Windows XP is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to both Windows 2000 for professional users and Windows Me for home users, and it was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, with retail sales beginning on October 25, 2001.
Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational software company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. Citrix products are claimed to be in use by over 400,000 clients worldwide, including 99% of the Fortune 100, and 98% of the Fortune 500.
Windows Virtual PC was a virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version free of charge. In August 2006, Microsoft announced the Macintosh version would not be ported to Intel-based Macintosh computers, effectively discontinuing the product as PowerPC-based Macintosh computers would no longer be manufactured.
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly three years earlier. It remained an operating system for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs, and itself was replaced in November 2012 by Windows 8, the name spanning more than three years of the product. Until April 9, 2013, Windows 7 RTM provided content such as security updates, software updates, PC driver updates and technical support, after which installation of Service Pack 1 is required for users to receive support and updates. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time. The last supported version of Windows based on this operating system was released on July 1, 2011, entitled Windows Embedded POSReady 7. On January 12, 2016, Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer versions older than Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7. Extended support ended on January 14, 2020, over ten years after the release of Windows 7, after which the operating system ceased receiving further support or security updates to most users, and all PCs that blocks Windows Update on Windows 7 versions newer than KB4499164 released in May 2019 displays a full-screen upgrade warning notification with an information page link starting from January 15, 2020. A support program is currently available for enterprises, providing security updates for Windows 7 for up to four years since the official end of life. However, Windows Embedded POSReady 7, the last Windows 7 variant, continues to receive security updates until October 2021.
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this purpose, while the other computer must run RDP server software.
Windows Server 2008 is the fourth release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems, based on Windows Vista. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on February 27, 2008. Windows Server 2008 is the successor of Windows Server 2003, which is derived from the Windows XP codebase, released nearly five years earlier.
Veritas Backup Exec is a data protection software product designed for customers who have mixed physical and virtual environments, and who are moving to public cloud services. Supported platforms include VMware and Hyper-V virtualization, Windows and Linux operating systems, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google cloud storage, among others. All management and configuration operations are performed with a single user interface. Backup Exec also provides integrated deduplication, replication, and disaster recovery capabilities and helps to manage multiple backup servers or multi-drive tape loaders.
Parallels is a software company based in Bellevue, Washington; it is primarily involved in the development of virtualization software for macOS. The company has offices in 15 countries, including the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Japan, China, Spain, Russia, Australia and Ukraine, and has over 800 employees.
Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it.
Windows Home Server is a home server operating system from Microsoft. It was announced on 7 January 2007 at the Consumer Electronics Show by Bill Gates, released to manufacturing on 16 July 2007 and officially released on 4 November 2007.
Microsoft Application Virtualization is an application virtualization and application streaming solution from Microsoft. It was originally developed by Softricity, a company based in Boston, Massachusetts, acquired by Microsoft on July 17, 2006. App-V represents Microsoft's entry to the application virtualization market, alongside their other virtualization technologies such as Hyper-V, Microsoft User Environment Virtualization (UE-V), Remote Desktop Services, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
The Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (MSJVM) is a discontinued proprietary Java virtual machine from Microsoft. It was first made available for Internet Explorer 3 so that users could run Java applets when browsing on the World Wide Web. It was the fastest Windows-based implementation of a Java virtual machine for the first two years after its release. Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java, sued Microsoft in October 1997 for incompletely implementing the Java 1.1 standard. It was also named in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. antitrust civil actions, as an implementation of Microsoft's "Embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy. In 2001, Microsoft settled the lawsuit with Sun and discontinued its Java implementation.
Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to take control of a remote computer or virtual machine over a network connection. RDS is Microsoft's implementation of thin client architecture, where Windows software, and the entire desktop of the computer running RDS, are made accessible to any remote client machine that supports Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). User interfaces are displayed from the server onto the client system and input from the client system is transmitted to the server - where software execution takes place. This is in contrast to application streaming systems, like Microsoft App-V, in which computer programs are streamed to the client on-demand and executed on the client machine.
NComputing is a desktop virtualization company that manufactures hardware and software to create virtual desktops which enable multiple users to simultaneously share a single operating system instance.
Windows XP has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001.
Windows 7, a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was available in six different editions: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. Only Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate were widely available at retailers. The other editions focus on other markets, such as the software development world or enterprise use. All editions support 32-bit IA-32 CPUs and all editions except Starter support 64-bit x64 CPUs. 64-bit installation media are not included in Home-Basic edition packages, but can be obtained separately from Microsoft.
Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) was a software suite that provides secure remote access to corporate networks for remote employees and business partners. Its services include reverse proxy, virtual private network (VPN), DirectAccess and Remote Desktop Services. UAG was released in 2010, and is the successor for Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) which was released in 2007. UAG is part of the Microsoft Forefront offering. Microsoft discontinued the product in 2014, although the Web Application Proxy feature of Windows Server 2012 R2 and later offers some of its functionalities. While Web Application Proxy is not a direct feature-for-feature replacement, companies like PortSys and F5 offer direct migration paths for UAG deployments.
Microsoft RemoteFX is a Microsoft brand name that covers a set of technologies that enhance visual experience of the Microsoft-developed remote display protocol Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). RemoteFX was first introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and is based on intellectual property that Microsoft acquired and continued to develop since acquiring Calista Technologies. It is a part of the overall Remote Desktop Services workload.
Nivio was a company marketing desktop virtualization services that allow a customer to use computer application software without a personal computer.
Citrix Virtual Desktops is a desktop virtualization product.
