Microsoft Windows was announced by Bill Gates on 10 November 1983, 2 years before it was first released. Microsoft introduced Windows as a graphical user interface for MS-DOS, which had been introduced two years earlier. The product line evolved in the 1990s from an operating environment into a fully complete, modern operating system over two lines of development, each with their own separate codebase.
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and iPadOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Excel forms part of the Microsoft 365 suite of software.
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, Object Linking and Embedding 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.
The Microsoft Windows Script Host (WSH) is an automation technology for Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides scripting abilities comparable to batch files, but with a wider range of supported features. This tool was first provided on Windows 95 after Build 950a on the installation discs as an optional installation configurable and installable by means of the Control Panel, and then a standard component of Windows 98 and subsequent and Windows NT 4.0 Build 1381 and by means of Service Pack 4. The WSH is also a means of automation for Internet Explorer via the installed WSH engines from IE Version 3.0 onwards; at this time VBScript became means of automation for Microsoft Outlook 97. The WSH is also an optional install provided with a VBScript and JScript engine for Windows CE 3.0 and following and some third-party engines including Rexx and other forms of Basic are also available.
The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Office for Windows, in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Project, Microsoft FrontPage, and Microsoft Office for Mac. The Office Assistant used technology initially from Microsoft Bob and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms.
Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, and was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail in August 24, 1996, with the Server versions released to retail in September 1996.
Windows NT 3.51 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the third version of Windows NT and was released on May 30, 1995, eight months following the release of Windows NT 3.5. The most significant enhancement offered in this release was that it provides client/server support for inter-operating with Windows 95, which was released almost three months after NT 3.51. Windows NT 4.0 became its successor a year later. Mainstream support for Windows NT 3.51 Workstation ended on December 31, 2000, and extended support ended on December 31, 2001, while Windows NT 3.51 Server mainstream support ended on September 30, 2000, followed by extended support on September 30, 2002. Both editions were succeeded by Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Windows NT 4.0 Server, respectively.
Microsoft Project is project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.
Microsoft Office 2003 is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, 2003. The Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac was released on May 11, 2004.
Microsoft Office XP is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to retail on May 31, 2001. A Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office v. X was released on November 19, 2001.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (IE4) is the fourth, and by now, discontinued, version of the Internet Explorer graphical web browser that Microsoft unveiled in Spring of 1997, and released on September 22, 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".
Windows Server Essentials is an integrated server suite from Microsoft for businesses with no more than 25 users or 50 devices. It includes Windows Server, Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services, and Microsoft Outlook. Application server technologies are tightly integrated to provide and offer management benefits such as integrated setup, enhanced monitoring, Remote Web Workplace, a unified management console, and remote access.
Microsoft Office 2000 is a release of Microsoft Office, an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for the Windows family of operating systems. Office 2000 was released to manufacturing on March 29, 1999, and was made available to retail on June 7, 1999. A Mac OS equivalent, Microsoft Office 2001, was released on October 11, 2000.
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.
This is a history of the various versions of Microsoft Office, consisting of a bundle of several different applications which changed over time. This table only includes final releases and not pre-release or beta software. It also does not list the history of the constituent standalone applications which were released much earlier starting with Word in 1983, Excel in 1985, and PowerPoint in 1987.
Microsoft Office 95 is a major release of Microsoft Office, released by Microsoft on August 24, 1995. It is the successor to both Office 4.2 and 4.3. As it is a 32-bit program suite, it does not run on Windows 3.1x or earlier versions of Windows, which use a 16-bit architecture. It is not officially supported on Windows NT 3.1 or Windows NT 3.5. It is officially supported on Windows NT 3.51 through Windows Me.
Microsoft Office shared tools are software components that are included in all Microsoft Office products.
Microsoft Office 2013 is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. Unlike with Office 2010, no OS X equivalent was released.
Microsoft Office 2019 is a version of Microsoft Office for both Windows and Mac. It was unveiled on April 27, 2018, for Microsoft Windows and June 12, 2018, for macOS, and launched on September 24, 2018. Some features that had previously been restricted to Office 365 subscribers are available in this release. Office 2019 retains the same major version number of 16, making it the second perpetual release of Office 16. Microsoft ended mainstream support for Office 2019 on October 10, 2023. Unlike other versions of Microsoft Office, Office 2019 will only get two years of extended support, which means that support for Office 2019 will end on October 14, 2025.
