ClearType was later introduced as an operating system feature in Windows XP, where it was kept turned off by default.

In Windows Vista and Windows 7 ClearType is turned on by default.

In Microsoft Office 2007 and later versions, Internet Explorer 7 and later versions and Windows Live Messenger, ClearType is also turned on by default, even if it is not enabled throughout the operating system.

** 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

A few services not essential for server environments are disabled by default for stability reasons, most noticeable are the " Windows Audio " and " Themes " services ; Users have to enable them manually to get sound or the " Luna " look as per Windows XP.

Privacy extensions are enabled by default in Windows, Mac OS X ( since 10. 7 ), and iOS ( since version 4. 3 ).

Notably, Windows is one of the few modern desktop / server OSs that does not include SSH by default.

* Vulnerabilities in various versions of Microsoft Windows, its default web browser Internet Explorer, and its mail applications Outlook and Outlook Express have caused worldwide problems when computer viruses, Trojan horses, or computer worms have taken advantage of those vulnerabilities.

On Microsoft Windows, SDL uses a GDI backend by default.

VBScript has been installed by default in every desktop release of Microsoft Windows since Windows 98 ; in Windows Server since Windows NT 4. 0 Option Pack ; and optionally with Windows CE ( depending on the device it is installed on ).

Apart from Windows Media Player, most of the WMA compression formats can be played using ALLPlayer, VLC media player, Media Player Classic, MPlayer, RealPlayer, Winamp, Zune Software ( with certain limitations — DSP plugin support and DirectSound output is disabled using the default WMA plugin ), and many other software media players.

The default file formats are Windows Media Video ( WMV ), Windows Media Audio ( WMA ), and Advanced Systems Format ( ASF ), and its own XML based playlist format called Windows Playlist ( WPL ).

In Windows XP, it uses VMR7 by default, but can also be made to use the more advanced YUV mixing mode by enabling the " Use high quality mode " option in Advanced Performance settings.

Currently, Windows Media Player has two default skins: " Corporate " and " Revert ".

* a DOS and Windows command line tool for configuration of devices and the console

Most network equipment and operating systems with a TCP / IP stack support a Telnet service for remote configuration ( including systems based on Windows NT ).

Whether you run Microsoft Windows in the precise evaluated configuration or not, you should apply Microsoft's security patches for the vulnerabilities in Windows as they continue to appear.

The certified Microsoft Windows versions remain at EAL4 + without including the application of any Microsoft security vulnerability patches in their evaluated configuration.

It also introduced a hierarchical configuration system allowing for simpler site deploys, a new Windows Forms-based management application, new command-line management options and increased support for the. NET Framework.

It modifies Windows system-registry entries related to internal network configuration and operation.

Microsoft's implementation of ECMAScript 5th Edition in Windows 8 Consumer Preview is called JavaScript and the corresponding Visual Studio 11 Express Beta includes a “ completely new ”, full-featured JavaScript editor with IntelliSense enhancements for HTML5 and ECMAScript 5 syntax, “ VSDOC ” annotations for multiple overloads, simplified DOM configuration, brace matching, collapsible outlining and “ go to definition ”.

* Uniqueness Database Files, a Windows XP Professional configuration text file

* Windows Registry, a database of configuration settings in Microsoft Windows operating systems

It supports multiple architectures including Windows, NetWare, Linux and several flavours of Unix and has long been used for user administration, configuration management, and software management.

, 32-bit Windows on Intel x86 is the most used configuration, with Linux on Intel x86 in second place, and Mac OS X on PowerPC in third place.

Previous versions of Windows used files such as < tt > AUTOEXEC. BAT </ tt >, < tt > CONFIG. SYS </ tt >, < tt > WIN. INI </ tt >, < tt > SYSTEM. INI </ tt > and other files with an < tt >. INI </ tt > extension to maintain configuration settings.

In Windows 2000 and later versions, Windows services are configured and manually started and stopped using the Control Panel, a dedicated control / configuration program, the Service Controller component of the Service Control Manager (< tt > sc </ tt > command ), or the < tt > net start </ tt > and < tt > net stop </ tt > commands.

Where Unix programs that use dotfiles are ported to Windows, they are sometimes modified to accept some other naming convention ; for example, GNU Emacs permits its configuration file to be named < tt > _emacs </ tt > instead of < tt >. emacs </ tt >.

The Microsoft Windows family of operating systems and their attendant applications utilize a similar system of configuration files.

Many Windows programs abandoned configuration files to use the Windows Registry to store information.

One popular multi-boot configuration is to dual-boot GNU / Linux and Windows operating systems, each contained within its own partition.

It also has a configuration tool that can be run inside of Windows to set up the hardware options of the Linux OS.

The symmetric encryption algorithm used will vary depending on the version and configuration of the operating system ; see Algorithms used by Windows version below.

* Adding configuration data such as configuration files, Windows registry entries or environment variables

In NT-based versions of Windows ( such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 ), the file used for paging is named < tt > pagefile. sys </ tt >.

It is required, however, for the boot partition ( i. e. the drive containing the Windows directory ) to have a pagefile on it if the system is configured to write either kernel or full memory dumps after a crash.

When the system is rebooted, Windows copies the memory dump from the pagefile to a separate file and frees the space that was used in the pagefile.

The common advice given to avoid this is to set a single " locked " pagefile size so that Windows will not expand it.

Though the website erroneously says " runs on Windows XP ( 32-bit ) and higher ( 32-bit ), Windows Server 2003 ( 32-bit ) and higher ( 32-bit )", the tool cannot defragment the pagefile on Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Server 2008 ; it is able to defragment registry hives on these versions.

In computing, commit charge is a term used in Microsoft Windows operating systems to describe the total amount of pageable virtual address space for which no backing store is assigned other than the pagefile.

In the Task Manager utility under Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, the graphical displays labeled " PF usage " and " Page File Usage History ," despite their labels, reflect not the pagefile contents but the total ( or current ) commit charge.