lot of features that I missed seeing removed at the time, but as time marches on, it becomes less important.

[@TechnoMage]
Pure DOS compatibility in Win9x meant we were running a hybrid system of real mode and protected mode drivers. Whereas Windows NT is a real, from the ground-up OS. It is much more stable. And I dunno. The DELTREE command; isn't that replicated by right-clicking and deleting a folder? If I am using a graphical system, why would I want a text mode command?

By the way, Windows NT emulates the DOS 5x command set (just like OS/2 did) so that's why DELTREE is missing. Also notice you can't type MEM /C /P and the results of CHKDSK don't show commas.

I mostly miss the Direct Sound audio stack in XP and before. Recording the output of one's audio device is not as easily done as before, and the Direct Sound emulation on DirectX plugins can inject artifacts like pops and clicks.

I miss the mindset of tight, efficient coding instead of software bloat. Could you imagine what 2 GB of RAM on a hyperthreaded NetBurst (P IV) processor would do today if we coded tightly? Would we have even needed DuoCore?