Microsoft is ending support for some deprecated features and technologies in Windows. These are mainly services from another era that will disappear in future updates.

Microsoft not only adds features to Windows but also removes features from time to time. This happens all the time because Microsoft generally attaches great importance to backwards compatibility. However, at a certain point the technology becomes too outdated to provide support. In this case, Microsoft will stop development and the features will no longer be supported.

Written off

Deprecated features are no longer updated and will no longer be included in future versions of Windows. Over time, the features are effectively removed from Windows, although it’s not always clear when exactly this will happen. Three features are being updated this month:

• The computer browser: This is a service and associated driver that dates back to the Windows NT era. Both were already disabled by default in Windows, but now Microsoft is finally stopping them. Don’t confuse the computer browser with the Internet browser: Microsoft has no plans to push Edge less aggressively.
• The Web Client Service (WebDAV).: This service includes extensions to the HTTP protocol that allow users to add remote network folders as network drives over the Internet. This meant that a network folder remained available outside the local network. This function is no longer relevant today either. WebDAV is disabled by default and disappears.
• Remote mail slots: This is a more obscure communications protocol that dates back to the MS-DOS era and is, according to Microsoft, outdated, simple, unreliable and insecure. Reason enough to remove it.

Overall, the number of positions that have to be eliminated this month is limited. In September, it emerged that WordPad ended up on the deprecated features list. The disappearance of this tool will likely have a slightly larger impact than the features mentioned above.