CAPICOM is a discontinued ActiveX control created by Microsoft to help expose a select set of Microsoft Cryptographic Application Programming Interface (CryptoAPI) functions through Microsoft Component Object Model (COM). It was intended to enable every environment that supports ActiveX to use Microsoft Cryptographic technologies, including web pages that are opened with Microsoft Internet Explorer or any other web browser that supports ActiveX. [1]
CAPICOM can be used to digitally sign data, display and inspect their digital certificate, verify the validity of their digital signature, add or remove certificates to or from the certificate stores, and encrypt or decrypt data. [1]
CAPICOM Version 2.1.0.3, the latest and last version of CAPICOM, is officially supported on Windows Vista. [2] [3] [4] However, Microsoft has announced that CAPICOM is discontinued and is no longer being developed. Microsoft suggests replacing CAPICOM with .NET Framework's X509 Cryptographic Classes and, in a handful of cases, with Windows API functions. [5]
CAPICOM was not included in Windows SDK for Windows 7. [6]
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", such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. The name DirectX was coined as a shorthand term for all of these APIs and soon became the name of the collection. When Microsoft later set out to develop a gaming console, the X was used as the basis of the name Xbox to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology. The X initial has been carried forward in the naming of APIs designed for the Xbox such as XInput and the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such as Direct2D and DirectWrite.
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