X-Nico

53 unusual facts about Microsoft Windows


4oD

The service was originally available as a Windows-only desktop program for downloading shows similar to BBC iPlayer Desktop.

ABC notation

Such software is readily available for most computer systems including Microsoft Windows, Unix/Linux, Macintosh, PalmOS, and web-based.

Active Directory Rights Management Services

Windows Rights Management Services (also called Rights Management Services, Active Directory Rights Management Services or RMS) is a form of Information Rights Management used on Microsoft Windows that uses encryption and a form of selective functionality denial for limiting access to documents such as corporate e-mail, Word documents, and web pages, and the operations authorized users can perform on them.

Altsys

It was published for many years, originally only on the Macintosh, then also for Microsoft Windows.

Analysis of molecular variance

This program, which runs on Windows is called Arlequin, and is freely available on Excoffier's website.

Apple Open Directory

Any Mac OS X Server system prior to 10.7 (Lion) configured as an Open Directory Master can act as a Windows Primary Domain Controller (PDC), providing domain authentication services to Microsoft Windows clients.

Arek Dreyer

He maintains expertise in Microsoft Windows and UNIX based environments, particularly Sun Solaris, Mac OS X has become his preferred platform, and he enjoys the challenge of heterogeneous networks like integration with Active Directory.

AVADirect

They specialize in highly customized computer systems including Microsoft Windows and Linux servers, high-end workstations and gaming systems, business PCs, and notebooks.

British and Malaysian English differences

Most computer software in Malaysia including Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office come pre-set with English (United States) as the default and these settings are seldom changed to English (United Kingdom) resulting in the proliferation of American English in many places of work, local universities and other places with heavy reliance on documents and content created by using computers.

BTRON

The Desktop PC operating system market is dominated by Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Condusiv Technologies

The company was formerly known as Diskeeper Corporation, a name derived from its flagship product, Diskeeper, a file-system defragmentation software package for Microsoft Windows and OpenVMS.

Corel Linux

SmartMove looks for existing Microsoft Windows installations on the machine, looks a little further for individual users, and offers to transfer application settings to analogous programs under Linux.

Cython

Cython is written in Python and works on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, producing source files compatible with CPython 2.4 through 3.3.

DexDrive

The product shipped with a Windows driver application, called DexPlorer, on two 3.5" floppy disks.

DV

Most Windows video software only supports DV packed into AVI containers, as they use Microsoft's avifile.dll, which only supports reading avi files.

Dysart Unified School District

In December 2009, Dysart Unified School District became the first Arizona School District to switch nearly one-third, or 3,000 of their desktop computer systems to a Linux based operating system from the proprietary Microsoft Windows.

EDonkey2000

On September 16, 2000, client and server versions were available for Microsoft Windows and Linux.

Emergency Management Services

Emergency Management Services (EMS) provides an RS-232 accessible serial console interface to the bootloader menu on modern versions of Microsoft Windows.

FarSite Communications Limited

Various communications protocols are supported by the PC-based communications cards on both Linux and Windows operating systems, including

FlashCP

It is part of the mtd-utils package, unrelated to the above, proprietary, closed source, Windows software.

Hearts

It also became known through the Microsoft version of the game packaged with most workstation versions of its popular Windows operating system, beginning in version 3.5

IBM Open Class

IOC was an extensive set of C++ classes used to build CLI and GUI applications which could then be easily cross-compiled to OS/2, Microsoft Windows, and AIX.

InterVideo WinDVR

InterVideo WinDVR was a commercial digital video recorder (DVR) software package for Windows operating systems.

Language Interface Pack

Unlike MUI packs which are available only to Microsoft volume license customers and for select SKUs of Windows Vista, a Language Interface Pack is available freely and can be installed on a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows or Office and a fixed base language.

Lantastic

LANtastic was a peer-to-peer local area network (LAN) operating system for DOS, Microsoft Windows, Novell NetWare and OS/2.

Lapsiporno.info

Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI) have noticed that the blacklist includes non-pornographic websites also, including a Windows advice forum, a computer repair service and the Internet Initiative Japan server nn.iij4u.or.jp that, among others, hosts websites for a violin factory, a doll store and a hearing aid manufacturer.

Lotus DataLens

Lotus also released two user-oriented query builders, the DOS-based Query Builder which could interact with DataLens sources but was not built on it, and the Windows-based Data Query Assistant (DQA) which was built directly on DataLens.

M+NetMail

NetMail components are available for SUSE and Red Hat Linux, Novell NetWare v5.1 and later, Novell Open Enterprise Server (in both its OES-Linux and OES-NetWare versions), and Microsoft Windows platforms.

Mike Muuss

Due to its usefulness, ping has been implemented on a large number of operating systems, initially BSD Unix, but later others including Windows and Mac OS X.

MultitrackStudio

MultitrackStudio or MTS for short is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed by Bremmers Audio Design.

MusicPrinter Plus

Plans for the Windows version evolved into Dr. Jarrett's current project Notion.

OpenCodecs

OpenCodecs is a software package for enabling HTML5 video on Microsoft Windows, particularly using the Theora and WebM codecs in Internet Explorer.

PaPeRo

In 2006, a virtual PaPeRo was released for use in any PC running the Windows operating system and the Pocket PC, which can be used to program or monitor the use of the PaPeRo operating system.

Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol

All releases of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 OSR2 are bundled with a PPTP client, although they are limited to only 2 concurrent outbound connections.

Protect Software

ProtectDISC Software is a copy protection and digital rights management solution for Microsoft Windows applications and video games on mass replicated CDs and DVDs, designed to prevent the copying of discs for casual or commercial use.

PwnageTool

Although PwnageTool is only for Mac OS X, a Microsoft Windows version called WinPwn was developed but is now retired.

Richard T. Russell

Richard Thomas Russell is the creator of the BBC BASIC for Windows programming language and the author of the Z80 and MS-DOS versions of BBC BASIC.

Rua 25 de Março

A person who shops here also runs the risk of getting caught by the government, though the dangers are quite low unless it is a foreigner bringing illegal goods back into their developed country, such as illegal electronics and software like Microsoft Windows, among other things.

ServersCheck

It can perform traditional network related checks (TCP, PING, traceroute) but can also be used to monitor a wide variety of other checks such as internet related checks (url, email chain, database checks, Windows checks (diskspace, CPU, memory, process, services).

Shift JIS art

Unlike Western ASCII art, which is generally designed to be viewed with a monospaced font, Shift JIS art is designed around the proportional-width MS PGothic font supplied with Microsoft Windows, which is the default font for web sites in Japanese versions of Windows.

Sibelius Software

All of the company's software is now available for both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Simple DNS Plus

All options and settings are available directly from a Windows user interface.

Simple DNS Plus is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and is 100% managed code, protecting it from common security issues such as buffer overruns, and making it run natively on both 32 bit and 64 bit CPUs and Windows versions, including Windows Vista.

Spam email delivery

Most of the major Windows e-mail viruses of 2003, including the Sobig and Mimail virus families, functioned as spammer viruses: viruses designed expressly to make infected computers available as spamming tools.

Spy Fox

When running with ScummVM, these games can be played on different operating systems, including Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux.

Standard Spanish

The result has been to identify a neutral Spanish, a version that tries to avoid regional phenomena, such as the Latin American voseo, or terms that may be identified with specific countries (for example, for “computer”, the term in Spain is ordenador, while in Spanish America the most frequent term is computadora, except in a few areas that prefer computador; as a result, Microsoft Windows uses the region-neutral term equipo).

Starfield

3D Starfield, an effect simulating forward movement through Outer space amidst a field of stars; included as a screensaver with some versions of Microsoft Windows

Suicide Silence EP

The EP is released as an Enhanced CD and contains a QuickTime file for “Destruction of a Statue (Live)”, a video that is viewable on Mac and Microsoft Windows personal computers.

Tersus

Both the Studio and the Server are available on a variety of platforms, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X.

TeX

TeXShop for Apple Mac OS X, TeXworks for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and MS Windows, and WinShell for MS Windows are similar tools and provide an integrated development environment (IDE) for working with LaTeX or TeX.

They Came From Hollywood

They Came From Hollywood (TCFH) was a video game under development by independent studio Octopus Motor for Microsoft Windows that involves the player smashing cities as a monster in the style of 1950s and 1960s monster films.

William Schwarzer

He also presided over a lawsuit filed by Apple Computer against Microsoft, in which Apple alleged that Microsoft used some Apple features in Windows Version 2.03, and later 3.0.

Yuen Poovarawan

The Microcomputer Research Laboratory, which Yuen was head of, also developed the Thai Kernel System, a hardware-independent system designed to promote system-intercompatibility for Thai-language application development, in 1990, but this failed to gain a user base as it lost ground to the expanding Microsoft Windows systems.


Adobe FreeHand

Development has been discontinued but it is still sold in versions for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Alexei Shulgin

Particularly involved with software art and internet art, he is a part of the readme culture, and is probably most well known for his ongoing so called "386DX" performances, in which he manipulates an antiquated computer with Microsoft Windows version 3.1 and an Intel 386 processor to perform MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) renditions of popular music hits while a synthesized text-to-speech voice "sings" the lyrics.

Borland Reflex

As a testament to properly written software, one can still run Reflex on any modern Windows-based PC.

Brad Silverberg

Brad Silverberg is an American computer scientist and businessman, most noted for his work at Microsoft in 1990–1999 as Senior VP and product manager for MS-DOS, Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office.

Control-V

In many GUI environments, including Microsoft Windows and most desktop environments based on the X Window System, and in applications such as word processing software running in those environments, control-V can be used to paste text or other content (if supported) from the clipboard at the current cursor position.

Corel VideoStudio

Corel VideoStudio (formerly Ulead VideoStudio) is a video editing software package for Microsoft Windows distributed by Ulead Systems (a division of Corel).

DarkSpace

2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4/AMD Sempron Processor, Windows XP/Vista/7, Dedicated graphics card (Nvidia GeForce 9500GT / AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series or better), 1 GB of RAM (2 GB for Vista/7), 200 MB free hard drive space, Broadband internet connection, Direct Input compatible mouse, DirectX 9.0c or higher.

Den Store Danske Encyklopædi

The text of the paper encyclopedia was also published, but without illustrations, on CD-ROMs for Microsoft Windows in 2004 and for Mac OS in 2005.

Dilbert's Desktop Games

Dilbert's Desktop Games is a collection of Dilbert-related games for Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 98SE, & Millennium Edition.

Dirt: Showdown

Dirt: Showdown (stylised as DiRT: Showdown) is a video game published and developed by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Final Scratch

Stanton claims that the ScratchAmp can now interact with any audio software through ASIO or WDM on Windows, and CoreAudio in Mac OS X.

Forté Internet Software

Originally Forte Advanced Management Systems, Forté Internet Software makes Agent, a Windows-based Usenet news and email client.

Go!Zilla

Zilla (not to be confused with Godzilla, a fictional Japanese monster) is a proprietary download manager originally developed by Aaron Ostler in 1995, and later purchased by Radiate in 1999, for use on Windows.

Hammerin' Harry

Others were various Japan-only, pachinko machines, as well as home ports of them for Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Windows-operated PCs and Game Boy.

HomeRF

The group was disbanded in January 2003 after other wireless networks became accessible to home users and Microsoft began including support for them in its Windows operating systems.

HP LaserJet

The HP LaserJet family, along with Aldus PageMaker and Microsoft Windows, was central to the PC-based solution and while the design was more plebeian than Apple's product, this multi-vendor solution was available to a mass audience for the first time.

IWARP

Networking services implemented over iWARP include those offered in the OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) by the OpenFabrics Alliance for Linux operating systems, and the Winsock Direct protocol for Microsoft Windows.

MicroStation

The latest versions of the software are released solely for Microsoft Windows operating systems, but historically MicroStation was available for Macintosh platforms and a number of Unix-like operating systems.

Mosaic notation program

Several factors can be theorized: Sibelius and Finale were the competitor notation packages; they were developed for both Macintosh and Windows platforms.

MSDAIPP

MSDAIPP (Microsoft Data Access Internet Publishing Provider) is a component of Microsoft Windows that can be used to enumerate or access Internet resources within an application that uses ActiveX Data Objects or OLEDB.

NJStar Communicator

NJStar Communicator was a very popular Traditional Chinese Microsoft Windows add-on for Windows 95 and Windows 98 that supports Chinese, Japanese and Korean input and web pages viewing in the same windows before Windows provided those functions.

Pactos

Pactos sells a DOS-based package program called Navid 3, and also a Windows-based package program called Navid 4; both Navid programs are intended to enable blind and partially sighted people to use computers.

Personal Computer World

At its close PCW featured a mixture of articles, mainly related to the Windows PC, with some Linux and Macintosh-related content.

Program information file

TopView was the originator of PIFs which were inherited and extended by DESQview and Microsoft Windows, where they are most often seen.

PRONOM

Unix magic numbers and Macintosh data forks do provide some of this functionality, but the same is not true within DOS or Microsoft Windows environments.

Segmentation fault

On Microsoft Windows, the offending process receives a STATUS ACCESS VIOLATION exception.

Split/Second

Split/Second, released in the UK as Split/Second: Velocity, is an arcade racing video game developed by Black Rock Studio and published by Disney Interactive Studios for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

SunBurn XNA Game Engine

It can produce games and 3D graphical simulations for Windows, Xbox, and Windows Phone 7 (WP7).

SwordSearcher

When Windows 95 was released, version 3 was released as a Windows program called SwordSearcher 95 and was apparently the first 32 bit Windows Bible Software available.

Text box

Pressing Home/End keys (Microsoft's Windows OS) or Command-left arrow/Command-right arrow (Apple's Mac OS) moves the caret to the beginning/end of the line;

The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific

The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific is a historical first-person shooter video game developed by Magic Wand Productions with Kynogon's AI middleware Kynapse, and released on November 30, 2007 by Activision and the History Channel for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360.

ToolBook

ToolBook is a Microsoft Windows programming environment, released in 1990 by Asymetrix Corporation (later known as click2learn and SumTotal Systems).

Turbo Sliders

It was developed by Antti Mannisto and published by Jollygood Games (now Xiha Life) for the Windows and Linux platforms in 2003.

Van Wolverton

Wolverton has written other computer books, addressing MS-DOS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows, WordPerfect, Netscape FastTrack, VisiCalc, QBasic and more.

Virtual resource partitioning

VRP can be implemented in any OS and is available on Windows, Red Hat, Suse, HP-UX, Solaris, tru64, AIX and others.

Windows Task Manager

Windows Task Manager is a task manager, system monitor and startup manager included with the Microsoft Windows, that provides limited information about computer performance and running applications, processes and CPU usage, commit charge and memory information, network activity and statistics, logged-in users, and system services.

X Window System

Microsoft Windows is not shipped with support for X, but many third-party implementations exist, as free and open source software such as Cygwin/X, and proprietary products such as Exceed, MKS X/Server, Reflection X, X-Win32 and Xming.

XBLite

It was started in 2001 by David Szafranski in order to provide a Windows exclusive version of the XBasic dialect.

Xitami

Xitami was designed to be portable, and was ported to Windows, Linux and other Unices, OpenVMS, BeOS, and OS/2.

Yahoo! Messenger

In addition to instant messaging features similar to those offered by ICQ, it also offers (on Microsoft Windows) features such as: IMVironments (customizing the look of Instant Message windows, some of which include authorized themes of famous cartoons such as Garfield or Dilbert), address-book integration and Custom Status Messages.