X-Nico

59 unusual facts about Microsoft Windows


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.

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.

Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard

To promote the film, a video game was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Windows.

AVADirect

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

BTRON

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

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.

Corel VideoStudio

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

Dartmouth Time Sharing System

In 2000 a project to recreate the DTSS system on a simulator was undertaken and as a result DTSS is now available for Microsoft Windows systems and for the Apple Macintosh computer.

DexDrive

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

Dōjin soft

They are almost always exclusive to Windows-based PCs, but a few notable exceptions also exist for the Dreamcast, a console on which homebrew development was popular.

DynaVox

DynaVox uses a Microsoft Windows-based configuration as a platform to run proprietary InterAACt communiciation software.

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.

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.

FlashCP

This is done through the use of Windows-based software that must be installed in order to use the FlashCP capability of the drive.

Guitar Pro

Until it reached version 4, the software was only available for Microsoft Windows.

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It has versions for Windows, Mac OS X (Intel processors only), and Linux and is written by the French company Arobas Music.

HighGrow

The program, compatible with Windows, takes a form similar to the popular virtual pet games whereby players care for their pets by feeding, watering, and playing with them on a regular basis.

Home of the Underdogs

While a majority of games available on the site were for DOS or Microsoft Windows, the site also contained a section with games for other platforms.

IBM mainframe

There are software-based emulators for the System/370, System/390, and System z hardware, including FLEX-ES and the freely available Hercules emulator which runs under Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

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.

Igor Engraver

Igor Engraver is a music notation program, published by the Swedish company NoteHeads, produced for the Macintosh and Windows operating systems.

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.

Ken Burns effect

On the Windows platform, 4K Slideshow Maker by 4KDownload, AVS Video Editor, Windows Movie Maker, Pinnacle Studio, Sony Vegas Studio (and Movie), Ulead VideoStudio, Adobe Premiere, PicturesToExe also have pan and zoom features built in or available through third party extensions which may be used to achieve the effect.

Lamorne Morris

Morris can be seen in commercials including ones for State Farm Insurance, Taco Bell, Twix, Miller Lite, Las Vegas, 7 Up, Edge, Sears, Microsoft Windows, Chili's, McDonald's, Ford and Hornitos Tequila.

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.

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.

MagicVortex

Files can be sent either by an Internet browser or by a downloadable application for Microsoft Windows.

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.

NetBackup

It provides cross-platform backup functionality to a large variety of Windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems.

NoteWorthy Composer

NoteWorthy Composer (NWC) is a graphical score editor for Microsoft Windows computers (from Windows 95 to Windows 7), and is also reported to work on PCs under Linux with Wine.

OutSPOKEN

outSPOKEN for Microsoft Windows was released in 1994 for Windows 3.1, and was widely recognized as one of the first truly effective screen readers for Windows.

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.

PC Magazine

PC Magazine was a booster of early versions of the OS/2 operating system in the late 1980s, but then switched to a strong endorsement of the Microsoft Windows operating environment after the release of Windows 3.0 in May 1990.

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.

Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol

However, the most common PPTP implementation shipping with the Microsoft Windows product families implements various levels of authentication and encryption natively as standard features of the Windows PPTP stack.

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.

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.

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In addition to creating BBC BASIC for Windows, Russell also runs a Yahoo! support group for the language to which he regularly contributes tips, advice and comments on other users' code.

Senuti

It is a Mac OS X exclusive application; no version of Senuti has been released for Microsoft Windows.

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.

Simple DNS Plus

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.

Solid Edge

It runs on Microsoft Windows and provides solid modeling, assembly modelling and drafting functionality for mechanical engineers, designers and drafters.

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).

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.

Survex

It is designed to be portable and can be run on a variety of platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix.

TenAsys

TenAsys (rhymes with tenacious) is a privately owned company providing real-time software and services based on the x86 Intel Architecture and Microsoft Windows operating system.

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.

Turbo C++

Turbo C++ 3.0 was released in 1991 (shipping on November 20), and came in amidst expectations of the coming release of Turbo C++ for Microsoft Windows.

Universal Hint System

Since the system's creation, UHS readers have been made available for various platforms, including DOS, Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.

VGX

The component of Microsoft Windows operating systems responsible for the vector graphics rendering.

VistaPro

The PC version runs in MS-DOS for the earlier versions and from 4.00 onwards it runs on all versions of 32-bit Microsoft Windows.

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.

Borland Reflex

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

Bratz 4 Real

Bratz: 4 Real is a video game based on the Bratz franchise for the Nintendo DS and Microsoft Windows.

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.

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.

Dune II

Dune II also led to direct sequels: Westwood released a semi-remake for Windows in 1998 as Dune 2000, along with a PlayStation port in the same year.

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.

High-speed multimedia radio

This method is supported by all modern operating systems including but not limited to Windows, Mac OS X, BSD, and Linux.

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.

JSBSim

JSBSim has been in development and use since 1996, and has been built on all of the most popular platforms in use today including those running Linux, Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Microsoft Silverlight

Even though Microsoft was officially collaborating on the Moonlight project, Bruce Chizen, who was CEO of Adobe Systems at the time, which sells the competing proprietary Flash platform, questioned "the commitment of Microsoft to keep the Silverlight platform compatible with other OS besides Windows".

MyFax

Some of the features of MyFax include the ability to send and receive faxes by email and through the internet, as well as send faxes directly from Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Windows-based applications including Google Docs, OpenOffice.org, and Intuit QuickBooks.

Netpbm

It is included in all major open source Unix-like operating system distributions and also works on other Unix-like operating systems, Windows, Mac OS X, and other platforms.

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.

NO$GBA

NO$GBA (pronounced "no cash GBA") is a free Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance emulator for Microsoft Windows & DOS.

Object Pascal

Currently, FPC can generate code for x86, x86-64, PowerPC, SPARC, and ARM processors, and for various operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS and Mac OS X (with an Xcode integration kit).

Option key

However, the Option key in a Mac operating system functions differently from the Alt key under other Unix-like systems or Microsoft Windows.

Plain text

Many other computer programs are also capable of processing or creating plain text, such as countless commands in DOS, Windows, Mac OS, and Unix and its kin; as well as web browsers (a few browsers such as Lynx and the Line Mode Browser produce only plain text for display).

Pragmatic General Multicast

It is not yet a standard, but has been implemented in some networking devices and operating systems, including Windows XP and later versions of Microsoft Windows, as well as in third-party libraries for Linux, Windows and Solaris.

RobotWar

RoboWar is a similar game that was released later on the Macintosh, and is now available for both Mac OS and Windows.

SciTech SNAP

SciTech SNAP Graphics has been ported to MS-DOS, OS/2, Microsoft Windows (CE, NT, 2000, XP), QNX, SMX (the SunOS/Solaris port of MINIX), Linux, On Time RTOS-32, Unununium OS operating systems.

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.

SolidWorks

SolidWorks is a 3D mechanical CAD (computer-aided design) program that runs on Microsoft Windows and is being developed by Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp., a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, S. A. (Vélizy, France).

SunBurn XNA Game Engine

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

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 Art of Unix Programming

The author utilizes a comparative approach to explaining Unix by contrasting it to other operating systems including desktop-oriented ones such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS to ones with research roots such as EROS and Plan 9 from Bell Labs.

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.

TigerDirect

The company was founded as Tiger Software, a publisher of titles for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh in 1989.

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.

Web interoperability

Web interoperability means producing web pages viewable in standard compatible web browsers, various operating systems such as Windows, Macintosh and Linux and devices such as PC, PDA and mobile phone based on the latest web standards.

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.

Xing Technology

Over the next several years, Xing expanded in several directions: Windows support for the XingMPEG player, a software MPEG audio decoder, a real time ISA 160x120 MPEG capture board (XingIt!), a JPEG management system (Picture Prowler) and finally networking.

Xuedong Huang

From 2000 to 2004, Huang served as general manager of Microsoft's Speech Platforms Group, where he led both the business and engineering teams that shipped Microsoft Speech Server and other voice technologies used in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Windows Mobile and Microsoft Exchange Server.

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.