Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that Microsoft developed to play audio and video on personal computers. It has been a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows 9x, Windows NT, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile. Microsoft also released editions of Windows Media Player for classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Solaris, but has since discontinued them.
In computing, a symbolic link is a file whose purpose is to point to a file or directory by specifying a path thereto.
File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application and default desktop environment that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file systems. It is also the component of the operating system that presents many user interface items on the screen such as the taskbar and desktop. Controlling the computer is possible without File Explorer running.
Shadow Copy is a technology included in Microsoft Windows that can create backup copies or snapshots of computer files or volumes, even when they are in use. It is implemented as a Windows service called the Volume Shadow Copy service. A software VSS provider service is also included as part of Windows to be used by Windows applications. Shadow Copy technology requires either the Windows NTFS or ReFS filesystems in order to create and store shadow copies. Shadow Copies can be created on local and external volumes by any Windows component that uses this technology, such as when creating a scheduled Windows Backup or automatic System Restore point.
System Restore is a feature in Microsoft Windows that allows the user to revert their computer's state to that of a previous point in time, which can be used to recover from system malfunctions or other problems. First included in Windows Me, it has been included in all following desktop versions of Windows released since, excluding Windows Server. In Windows 10, System Restore is turned off by default and must be enabled by users in order to function. This does not affect personal files such as documents, music, pictures, and videos.
In computing, SUBST is a command on the DOS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and ReactOS operating systems used for substituting paths on physical and logical drives as virtual drives.
As the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000, as well as the successor to Windows Me, Windows XP introduced many new features but it also removed some others.
Compared with previous versions of Microsoft Windows, features new to Windows Vista are very numerous, covering most aspects of the operating system, including additional management features, new aspects of security and safety, new I/O technologies, new networking features, and new technical features. Windows Vista also removed some others.
The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consist of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu, the task switcher and the AutoPlay feature. On some versions of Windows, it also includes Flip 3D and the charms. In Windows 10, the Windows Shell Experience Host interface drives visuals like the Start Menu, Action Center, Taskbar, and Task View/Timeline. However, the Windows shell also implements a shell namespace that enables computer programs running on Windows to access the computer's resources via the hierarchy of shell objects. "Desktop" is the top object of the hierarchy; below it there are a number of files and folders stored on the disk, as well as a number of special folders whose contents are either virtual or dynamically created. Recycle Bin, Libraries, Control Panel, This PC and Network are examples of such shell objects.
Nokia PC Suite is a discontinued software package used to establish an interface between Nokia mobile devices and computers that run the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its first release was in 1997, originally called Nokia Data Suite. It was replaced by Nokia Suite and integrated into the Ovi service suite.
Windows Live Mesh is a discontinued free-to-use Internet-based file synchronization application by Microsoft designed to allow files and folders between two or more computers to be in sync with each other on Windows and Mac OS X computers or the Web via SkyDrive. Windows Live Mesh also enabled remote desktop access via the Internet.
Windows Vista introduced a number of new I/O functions to the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. They are intended to shorten the time taken to boot the system, improve the responsiveness of the system, and improve the reliability of data storage.
The NTFS file system defines various ways to redirect files and folders, e.g., to make a file point to another file or its contents without making a copy of it. The object being pointed to is called the target. Such file is called a hard or symbolic link depending on a way it's stored on the filesystem.
Microsoft PowerToys is a set of freeware system utilities designed for power users developed by Microsoft for use on the Windows operating system. These programs add or change features to maximize productivity or add more customization. PowerToys are available for Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows 10 and Windows 11. The PowerToys for Windows 10 and Windows 11 are free and open-source software licensed under the MIT License and hosted on GitHub.
In computing, the trash is a graphical user interface desktop metaphor for temporary storage for files set aside by the user for deletion, but not yet permanently erased. The concept and name is part of Mac operating systems, a similar implementation is called the Recycle Bin in Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems use other names.
Microsoft Sync Framework is a data synchronization platform from Microsoft that can be used to synchronize data across multiple data stores. Sync Framework includes a transport-agnostic architecture, into which data store-specific synchronization providers, modelled on the ADO.NET data provider API, can be plugged in. Sync Framework can be used for offline access to data, by working against a cached set of data and submitting the changes to a master database in a batch, as well as to synchronize changes to a data source across all consumers and peer-to-peer synchronization of multiple data sources. Sync Framework features built-in capabilities for conflict detection – whether data to be changed has already been updated – and can flag them for manual inspection or use defined policies to try to resolve the conflict. Sync Services includes an embedded SQL Server Compact database to store metadata about the synchronization relationships as well as about each sync attempt. The Sync Framework API is surfaced both in managed code, for use with .NET Framework applications, as well as unmanaged code, for use with COM applications. It was scheduled to ship with Visual Studio 2008 in late November 2007.
A roaming user profile is a file synchronization concept in the Windows NT family of operating systems that allows users with a computer joined to a Windows domain to log on to any computer on the same domain and access their documents and have a consistent desktop experience, such as applications remembering toolbar positions and preferences, or the desktop appearance staying the same, while keeping all related files stored locally, to not continuously depend on a fast and reliable network connection to a file server.
In Microsoft Windows, the Briefcase is a special folder that supports a simple two-way file synchronization between itself and another folder. The Briefcase is designed for mobile PC users so that they may transfer it to a removable drive and have it synchronize with the computer to which the removable drive is attached. It follows the same metaphor as the file and file folder and then, while the file management tasks are performed by Windows Explorer, the briefcase behaves just like another folder, i.e. with support for copy-paste and drag-and-drop. It has additional functions and toolbar buttons for updating out-of-sync files. The Windows Briefcase was introduced in Windows 95, deprecated in Windows 8 and completely disabled in Windows 10 until it was finally removed in Windows 10 build 14942.
Windows Live Mail was a freeware email client from Microsoft. It is the successor to Windows Mail in Windows Vista, which was the successor to Outlook Express in Windows XP and Windows 98. Windows Live Mail is designed to run on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but is also compatible with Windows 8 and Windows 10, even though Microsoft bundles a new email client, named Windows Mail, with the latter.
