The following is a list of

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

component Circuit Component may refer to: •Are devices that perform functions when they are connected in a circuit. In engineering, science, and technology Generic systems *System components, an entity with discrete structure, such as an assemb ...

Configuration and maintenance

User interface

Applications and utilities

Windows Server components

File systems

Core components

Services

This list is not all-inclusive.

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...

Direct3D Direct3D is a graphics application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows. Part of DirectX, Direct3D is used to render three-dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3D uses hardware a ...

* DirectDraw * DirectInput *

DirectMusic DirectMusic is a deprecated component of the Microsoft DirectX API that allows music and sound effects to be composed and played and provides flexible interactive control over the way they are played. Architecturally, DirectMusic is a high-level se ...

* DirectPlay * DirectShow *

DirectSound DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can h ...

DirectX Media Objects Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...

DirectX plugin In computer music and professional audio creation, a DirectX plugin is a software processing component that can be loaded as a plugin into ''host applications'' to allow real-time processing, audio effects, mixing audio or act as virtual synthesize ...

* DirectX Video Acceleration

Networking

Administrative share Administrative shares are hidden network shares created by Windows NT family of operating systems that allow system administrators to have remote access to every disk volume on a network-connected system. These shares may not be permanently delete ...

* Distributed File System *

My Network Places My Network Places (formerly Network Neighborhood) is the network browser feature in Windows Explorer. It was first introduced in Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 and was renamed My Network Places in Windows 2000 and later. My Network Places maintains ...

(formerly Network Neighborhood) *

Network Access Protection Network Access Protection (NAP) is a Microsoft technology for controlling network access of a computer, based on its health. With NAP, system administrators of an organization can define policies for system health requirements. Examples of system h ...

* Remote Installation Services * Server Message Block *

Windows Rights Management Services Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS, known as Rights Management Services or RMS before Windows Server 2008) is a server software for information rights management shipped with Windows Server. It uses encryption and a form of selectiv ...

Scripting and command-line

* Batch file * CHKDSK * Cmd.exe *

ComSpec or is one of the environment variables used in DOS, OS/2 and Windows, which normally points to the command line interpreter, which is by default in DOS, Windows 95, 98, and ME or in OS/2 and Windows NT. The variable name is written in all-upper ...

* Ipconfig * Net /

Net Send Messenger service is a network-based system notification Windows service by Microsoft that was included in some earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. This retired technology, although it has a similar name, is not related in any way to the la ...

* Netdom.exe: Windows Domain Manager *

Netsh In computing, netsh, or network shell, is a command-line utility included in Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems beginning with Windows 2000. It allows local or remote configuration of network devices such as the interface. Overview ...

* Netstat * QBasic *

Regsvr32 In computing, regsvr32 (Register Server) is a command-line utility in Microsoft Windows and ReactOS for registering and unregistering DLLs and ActiveX controls in the operating system Registry. Despite the suffix "32" in the name of the file, ...

* Robocopy * Win32 console * Windows Script Host * Windows PowerShell * XCOPY

Kernel

Commit charge In computing, commit charge is a term used in Microsoft Windows operating systems to describe the total amount of virtual memory of all processes that must be backed by either physical memory or the page file. Through the process of paging, the ...

Kernel Transaction Manager Kernel Transaction Manager (KTM) is a component of the Windows operating system kernel in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that enables applications to use atomic transactions on resources by making them available as kernel objects. Overview ...

Win32 Thread Information Block In computing, the Win32 Thread Information Block (TIB) is a data structure in Win32 on x86 that stores information about the currently running thread. It is also known as the Thread Environment Block (TEB) for Win32. It descended from, and is ba ...

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

Assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

* CLI Languages *

Metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

.NET Remoting .NET Remoting is a Microsoft application programming interface (API) for interprocess communication released in 2002 with the 1.0 version of .NET Framework. It is one in a series of Microsoft technologies that began in 1990 with the first version ...

* ADO.NET *

ASP.NET ASP.NET is an open-source, server-side web-application framework designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. It was developed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, applications and services. The name stan ...

Base Class Library The Standard Libraries is a set of libraries included in the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) in order to encapsulate many common functions, such as file reading and writing, XML document manipulation, exception handling, application globa ...

* Common Intermediate Language *

Common Language Infrastructure The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is an open specification and technical standard originally developed by Microsoft and standardized by ISO/IEC (ISO/IEC 23271) and Ecma International (ECMA 335) that describes executable code and a runt ...

Common Language Runtime The Common Language Runtime (CLR), the virtual machine component of Microsoft .NET Framework, manages the execution of .NET programs. Just-in-time compilation converts the managed code (compiled intermediate language code) into machine instructio ...

* Common Type System *

Virtual Execution System The Virtual Execution System (VES) is a run-time system of the Common Language Infrastructure CLI which provides an environment for executing managed code. It provides direct support for a set of built-in data types, defines a hypothetical machi ...

Windows CardSpace Windows CardSpace (Microsoft codenames, codenamed InfoCard) is a discontinued Information Card#Selectors, identity selector app by Microsoft. It stores references to digital identity, digital identities of the users, presenting them as visual Inf ...

Windows Communication Foundation The Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), previously known as Indigo, is a free and open-source runtime and a set of APIs in the .NET Framework for building connected, service-oriented applications. .NET Core 1.0, released 2016, did not supp ...

* Windows Forms * Windows Presentation Foundation * Windows Workflow Foundation

Security

Deprecated components and apps

APIs

* ClearType * Media Foundation *

Windows Driver Foundation Windows Driver Frameworks (WDF, formerly Windows Driver Foundation), is a set of Microsoft tools and libraries that aid in the creation of device drivers for Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows. It complements Windows Driver Model, abstract ...

Windows Imaging Component Windows Imaging Component (WIC) is a COM-based imaging codec framework introduced in Windows Vista (and later available in Windows XP Service Pack 3) for working with and processing digital images and image metadata. WIC enables application dev ...

Windows Management Instrumentation Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) consists of a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's impl ...

Miscellaneous (to be categorized)

ActiveSync ActiveSync is a mobile data synchronization app developed by Microsoft, originally released in 1996. It synchronizes data with handheld devices and desktop computers. In the Windows Task Manager, the associated process is called wcescomm.exe. O ...

* Compatibility Appraiser collects telemetry information. * DMRC (Device Metadata Retrieval Client) interfaces to metadata about devices from Windows 7 onwards. * I/O technologies * Macro Recorder * Microsoft Agent * Prefetcher * ReadyBoost * Sync Center *

Text Services Framework The Text Services Framework (TSF) is a COM framework and API in Windows XP and later Windows operating systems that supports advanced text input and text processing. The Language Bar is the core user interface for Text Services Framework. Overvie ...

Universal Audio Architecture Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) is an initiative unveiled in 2002 by Microsoft to standardize the hardware and class driver architecture for audio devices in modern Microsoft Windows operating systems. Three classes of audio devices are support ...

* Windows Color System * Windows Diagnostic Infrastructure (WDI) *

Windows Mobile Device Center Windows Mobile Device Center is a synchronization software program developed by Microsoft, and the successor to ActiveSync. It is designed to synchronize various content including music, video, contacts, calendar events, web browser favorites, and ...

* Windows Rally * Windows Registry * Windows Speech Recognition * XML Paper Specification

References

{{Microsoft Windows components Windows __FORCETOC__