Windows 10 is fast approaching and while there’s no immediate need to upgrade from 8.1, or even 7, odds are you’ll want to make the jump eventually. Before you do, you’d best check out the Windows 10 “feature deprecation section”, to make sure your favourite features aren’t being cut from the latest release.
It’s to be expected you’ll run into a few driver incompatibilities and unsupported hardware and software, but what can sometimes catch you off guard is when entire features are dropped from the core operating system.
Probably the biggest cut is Windows Media Center, but it’s not the only thing getting the boot. From Microsoft’s Windows 10 specification page:
Feature deprecation section
- If you have Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Pro with Media Center, or Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center and you install Windows 10, Windows Media Center will be removed.
- Watching DVDs requires separate playback software
- Windows 7 desktop gadgets will be removed as part of installing Windows 10.
- Windows 10 Home users will have updates from Windows Update automatically available. Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise users will have the ability to defer updates.
- Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Hearts Games that come pre-installed on Windows 7 will be removed as part of installing the Windows 10 upgrade. Microsoft has released our version of Solitaire and Minesweeper called the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” and “Microsoft Minesweeper.”
- If you have a USB floppy drive, you will need to download the latest driver from Windows Update or from the manufacturer’s website.
- If you have Windows Live Essentials installed on your system, the OneDrive application is removed and replaced with the inbox version of OneDrive.
Nothing particularly drastic, though if you love desktop gadgets in Windows 7, you might want to think twice about upgrading to Windows 10 — at least until you find some replacements. I doubt the floppy drive thing will bother anyone… I expect more people will be put out by the loss of Solitaire.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo Australia on June 5th