X-Nico

55 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.

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.

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.

Borland Reflex

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

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.

Corel VideoStudio

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

CSharpBuilder

C#Builder, from Borland Software Corporation, is a computer program that allows programmers to create Microsoft Windows and Web applications for the Microsoft .NET Framework using the programming language C#.

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.

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.

DATEV

In 1998 the "in-house" software was made available to its members on Microsoft Windows, as it was clear that the OS/2 operating system was going to be phased out.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Igor Engraver

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

InterVideo WinDVR

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

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.

Lifehacker

The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including: Microsoft Windows, Mac, Linux programs, iOS and Android, as well as general life tips and tricks.

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.

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.

MusiCAD

Version 2.0 added support for multivoice score editing, and the 3.0 version is available for Microsoft Windows and in English.

NetBackup

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

NetBIOS

A Windows computer registry may also be configured in such a way as to display "unknown" for the node type.

Numbered musical notation

A number of Chinese-language Microsoft Windows applications are available for the WYSIWYG editing of scores (optionally with lyrics) in numbered musical notation.

O RLY?

In 2006, anti-virus company Sophos discovered a computer worm known as "W32/Hoots-A", which sends a graphical image of a snowy owl with the letters "O RLY?" to a print queue when it infects a Windows-based computer.

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.

PC Format

Despite the occasional mention of alternatives, PC Format takes the term 'PC' to mean a Microsoft Windows-based computer.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Simple DNS Plus

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

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).

Survex

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

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.

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.

XBLite

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


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.

Cirrus Logic

Cirrus' Microsoft Windows 2D GUI accelerators (GDI) were among the fastest in the low-end market-segment, outperforming competing VGA-chips from Oak Technologies, Trident Microsystems, and Paradise (Western Digital).

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.

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.

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.

Dropchord

Dropchord is a motion controlled music-based puzzle video game for Windows and OS X using the Leap Motion controller.

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.

GNU toolchain

Parts of the GNU toolchain are also directly used with or ported to other platforms such as Solaris, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows (via Cygwin and MinGW/MSYS) and Sony PlayStation 3.

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.

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.

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.

Karbar

Its articles, aimed at all levels of user, cover applications, programming, operating systems (Windows, Linux, etc.), graphics, animation, software, hardware, internet and games.

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.

Magic: The Gathering video games

Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers is a 2009 game for Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft Windows, and PS3 developed by Stainless Games Ltd and published by Wizards of the Coast.

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.

NeoModus Direct Connect

NeoModus Direct Connect was a file-sharing client for Windows and Mac users that provided file-sharing capabilities for any type of file within a hub-centric, peer-to-peer network and contained adware.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Scivelation

Scivelation (previously known as Salvation) is a third-person shooter being developed by Ukrainian developer Black Wing Foundation for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

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).

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.

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

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;

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.

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.

Windowing system

Operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS (version 9 and earlier), and Palm OS, contain a windowing system which is integrated with the OS.

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.

Xitami

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

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.