The balloon notification (or dialog box) that warns the users when removing external flash storage devices without safe unmounting has been removed.[1]
The Line Up Icons command on the
desktop was removed and replaced by the Align to Grid option.[2] Due to this being a toggle, simply aligning desktop icons once without further constraining their placement requires an extra
click.[3]: 47
The Minimize all windows command on the
taskbar was removed.[3]: 76 The purported replacement, Show the desktop, co-existed with this feature on Windows 2000 and in any case only hides
windows temporarily instead of actually minimizing them. It is still accessible through the ⊞
Win+Mkeyboard shortcut but it is not available through the
mouse.
The Show icons using all possible colors (which was previously introduced in
Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 and
Windows NT 4.0) option in Display Properties has been removed. Icons are always shown using all possible colors. Microsoft states that this is by design.[4]
The
VGAscreen resolution and
8-bit color depth options have been removed from the Settings tab of Display Properties. It is still possible to select these options using the Advanced button available under this tab, however Microsoft states that this workaround is unsupported.[5]
In the
Command Prompt, QuickEdit mode and Insert mode are disabled by default.[6]
The "Starting Windows..." message before the boot screen (which was present in Windows 2000) has been removed.
The
progress bar on the boot screen was changed from a determinate progress bar seen in Windows 2000 to an
indeterminate one. The animated gradient bar seen on the boot screens of Windows 95, 98, Me and Windows 2000 was also removed, as was the text "Starting up…" which was located next to the progress bar in Windows 2000's boot screen.
Personalization
With the Desktop Themes utility in 2000 becoming the Themes tab in Display Properties in XP, the Rotate theme monthly option in Desktop Themes, which was introduced in
Microsoft Plus! 98 and later included in Windows 2000 and Me, and both the options to select what parts of a theme to apply and the previews for parts of a theme were removed.
The previous wallpapers and tiles from Windows 95–98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 including the Plus! wallpaper were removed.
The Utopia sound scheme, first included in Windows 95 and included up to Windows Me, was removed. Despite this, the files for the sound scheme are still included on the Windows XP
CD-ROM in the i386 folder and could be manually installed on Windows XP from the CD-ROM.
It is no longer possible to save or delete schemes under the Appearance tab of Display Properties.
The option to select a Pattern under the Background (9x/NT)/Desktop (XP) tab of Display Properties was removed. Users can only set a pattern with the
Registry Editor.[9]
The 3D FlowerBox, 3D Flying Objects, 3D Pipes and 3D Text screensavers have been updated and dropped support for
OpenGL in favor of
Direct3D.
The 3D Flying Objects screensaver was updated to replace the classic
Windowslogo in use since
Windows 3.1 with the then-new Windows logo introduced with Windows XP, while the 3D Maze and Flying Windowsscreensavers were removed entirely as they were never updated to accommodate the aforementioned Windows logo changes. The 3D Pipesteapoteaster egg was also removed from Windows XP.
Web view in
folders was disabled by default but can be reinstated by editing the
registry. Additionally, the Customize This Folder Wizard was removed.[11] Due to the removal of Web view,
pie charts showing disk space are no longer available immediately upon opening a drive.[12]
The
status bar no longer shows the free space remaining on the given disk when browsing through folder paths of shell namespace extensions,[13] removable drives,[14] and network shares when the navigation pane (Folders) in Windows Explorer is turned on, unlike in Windows 2000. It continues to show the free space remaining only for paths on local drives. In combination with the Web view-related lack of pie charts previously mentioned, this means it is no longer possible to immediately view the amount of space remaining in these three cases.
The Directory icon was removed from My Network Places.[15]
The default sort order in Windows Explorer has changed but can be restored by editing the registry.[16]
DVD Player is no longer usable as it is now a
stub that simply opens Windows Media Player.
The WinMe 3D preset in the Musical Colors visualization was replaced with Ice Crystals in
Windows Media Player version 8. The name still exists within the files of the visualization. Some of the previous Windows Media Player skins that were in Windows Me was removed entirely. Musical Colors was not included with Windows Media Player version 9 on clean installs of Windows XP starting with Service Pack 2, but is retained if the player is upgraded from version 8 to 9.
NetDDE[21] and
NetBEUI,[22] which are included in earlier versions of Windows, are no longer installed by default but can still be manually installed from the Windows XP CD-ROM.
The
Microsoft OS/2 subsystem, which supports 16-bit character-based OS/2 applications and emulates OS/2 1.x but not 32-bit or graphical OS/2 applications as used with OS/2 2.x or later, was removed.[25]
Program Manager was removed and replaced with
Windows Explorer. The executable is still present, but it was replaced with a
stub that redirects to Explorer.
The radio edit of
David Byrne's "
Like Humans Do", as previously included in the original and Service Pack 1 releases of Windows XP, was removed.
The Windows Movie Maker Sample File (generated by Windows Movie Maker 1.1 when it is started for the first time), which consisted of clips of a male child riding a tricycle, playing in a playground, and then running in a field, was removed.
The boot screens for all editions of Windows XP have been unified by Service Pack 2 for Windows XP with a new one that no longer displays the SKU, with the boot screen for Home Edition using a blue progress bar instead of green. The copyright years on the boot screen were also removed.
^
abKarp, David A.; O'Reilly, Tim; Mott, Troy (2005). Windows XP in a Nutshell (2nd ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN0596009003. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
^Mark Edward Soper (2004).
Absolute Beginner's Guide to A+ Certification. Indianapolis, IN: Que Publishing. p. 519.
ISBN0789730626.
Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved February 3, 2020. Other size options are also available in Windows 2000; the /f:size option is not supported in Windows XP.