Vista Features/Changes
* Support for Unicode 5.0[55]
* File type associations can be set on a per-user basis now meaning default programs for file types and tasks can be different for each individual user.
* A number of new fonts:[56]
o Latin fonts: Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas (monotype), Constantia, and Corbel. Segoe UI, previously used in Windows XP Media Center Edition, is also included, despite licensing issues with Linotype.
o Meiryo, supporting the new and modified characters of the JIS X 0213:2004 standard[57]
o Non-Latin fonts: Microsoft JhengHei (Chinese Traditional), Microsoft YaHei (Chinese Simplified), Majalla UI (Arabic), Gisha (Hebrew), Leelawadee (Thai) and Malgun Gothic (Korean).
o Support for Adobe CFF/Type2 fonts, which provides support for contextual and discretionary ligatures.
* Ability to natively set a JPEG file as a wallpaper without using Active Desktop (which is no longer supported).[58] Also, the aspect ratio of images is maintained properly.
* Native raw image support (a variety of formats used by professional digital cameras) through Windows Imaging Component.
* RSS platform: Native embedded RSS support, with developer API.
* The "My" prefixes for various system folders have been dropped, for example "My Documents" is "Documents", "My Computer" is "Computer", etc.
* The long "Documents and Settings" folder is now just "Users", although a symbolic link called "Documents and Settings" is kept for compatibility.
* New support for infrared receivers and Bluetooth 2.0 wireless standards; devices supporting these can transfer files and sync data wirelessly to a Windows Vista PC with no additional software.
* A new Task Dialog API to address the common misuse of the old Message Box API and make designing custom dialogs easier.
* Common dialogs for applications such as Open, Save, Choose folder, Print, Page Setup, Font have been enhanced.
* WebDAV has been enhanced to support operation over SSL connections, as well as connecting on alternate ports. An update for Windows XP SP2 which supports this feature is also available. [2]
* A non-administrator user can share only the folders under his user profile. In addition, all users have a Public folder which is shared, though an administrator can override this.
* HD Photo (previously known as Windows Media Photo)[59] is a high quality photographic still image format, that will be debuting with Windows Vista. It is the preferred image format for XPS documents.
* Images are now viewable in a new viewer which is based on Windows Photo Gallery. It also supports viewing videos.
* Network Projection[60] is used to detect and use network-connected projectors. It can then be used to display a presentation, or share a presentation with the machine which hosts the projector. You can now do this over a network so multiple sources can be connected at different times without having to keep moving the sources or projectors around. The network projector can be connected to the network via wireless or cable (LAN) technology to make it even more flexible. You can not only connect to the network projector remotely but you can also remote configure it.
* Windows Vista includes a Games folder (also known as the Games Explorer), which provides access to all installed games from a single location, thereby making it easy to manage multiple games.
* New monitor configuration APIs make it possible to adjust the monitor's display area, save and restore display settings, calibrate color and use vendor-specific monitor features. Overall too, Windows Vista is more resolution-independent than Windows XP and scales well to high resolutions and high DPI displays. Also, Transient Multimon Manager (TMM), a new feature that uses the monitor's EDID enables automatic detection, setup and proper configuration of additional or multiple displays as they are attached and removed on the fly. The settings are saved on a per-display basis when possible, so that users can move among multiple displays easily.
* DFS Replication[61], the successor to File Replication Service, is a state-based replication engine for file replication among DFS shares, which supports replication scheduling and bandwidth throttling. It uses Remote Differential Compression to detect and replicate only the change to files, rather than replicating entire files, if changed.
* Help and Support in Windows Vista is aimed to be more meaningful and clear. You can even add your own content to Help and Support Center. Guided Help, or Active Content Wizard is an automated tutorial and self-help system available from the Help & Support Center in which Windows performs system actions such as showing hidden files, and the procedure is shown in animated steps so users are acquainted with how to perform those tasks[62]. It highlights only the options and the parts of screen that are relevant to the task and darkening the rest of the screen. A separate file format is used for ACW help files.
* All standard text editing controls and all versions of the 'RichEdit' control now support the Text Services Framework.
* Windows Data Access Components (Windows DAC) replace MDAC 2.81 which shipped with Windows XP Service Pack 2.
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Windows XP Features Excluded
* GDI and GDI+ applications running in the new compositing engine, Desktop Window Manager, are no longer hardware-accelerated as of the release of Windows Vista.
* Since Windows Vista features a rewritten audio stack and does not inherit the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for audio that was present under previous versions of Windows, including Windows XP, there will be no more hardware acceleration of DirectSound and DirectSound3D APIs. As a result, hardware 3D algorithms for audio spatializations such as EAX, HRTF etc. using these APIs will be lost. Developers can use OpenAL to use 3D audio spatializations. [63]
* User interface for advanced file type functionality (such as defining custom secondary actions or showing extensions only for specific file types) has been removed. Vista-compatible applications are expected to use new Default Programs API. [64]
* Windows Messenger is being removed entirely; no replacement for it is expected to be included, in favour of a link to Windows Live Messenger on the Welcome Center.
* NetMeeting is also being removed entirely, in favor of Windows Meeting Space.
* Internet Explorer is no longer integrated with Windows Explorer. This can also be seen in Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
* Windows XP's well-known Luna theme has been removed.
* The Gopher protocol, an old protocol now considered obsolete, is no longer supported.
* MS-CHAP v1 protocol is no longer supported for VPN authentication, in favor of MS-CHAP v2. [65]
* Several old and little-used technologies have been removed from Internet Explorer: DirectAnimation support, Direct3D Retained Mode, XBM images, CDF, telnet protocol handlers, and 40-bit SSL ciphers.
* HTML source is more easily accessed through a browser than through the protocol.
* Links to the Backgammon, Hearts, Reversi, Spades and Checkers games on MSN Gaming Zone have been removed. Pinball has also been removed.
* Motherboard support for ACPI is required for Windows Vista; as a result, older motherboards supporting only Advanced Power Management will no longer work. Other "legacy" hardware technologies no longer supported include: EISA buses, game ports, MPU-401, AMD K6/2+ Mobile Processors, Mobile Pentium II, and Mobile Pentium III SpeedStep; ISAPnP[66] is disabled by default.
* Startup Hardware Profiles have been removed.
* Unlike Outlook Express, Windows Mail has no support for HTTP mail via the WebDAV protocol (used by older Hotmail accounts and Yahoo! Mail); the addition of Windows Live Mail Desktop is likely to be required for similar functionality and there is a link to this from the Welcome Center.
* IPX networks are no longer supported.
* rexec, rsh, finger, and some other command-line tools primarily used to communicate with UNIX-based systems have been removed from the default installation. The Subsystem for Unix-based applications (SUA) (previously known as Services for Unix) still provides them as an optional component.
* Rarely used protocols such as Bandwidth Allocation Protocol and X.25 support for SLIP have also been removed. SLIP connections are automatically upgraded to use PPP.
* Due to unpopularity, IP over 1394 (FireWire) support has been removed.[67]
* Windows Explorer's Web Publishing Wizard has been removed.
* HyperTerminal has been removed.
* Services for Macintosh, which provided file and print sharing via the now deprecated AppleTalk protocol, has been removed.
* SerialKeys, an accessibility feature for augmentative communicative devices is no longer supported. [68]
* FrontPage Server Extensions has been dropped and is being replaced with Windows SharePoint Services client support.
* Support for enabling a folder for web sharing with Internet Information Services via the Windows Explorer interface has been removed.
* NetDDE, a technology that allows applications using the DDE transport to transparently exchange data over a network, is no longer supported. [58]
* As with x64 editions of Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003, in x86-64 versions of Windows Vista, NTVDM, the subsystem for running (emulating) 16-bit applications is no longer present.
* The ability to view and edit metadata stored in a file's secondary stream through the "Summary" tab of the file's "Property" dialog has been removed.[69]
* Support for reading .DOC files has been removed from WordPad, and is instead done with Microsoft's Word Viewer. [70]
* The Toolbar button in Explorer to go up one folder from the current folder has been removed.
* Version 6.4 of Windows Media Player (mplayer2.exe) is no longer included.
* Support for built-in H.323 Voice Over IP (VOIP) capabilities has been removed (NetMeeting, TAPI H.323 TSP and Windows Dialer all no longer exist).
