Microsoft Details Deprecated and Removed Features in Windows 10 Version 1803

As part of its rollout of Windows 10 version 1803 today, Microsoft has published a list of those features that are deprecated and removed in this release.

This isn’t the first time the software giant has provided such a list: It notably listed Paint as a feature it was deprecating in the previous release, Windows 10 version 1709. But the list for version 1803 is pretty long and features some notable changes.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

These are the most important.

Deprecated

Windows Help Viewer. It doesn’t get much more legacy than this.

Phone Companion. This superfluous app has been replaced by the Phone page in Settings.

Removed

Groove Music Pass. The Groove app no longer mentions the discontinued Groove Music Pass and instead promoted Spotify.

HomeGroup. Once called out in Windows 7 Setup, the HomeGroup feature, finally, is dead. That said, users can still share printers, files, and folders like they used to before Windows 7.

XPS Viewer. This waste of time from the Vista days is still technically available from the Apps and Features control panel. But it’s no longer installed by default. Good riddance.

You can check the Microsoft site for the full list of changes.

 

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 55 comments

  • tbtalbot

    Premium Member
    30 April, 2018 - 4:51 pm

    <p>Can EDGE view XPS files?? If not, I'll need to install that XPS viewer….</p>

    • simont

      Premium Member
      30 April, 2018 - 5:51 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#267465"><em>In reply to tbtalbot:</em></a></blockquote><p>People actually use XPS documents?</p>

      • JerryH

        Premium Member
        30 April, 2018 - 6:11 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#267507"><em>In reply to simont:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Yes, they do. We are actively working on a package to put the XPS viewer back for people as there are corporate workflows that use them. I doubt there is anything in Windows at this point that Microsoft could choose to deprecate or remove that won't cause somebody somewhere some issues. Unfortunately for us the groups that need the XPS viewer don't have funding to just go re-write their workflows (it takes a project, some coding, etc.) just because Microsoft decides to dump it. Paul may say "good riddance". Some of us unfortunately have to say, "damn it!".</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        30 April, 2018 - 6:50 pm

        <p><a href="#267507"><em>In reply to simont:</em></a></p><p>Today, as in creating new ones? Maybe not. A decade ago, absolutely.</p><p>Nearly all those .XPS files I still have are financial-related, so I don't want to purge them just yet.</p>

      • mrdrwest

        30 April, 2018 - 8:50 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#267507"><em>In reply to simont:</em></a></blockquote><p>Yep.</p>

    • navarac

      01 May, 2018 - 2:35 am

      <blockquote><a href="#267465"><em>In reply to tbtalbot:</em></a></blockquote><p>Everyone read Microsoft's post before going off half-cock, please…..</p>

  • skane2600

    30 April, 2018 - 4:53 pm

    <p>Windows Help Viewer isn't used as often as it had been, but can be more useful for legacy programs than some of the junk that Microsoft has added in the last few years.</p>

    • DeenVR

      30 April, 2018 - 9:31 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#267466"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></blockquote><p>That's the problem with the entire Windows 8/10 metro era of suck – the stuff they deprecate isn't replaced by an improvement.</p>

    • seapea

      01 May, 2018 - 2:27 am

      <blockquote><a href="#267466"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></blockquote><p>Does this mean legacy program Help files will no longer be viewable in W10?</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        01 May, 2018 - 3:51 am

        <p><a href="#267670"><em>In reply to seapea:</em></a></p><p>You could always use Hyper-V to run Linux in a VM, install wine in the Linux VM, then use its WINHELP.EXE to view .HLP files.</p>

        • skane2600

          01 May, 2018 - 10:57 am

          <blockquote><a href="#267690"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>I don't know which is more convoluted the method you describe or the great lengths you go to, to inject Linux into a discussion that has nothing to do with Linux.</p>

          • hrlngrv

            Premium Member
            02 May, 2018 - 5:45 pm

            <p><a href="#267737"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></p><p>I intended sarcasm but was too lazy to include /s.</p>

    • Boris Zakharin

      01 May, 2018 - 2:15 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#267466"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></blockquote><p>Buy the time I started programming WinHelp was already deprecated in favor of HtmlHelp from the programmer's perspective, but as far as I know that's been deprecated with nothing in its place</p>

      • skane2600

        01 May, 2018 - 3:41 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#267772"><em>In reply to bzakharin:</em></a></blockquote><p>It's really about legacy applications that use it, not about developers targeting it today. HtmlHelp kind of struck me as a kind of "Hey everything needs to be about html now" rather than doing a better job than WinHelp. The fads continue.</p>

        • hrlngrv

          Premium Member
          02 May, 2018 - 5:59 pm

          <p><a href="#267812"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></p><blockquote>It's really about legacy applications that use it . . .</blockquote><p>Which would include Excel in its latest version.</p><p>Excel still supports XLM, it's pre-VBA macro language. It's still useful: define a name to refer to a =GET.DOCUMENT XLM function call to have an array of worksheet names available for use in worksheet cell formulas. Also Excel's Application class's <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ExecuteExcel4Macro method.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Want to learn how to use these without having to treat them as a black box? The </span><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>only official</em></strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> source is a file named MACROFUN.HLP. MSFT has had 2 decades to convert that to .CHM or add it to MSDN. Hasn't happened yet, likely never will. So that leaves one current piece of MSFT software which still has an .HLP file for one of its still existing features.</span></p>

  • madthinus

    Premium Member
    30 April, 2018 - 5:09 pm

    <p>Paint is still better for image editing than Paint3D</p>

    • fishnet37222

      Premium Member
      30 April, 2018 - 5:29 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#267469"><em>In reply to madthinus:</em></a></blockquote><p>Paint.NET is even better than Paint.</p>

      • mrdrwest

        30 April, 2018 - 8:50 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#267500"><em>In reply to fishnet37222:</em></a></blockquote><p>Photoshop is even more better than Paint.Net because it costs lost of money.</p>

        • wright_is

          Premium Member
          02 May, 2018 - 2:12 am

          <blockquote><a href="#267587"><em>In reply to mrdrwest:</em></a></blockquote><p>I had a Photoshop subscription at a previous employer… I still ketp Paint.NET on my system as it was quicker and easier to use for some simpler tasks that Photoshop made unnecessarily complicated.</p><p>For quickly pasting images and putting boxes around items in screenshots, change compression and save, you could load Pain.NET, do the work and quit, before PS had finished loading…</p>

  • Jhambi

    30 April, 2018 - 5:24 pm

    <p>I'm glad they left phone dialer alone. Maybe the next build will include 10 speed dial slots instead of 8. </p>

    • jerrynixon

      30 April, 2018 - 8:27 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#267497"><em>In reply to Jhambi:</em></a></blockquote><p>Wow. Just wow.</p>

  • bassoprofundo

    Premium Member
    30 April, 2018 - 5:29 pm

    <p>I totally hadn't seen the news about Homegroup. All my machines have been joined to the same homegroup ever since I took out my WS2003-based domain controller back in the day, so everybody automatically gets access to shared printers and such. I guess I need to go through and see what I can still access and what I can't on my machines. (Man, I've gotten lazy…)</p>

  • Daekar

    30 April, 2018 - 5:41 pm

    <p>I'm not really in a position to evaluate what should and shouldn't be eliminated – I seem to use a couple subsets of WIndows features and ignore the others – but I am glad, on principle, to see them actively cutting out unnecessary functionality and applications. As Paul consistently reminds us, Windows is a massive chunk of code, so getting rid of anything they don't need to hold onto is a good thing, in my opinion.</p>

    • hrlngrv

      Premium Member
      30 April, 2018 - 6:40 pm

      <p><a href="#267504"><em>In reply to Daekar:</em></a></p><p>If we're going to get into cruft, when was the last time anyone here used EUDCEDIT.EXE to create or tweak their own private character set? I figure XPS Viewer usage is at least 2 orders of magnitude greater.</p><p>Also, I forgot GRPCONV.EXE, the utility to convert Windows 3.x Program Manager groups into Windows 95 Start menu submenus. I suspect WINHELP/.HLP files are more used by several orders of magnitude.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    30 April, 2018 - 6:34 pm

    <p>There was a time Windows didn't come with a PDF printer/output option, so XPS was the best option for saving WYSIWYG <em>'printouts'</em> to disk. People with years worth of records saved in XPS format (like me) may not be so sanguine about the XPS Viewer's downgrade.</p><p>Then again, I use Linux at home, and Okular has no problem with most of the non-MSFT document and image formats I need. And for the ever rarer occasions I need to view .HLP files (actually only MACROFUN.HLP, for Excel 4 and prior XLM functions, which are still supported and still the only means to do certain things without VBA, i.e., group policy can disable the VBA editor, but it can't prevent use of XLM functions), wine's version of WINHELP.EXE is adequate.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      02 May, 2018 - 2:06 am

      <blockquote><a href="#267522"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>There was a time, when Microsoft was sued by Adobe for trying to include PDF output into the OS and Office… So Microsoft came up with XPS instead. Somewhere along the line Adobe relented and the rest is history.</p>

  • Jorge Garcia

    30 April, 2018 - 7:24 pm

    <p>I think they need two more versions of Windows…</p><p>A. Windows "Lean"…(as the rumors already suggest)…a SKU of Windows which should work as "traditional" Windows 10 does, but without occupying more than 5-6GB of drive space.</p><p>B. Windows "Dumb"…something that, in addition to being relatively lean, ONLY runs the Windows store apps (and that is possibly not even called Windows, to avoid the RT fiasco) and that works a lot more like mobile devices do, but not "all the way" mobile, just kind-of mobile. To accomplish this: Keep mouse support, but no more double-click to do ANYTHING. No more ability to change filenames by precisely putting a cursor over the icon name and clicking and a host of other similarly "too precise" things which Windows has always offered. I personally do enjoy the amazing precision of Windows, but the truth is normal people don't need so much precision, and it just gets in the way and annoys them, turning them on to Chromebooks even more. Microsoft can't just cater to the ultra-precise nerd crowd any more, and I think they know that. I know Skane2600 will protest this and not be able to wrap his mind around what I'm proposing, but I am NOT saying please "dumb-down REAL Windows (even more)" I'm saying "make a separate Windows SKU that is Windows for dummies". This still won't stave off the Chrome/Fuchsia apocalypse that MS is facing, but at least they can have an offering that stops turning off younger users who find all the precision of Windows FRUSTRATING.</p><p><br></p>

    • skane2600

      01 May, 2018 - 1:57 am

      <blockquote><a href="#267544"><em>In reply to JG1170:</em></a></blockquote><p>I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you imagine anyone who disagrees with you suffers from some kind of limitation such as not being able to "wrap their mind" around your argument.</p>

  • sgtaylor5

    30 April, 2018 - 8:12 pm

    <p>XPS documents? QuickBooks Desktop on Windows uses XPS to make interim copies of reports, then it uses Amiyuni PDF Converter to turn <em>that</em> into your PDF report. A bigger kludge I've never seen. (and hope that it doesn't break somewhere in the background… <em>EVER</em>…)</p><p><br></p><p>QuickBooks Desktop also needs Internet Explorer in the background, too, or it won't even load. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Microsoft truly sunsets IE.</p><p><br></p><p>Luckily, I'm on a Mac now, where QuickBooks Desktop PDF is mostly sane.</p>

  • mrdrwest

    30 April, 2018 - 8:48 pm

    <p>But, but…I used XPS…aargh!!!!!!!</p>

  • red.radar

    Premium Member
    30 April, 2018 - 10:17 pm

    <p>Can’t wait for the phone calls from dear ol dad on the home group support disappearing … thanks for the heads up Paul. I can take two shots and brace myself for the angry rant they are changing for the sake of change ….</p>

  • Tony Barrett

    01 May, 2018 - 10:25 am

    <p>Windows as many new (and loved) it is gone forever. It's just a data slurping ad platform now. MS will slowly keep depreciating those oft used and useful 'legacy' win32 apps, and either replace them with inferior UWP versions or not at all. In the end, Windows will just be an empty shell compared to what it was. Win10 doesn't bear any resemblance to what Windows used to be. I know times move on, but MS are turning it into some type of gaudy side show – lots of features to attract people, but not much else besides. It's no longer a power users platform. It's no longer a rock solid dev platform. It's no longer tested to death inside Redmond. It's no longer Microsoft's no.1 poster boy. It's actually a sad shadow of what used to be and could have been.</p>

    • DeenVR

      01 May, 2018 - 12:05 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#267723"><em>In reply to ghostrider:</em></a></blockquote><p>Boom. Exactly what many of us longtime but now alienated windows fans feel.</p>

  • Darekmeridian

    01 May, 2018 - 5:33 pm

    <p>Get a hold of your XPS viewing selves.. good grief</p><p><br></p><p>https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11816</p><p><br></p><p><br></p&gt;

  • plettza

    01 May, 2018 - 9:12 pm

    <p>Why remove Homegroup? They should've improved its reliability rather than entirely remove it. </p><p><br></p><p>I rolled back to 1709. I don't intend to upgrade Windows to 1803 any time soon.</p><p><br></p><p>I still have a Windows Home Server 2011 which runs the Homegroup and a number of different PCs that connect to it. I know I can set up file sharing manually, but it's a pain in the arse with the 7 PCs I have. With Homegroup, all I do is join and enter a password. Done.</p><p><br></p><p>I'm over the shit Microsoft's pulling these days.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      02 May, 2018 - 2:19 am

      <blockquote><a href="#268449"><em>In reply to plettza:</em></a></blockquote><p>If you have already shared / are already in a Home Group, according to the MS page, they shares will still work. Newly installed PCs will have to manually share.</p><p>I always saw Home Groups as a security issue and never used them.</p>

  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    02 May, 2018 - 6:33 am

    <p>Everyone, please read… XPS Viewer is still there, it's just not installed by default. For the few percent of users that need it, they can still install it.</p><p>XPS itself isn't going away. It forms the basis of many in-box printer drivers for major manufacturers. It's also an open standard and there are plenty of viewers – free &amp; open source even – that can render to and from XPS. It was an alternative to PDF, and now that print-to-PDF support is baked in to Windows, and PDF viewing is baked in to Windows, XPS isn't going to get a lot of end-user use.</p><p>If you need it, install it. Same goes for things like Message Queue and the telnet command-line client. XPS Viewer wasn't installed by default on remote desktop servers for years but was always available in that "turn windows features on and off" window.</p>

    • hrlngrv

      Premium Member
      02 May, 2018 - 5:35 pm

      <p><a href="#268526"><em>In reply to IanYates82:</em></a></p><p>I think the point is more that if it's still widely used, why wouldn't it be installed by default? OTOH, if it's not being installed by default because fewer than half of Windows PC users use it, how many Windows PC users have run GRPCONV.EXE in the last 15 years? At the very least, MSFT's priorities in this regard are a mystery.</p>

  • Davco

    02 May, 2018 - 7:29 am

    <p>XPS Viewer is still present after the 1709&gt;1803 update, no need to activate it via the control panel. I used it this morning without even knowing it was deleted. Then, on a clean installation, perhaps it should be activated, but not following an update.&nbsp;</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC