* Windows Media Player applets, used to display embedded video files in Internet Explorer ( and other browsers that support the plugin )

* Formats with lossless compression, such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio ( filename extension APE ), WavPack ( filename extension WV ), TTA, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, Apple Lossless ( filename extension m4a ), MPEG-4 SLS, MPEG-4 ALS, MPEG-4 DST, Windows Media Audio Lossless ( WMA Lossless ), and Shorten ( SHN ).

* Formats with lossy compression, such as MP3, Vorbis, Musepack, AAC, ATRAC and Windows Media Audio Lossy ( WMA lossy )).

* wma – the popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft.

Newer ones include Free Lossless Audio Codec ( FLAC ), Apple's Apple Lossless, MPEG-4 ALS, Microsoft's Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless ( WMA Lossless ), Monkey's Audio, and TTA.

Probably the most widely used formats for delivering video over the internet are MPEG4, Quicktime, Flash and Windows Media, while MPEG2 is used almost exclusively for DVDs, providing an exceptional image in minimal size but resulting in a high level of CPU consumption to decompress.

A number of features from Windows 98 were incorporated also, such as an improved Device Manager, Windows Media Player, and a revised DirectX that made it possible for the first time for many modern games to work on the NT kernel.

** Windows XP Home Edition N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling

** Windows XP Professional N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling

* Windows XP Media Center Edition ( MCE ), released in October 2002 for desktops and notebooks with an emphasis on home entertainment.

Contained all features offered in Windows XP Professional and the Windows Media Center.

Subsequent versions are the same but have an updated Windows Media Center.

** Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003

** Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

** Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, released on 12 October 2004.

Vista also features new graphics features, the Windows Aero GUI, new applications ( such as Windows Calendar, Windows DVD Maker and some new games including Chess, Mahjong, and Purble Place ), Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, and a large number of underlying architectural changes.

In some countries ( Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland ), there are other editions that lack some features such as Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center and Internet Explorer called names such as " Windows 7 N ."

Step-by-step instructions for registrants on how to use well known hosting services like Blogger, Windows Live, and Google Apps are included on its homepage.

* NGS World ( archive. org ) — a tribute homepage of the New Generation Software titles, created and maintained by Malcolm's daughter Rachel ; hosts downloads of the original game and a fan-contributed remake for MS Windows ; features a J. K. Greye Software cassette inlay image of the game.

** Deubox Explorer ( formerly known as Dudebox Explorer ) by Red Chair Software ( homepage ) is a transfer program for Microsoft Windows.

Almost all Windows Updates can be downloaded from Microsoft's homepage independent of the operating system or web browser used.

The eventual joint company effort, named Borland Office for Windows ( a combination of the WordPerfect word processor, Quattro Pro spreadsheet and Paradox database ) was introduced at the 1993 Comdex computer show.

BeOS was positioned as a multimedia platform which could be used by a substantial population of desktop users and a competitor to Mac OS and Microsoft Windows ( Linux was not relevant as a desktop OS at the time ).

On Windows computers, extensions consist of a dot ( period ) at the end of a file name, followed by a few letters to identify the type of file.

Other common theories as to the initials ' origins include " Graphics and Windows ", " Gates, William " ( Microsoft's president at the time ), or " Gates-Whitten " ( the two main designers of the program ).

However, due to the prevalence of 3dfx hardware at the time of release, the Windows version of the game installs an OpenGL ICD ( opengl32. dll ) designed specifically for 3dfx's hardware.

It was originally going to be called " Interface Manager " but Rowland Hanson, the head of marketing at Microsoft, convinced the company that the name Windows would be more appealing to customers.

All Windows and DOS-based applications at the time were real mode, running over the protected mode kernel by using the virtual 8086 mode, which was new with the 80386 processor.

( Among other things, Presentation Manager placed X, Y coordinate 0, 0 at the bottom left of the screen like Cartesian coordinates, while Windows put 0, 0 at the top left of the screen like most other computer window systems.

Unlike prior versions, Windows for Workgroups 3. 11 ran in 386 enhanced mode only, and needs at least an 80386SX processor.

Windows NT 3. 1 ( Microsoft marketing wanted Windows NT to appear to be a continuation of Windows 3. 1 ) arrived in Beta form to developers at the July 1992 Professional Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Microsoft announced at the conference its intentions to develop a successor to both Windows NT and Windows 3. 1's replacement ( Windows 95, codenamed Chicago ), which would unify the two into one operating system.

The first public preview of Windows Server 2012 was also shown by Microsoft at the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.

It aims at supporting different computer operating systems such as Windows, classic Mac OS, and Unix-like systems, so that data may be exchanged.

* NiuTrans, a free software statistical machine translation engine released under the LGPL license for Windows and Linux, developed by the Natural Language Processing Group at Northeastern University, China.

* Bill Gates deposition video at Microsoft on August 27, 1998 ( Windows Media, Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis formats )

OS / 2 designers hoped for source code conversion tools, allowing complete migration of Windows application source code to OS / 2 at some point.

Microsoft made an offer in 1994 where IBM would receive the same terms as Compaq ( the number one PC manufacturer at the time ) for a license of Windows 95, if IBM ended development of OS / 2 completely.

Since the standardization of PC-compatible computers and Windows after the 1980s, most full-sized computer keyboards have followed this standard ( see drawing at right ).

Easel introduced Enfin at this time on Windows and OS / 2.

The use of virtual machines to support different guest OSes is becoming popular in embedded systems ; a typical use is to support a real-time operating system at the same time as a high-level OS such as Linux or Windows.