Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual

Appendix C. Where’d It Go?

As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. And on the road to Windows 8.1, Microsoft broke enough eggs to make a Texan soufflé. Features got moved, renamed, and ripped out completely.

If you’re fresh from Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, or even the original Windows 8, you might spend your first few days with Windows 8.1 wondering where things went. Here’s a handy cheat sheet of features that aren’t in Windows 8.1 (or aren’t where you think they should be).

• Ad hoc networking. Microsoft removed the link that lets you set up this PC-to-PC wireless network. The feature is still available, though; Power outlet networks has details.

• Add or Remove Programs control panel. The Control Panel applet called Programs and Features performs the software-removal function. No Control Panel applet remains to add software, because every program these days comes with its own installer.

• Aero. Amazing. Microsoft must have spent tens of millions of dollars advertising the animated eye candy known as Aero in Windows 7: see-through window edges, flippy window switching, and so on. It’s all gone in Windows 8.1.

• Briefcase. This handy tool for syncing files between two computers has, after several decades, finally been taken out behind the barn and shot. It’s gone from Windows 8.1.

• CardSpace. This app was supposed to store your online identities, but Microsoft has abandoned it now.

• Chess Titans. No games come with Windows 8.1.

• Classic theme. If you ...