| Component |
Description |
Introduced |
Screenshot |
| Control Panel |
| Control Panel |
Allows users to view and manipulate basic system settings and controls, such as adding hardware, adding and removing software, controlling user accounts, changing accessibility options, and so on. |
1.0 |
 |
| Device Manager |
Allows the user to display and control the hardware attached to the computer, and control what device drivers are used. |
95 |
 |
| Windows Mobility Center |
Centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing. |
Vista |
 |
| Windows Security Center |
Centralizes and reports on the status of anti-virus, Automatic Updates, Windows Firewall, and other security-related components of the operating system. |
XP SP2 |
 |
| Administrative Tools |
| Microsoft Management Console |
Provides system administrators and advanced users with a flexible interface through which they may configure and monitor the system. |
NT4 OP |
 |
| Event Viewer |
Lets administrators and users view the event logs on a local or remote machine. |
NT 3.1 |
 |
| Performance and Reliability Monitor |
Lets administrators view current system performance and reliability trends over time. |
Vista |
 |
| Logical Disk Manager |
A logical volume manager developed by Microsoft in conjunction with Veritas Software. |
2000 |
 |
| Regedit |
Edits the Windows registry. |
3.1 |
 |
| Task Scheduler |
Allows users to script tasks for running during scheduled intervals |
Plus! for 95 |
 |
| Software installation and deployment |
| Windows Update |
An online service which provides critical updates, service packs, device drivers, and other updates. A variation called Microsoft Update also provides software updates for several Microsoft products. |
98 |
 |
| Windows Installer |
A packaging format and engine for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. Includes a GUI framework, automatic generation of the uninstallation sequence and deployment capabilities for corporate networks. |
2000 |
 |
| ClickOnce |
Technology for deploying .NET Framework-based software via web pages, with automatic update capabilities. Intended for per-user only applications. |
.NET 2.0 |
 |
| Component |
Description |
Introduced |
Screenshot |
| Windows Shell |
The most visible and recognizable aspect of Microsoft Windows. The shell is the container inside of which the entire graphical user interface is presented, including the taskbar, the desktop, Windows Explorer, as well as many of the dialog boxes and interface controls. |
1.0 |
 |
| Windows Explorer |
Provides an interface for accessing the file systems, launching applications, and performing common tasks such as viewing and printing pictures. |
95 |
 |
| Special Folders |
Folders which are presented to the user through an interface as an abstract concept, instead of an absolute path. This makes it possible for an application to locate where certain kinds of files can be found, regardless of what version or language of operating system is being used. See also, Windows Shell namespace. |
95 |
 |
| Start menu |
Serves as the central launching point for applications. It provides a customizable, nested list of programs for the user to launch, as well as a list of most recently opened documents, a way to find files and get help, and access to the system settings.
By default, the Start Button is visible at all times in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.
|
95 |
Classic style:
 |
| Taskbar |
The application desktop bar which is used to launch and monitor applications. |
95 |
See below |
 |
| File associations |
Used to open a file with the correct program. File associations can be uniquely assigned to specific actions, known as verbs. |
3.1 |
 |
| Component |
Description |
Introduced |
Screenshot |
| Accessories |
| Windows Calendar |
Calendaring and task tracking application. |
Vista |
 |
| Windows Contacts |
Keeps a single list of contacts that can be shared by multiple programs. |
Vista |
|
| Calculator |
A calculation application. |
1.0 |
 |
| Object Packager |
A program used to create and insert packages into documents. |
3.1 |
 |
| Paint |
A simple graphics painting program. |
1.0 |
 |
| Notepad |
A simple text editor. |
1.0 |
 |
| Narrator |
A screen reader utility that reads dialog boxes and window controls in a number of the more basic applications for Windows. |
2000 |
 |
| Sound Recorder |
A simple audio recording program that can record from a microphone or headset, and save the results in WAVE format. |
3.1 |
 |
| COMMAND.COM and Cmd.exe |
A text-based shell (command line interpreter) that provides a command line interface to the operating system. |
1.0 |
 |
| WordPad |
A simple word processor that is more advanced than Notepad. It has facilities to format and print text, but lacks intermediate features such as a spell checker and thesaurus. |
95 |
 |
| Remote Desktop Connection |
A client implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol; allows a user to securely connect to a computer running Terminal Services (Remote Desktop on Windows XP and Server 2003) and interact with a full desktop environment on that machine, including support for remoting of printers, audio, and drives. |
XP[1] |
 |
| Internet Explorer |
A graphical web browser and FTP client.
See also: Features, History, Criticism, Removal, Browser Helper Objects
|
Plus! 95 |
 |
| Windows Mail |
An e-mail and news client. |
Vista |
 |
| Windows Media Player |
A digital media player and media library application that is used for playing audio, playing video and viewing images. In addition to being a media player, Windows Media Player includes the ability to rip music from, and copy music to compact discs, synchronize content with a digital audio player (MP3 player) or other mobile devices, and let users purchase or rent music from a number of online music stores. |
98 SE |
 |
| Windows Photo Gallery |
A photo management application. Lets users organize their digital photo collection in its Gallery view, by adding titles, rating, captions, and custom metadata tags to photos. Photos can be edited for exposure, color correction, resizing, cropping, red-eye reduction, etc. and also allows printing photos via the Photo Printing Wizard. |
Vista |
 |
| Windows Meeting Space |
A peer-to-peer collaboration program which lets multiple users start collaboration sessions. Supports desktop sharing , distribution and collaborative editing of documents, and passing notes to other participants. |
Vista |
 |
| Windows Task Manager |
Provides information about computer performance and displays details about running applications, processes, network activity, logged-in users, and system services. |
3.1 |
 |
| Disk Cleanup |
A utility for compacting rarely used files and removing files that are no longer required. |
|
 |
| Component |
Acronym |
Description |
Supported by |
| Windows Server domain |
|
A logical group of computers that share a central directory and user database. |
All NT versions |
| Active Directory |
AD |
A set of technologies introduced with Windows 2000 that allows administrators to assign enterprise-wide policies, deploy programs to many computers, and apply critical updates to an entire organization. Active Directory stores information and settings relating to an organization in a central, organized, accessible database. Networks can vary from a small installation with a few objects, to global-scale directories with millions of objects.
Related topics: Active Directory Service Interfaces, Flexible single master operation, IntelliMirror |
2000, 2003 |
| Domain controller |
DC, PDC, BDC |
A server that responds to security authentication requests (logging in, checking permissions, etc.) within a Windows Server domain. Prior to Windows 2000, a domain controller was either a Primary Domain Controller (PDC), of which there could only be one with this role; or a Backup Domain Controller (BDC). In Windows 2000 and later the concept of primary and secondary domain controllers were eliminated, partially to emphasize the multi-master replication technology available in Windows. |
All NT versions |
| Group Policy |
GP, GPO |
Provides centralized management of user and computer settings in an Active Directory environment. Group policy can control a target object's registry, NTFS security, audit and security policy, software installation, logon/logoff scripts, folder redirection, and Internet Explorer settings. Policy settings are stored in Group Policy Objects (GPOs), and may be linked to one or more sites, domains or organizational units.
Related topics: Administrative Templates |
2000 |
| Component |
Acronym |
Description |
Supported by |
| File Allocation Table |
FAT, FAT12, FAT16 |
The original file system used with MS-DOS. The standard filesystem used with Windows 1.0 through Windows 95. |
All versions |
| FAT32 |
FAT32 |
Extensions to FAT supporting larger disk sizes. The standard filesystem for Windows 98 and Me. |
Win95 OSR2, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 |
| NTFS |
NTFS |
Standard filesystem of Windows NT; supports security via access control lists, as well as file system journaling and filesystem metadata. Windows 2000 added support for reparse points (making NTFS junction points and Single instance storage possible), Hard links, file compression, and Sparse files. Encryption of data is provided by Encrypting File System. Symbolic links and transactioning of file operations via Transactional NTFS are features new to Windows Vista. Windows 95 also supports reading NTFS partitions, over a network. |
Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 |
| ISO 9660 |
ISO 9660 ("CDFS") |
The predominant file system for CD-ROM and DVD-ROM media. Windows includes support for Joliet extensions and the ISO 9660:1999 standard. ISO 9660:1999 is supported since Windows XP. |
Win95, Win98, WinME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 |
| Universal Disk Format |
UDF |
A file system for storing files on optical media. It is an implementation of the ISO/IEC 13346 standard (also known as ECMA-167). It is considered to be a replacement of ISO 9660. Successive versions of Windows have supported newer versions of UDF. |
Win98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 |
| HPFS |
HPFS |
High-Performance File system, used on OS/2 computers. Read and write capability in Windows 95 (where it also listed network computer NTFS-formatted drives as "HPFS", even though it had no direct NTFS capabilities). HPFS write support was dropped in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98, and dropped altogether shortly before the release of Windows 2000. |
95 (Read/write), 98/NT (read), 3.1/3.51 (read/write/boot) |
| Component |
Acronym |
Description |
Windows kernel (Windows NT)
-
|
| Ntoskrnl.exe |
|
The Windows kernel image. Provides the Microkernel and Executive layers of the kernel architecture, and is responsible for services such as hardware virtualization, process and memory management, etc. |
| hal.dll |
HAL |
Provides and handles the interaction between software and hardware via the Hardware Abstraction Layer. |
| Core processes (Windows NT) |
| System idle process |
SIP |
A counter which measures how much idle capacity the CPU has at any given time. The process runs in the background and monitors processing bandwidth, occupied memory and the Windows virtual paging file. |
| Session Manager Subsystem |
SMSS |
Performs several critical boot-time operations, such as the creation of environment variables, starting CSRSS, and performs file-copy operations that were queued up from before the system was booted. During system operation, it handles the creation of logon sessions via Winlogon and handles Windows File Protection. |
| Client/Server Run-time Subsystem |
CSRSS |
User-mode side of the Win32 subsystem. Provides the capability for applications to use the Windows API. |
| Local Security Authority Subsystem Service |
LSASS |
Responsible for enforcing the security policy on the system. Verifies users logging on to the computer and creates security tokens. |
| Winlogon |
|
Responsible for handling the secure attention key, loading the user profile on logon, and optionally locking the computer when a screensaver is running. On Windows NT systems prior to Windows Vista, Winlogon is also responsible for loading GINA libraries which are responsible collecting logon credentials from the user. |
| Svchost.exe |
|
A generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries (DLLs). Several Svchost processes are typically present on a Windows machine, each running in a different security context, depending on what privileges the contained services require. |
| Windows on Windows and WOW64 |
WoW |
An abstraction layer that allows legacy code to operate on more modern versions of Windows; typically this means running 16-bit Windows applications on 32-bit Windows, and 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows. |
| Virtual DOS machine |
NTVDM |
Allows MS-DOS programs to run on Intel 80386 or higher computers when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware. Introduced in Windows 2.1; not available in any 64-bit edition of Windows. |
System startup (Windows NT)
-
|
| NTLDR, IA64ldr, Winload |
|
The boot loader; performs basic system initialization options such as loading the hardware abstraction layer and boot-time device drivers, prior to passing control to the Windows kernel. In versions prior to Vista, NTLDR and IA64ldr also display menus to the user if multiple operating systems are defined in boot.ini, or if F8 is pressed. |
| Recovery Console |
|
Provides the means for administrators to perform a limited range of tasks using a command line interface, primarily to aid in recovering from situations where Windows does not boot successfully. |
| ntdetect.com |
|
Used during the boot process to detect basic hardware components that may be required during the boot process. |
| Windows Boot Manager |
|
In Vista and later operating systems, displays boot menus to the user if multiple operating systems are configured in the system's Boot Configuration Data. |
