Microsoft Windows was announced by Bill Gates on November 10, 1983. Microsoft introduced Windows as a graphical user interface for MS-DOS, which had been introduced a couple of years earlier. In the 1990s, the product line evolved from an operating environment into a fully complete, modern operating system over two lines of development, each with their own separate codebase.
Microsoft Windows, commonly referred to as Windows, is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families, all of which are developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. Active Microsoft Windows families include Windows NT and Windows IoT; these may encompass subfamilies, e.g. Windows Server or Windows Embedded Compact. Defunct Microsoft Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone.
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand. On July 10, 2012, Softpedia reported that Office was being used by over a billion people worldwide.
A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS and Android.
A Pocket PC, also known by Microsoft as a Windows Mobile Classic device, is a kind of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile operating system. It has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs.
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office suite. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, and web browsing.
Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products.
Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems.
Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and Pocket PCs.
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.
Microsoft Mail was the name given to several early Microsoft e-mail products for local area networks, primarily two architectures: one for Macintosh networks, and one for PC architecture-based LANs. All were eventually replaced by the Exchange and Outlook product lines.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (IE4) is a graphical web browser that Microsoft released in October 1997, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also with versions available for the classic Mac OS, Solaris, and HP-UX and marketed as "The Web the Way You Want It".
Nokia PC Suite is a 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 was a 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.
Quick View is a file viewer in Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems. The viewer can be used to view practically any file.
Windows Messaging, initially called Microsoft Exchange Client, is an email client that was included with Windows 95, 98 and Windows NT 4.0.
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 other files between Windows Mobile devices and the Microsoft Windows operating system.
The MobilePro is a discontinued line of personal digital assistants manufactured by NEC. Most models in the MobilePro range were handheld PCs with almost full size keyboards and a compact form placing them between being a palmtop and a subnotebook. All of the models in the MobilePro range ran a version of Microsoft's Windows CE mobile operating system and could be navigated using a stylus and touchscreen.
Windows Live Mail is a discontinued 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.