On the Engineering Windows 7 blog they have detailed a new feature in the Release Candidate of Windows 7 that enables switching on or off of features.It properly good to be able to switch of some things like games and DVD Maker to clean up your system, but you have to wonder how many support calls are going to come in from people looking for Windows Media Center when it’s been switched off.

“Turning Windows Features On or Off” has a long history in Windows, going back to the earliest days of the 32-bit code base. We’ve received a lot of suggestions about features that you would like to turn on or off using your own criteria for choice. For Windows 7 we’ve engineered a more significant list of features and worked to balance that list in light of the needs of the broad Windows platform as well. We want to provide choice while also making sure we do not compromise on compatibility by removing APIs provided for developers. We also want to strike the right balance for consumers in providing choice and balancing compatibility with applications and providing a consistent Windows experience.”

Windows Features control panel

More details on the E7 blog post

6 thoughts on “Windows 7 RC has Windows Feature On / Off function”
  1. Anyone else notice the addition of Internet Explorer in the features you can turn off now 🙂
    an almost pre-emptive step to please the EU?

  2. “you have to wonder how many support calls are going to come in from people looking for Windows Media Center when it’s been switched off”

    errr… none?

    Although we all love it, it’s hardly something that most people use.

  3. Haven’t we always had this under Add or Remove Programs? I’m looking at XP now and there is a tab there for Add/Remove Windows Components.

Leave a Reply