VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers without error handling and with subroutines and other advanced programming constructs. It can give the user complete control over many aspects of their computing environment.
A screensaver is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT or plasma computer monitors. Though most modern monitors are not susceptible to this issue, screensaver programs are still used for other purposes. Screensavers are often set up to offer a basic layer of security by requiring a password to re-access the device. Some screensaver programs also use otherwise-idle computer resources to do useful work, such as processing for volunteer computing projects.
Visual Basic (VB), originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visual Basic language, the last version of which was Visual Basic 6.0. Although the ".NET" portion of the name was dropped in 2005, this article uses "Visual Basic [.NET]" to refer to all Visual Basic languages released since 2002, in order to distinguish between them and the classic Visual Basic. Along with C# and F#, it is one of the three main languages targeting the .NET ecosystem. Microsoft updated its VB language strategy on 6 Feb 2023 stating that VB is a stable language now and Microsoft will keep maintaining it.
In computer programming, a callback or callback function is any reference to executable code that is passed as an argument to another piece of code; that code is expected to call back (execute) the callback function as part of its job. This execution may be immediate as in a synchronous callback, or it might happen at a later point in time as in an asynchronous callback. They are also called blocking and non-blocking.
Signals are standardized messages sent to a running program to trigger specific behavior, such as quitting or error handling. They are a limited form of inter-process communication (IPC), typically used in Unix, Unix-like, and other POSIX-compliant operating systems.
Windows USER is a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system that provides core functionality for building simple user interfaces. The component has existed in all versions of Windows, and includes functionality for window management, message passing, input processing and standard controls.
In computer science, asynchronous I/O is a form of input/output processing that permits other processing to continue before the transmission has finished. A name used for asynchronous I/O in the Windows API is overlapped I/O.
Xlib is an X Window System protocol client library written in the C programming language. It contains functions for interacting with an X server. These functions allow programmers to write programs without knowing the details of the X protocol.
Dynamic-link library (DLL) is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems. These libraries usually have the file extension DLL, OCX, or DRV . The file formats for DLLs are the same as for Windows EXE files – that is, Portable Executable (PE) for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, and New Executable (NE) for 16-bit Windows. As with EXEs, DLLs can contain code, data, and resources, in any combination.
In computer programming, the term hooking covers a range of techniques used to alter or augment the behaviour of an operating system, of applications, or of other software components by intercepting function calls or messages or events passed between software components. Code that handles such intercepted function calls, events or messages is called a hook.
The message loop is an obligatory section of code in every program that uses a graphical user interface under Microsoft Windows. Windows programs that have a GUI are event-driven. Windows maintains an individual message queue for each thread that has created a window. Usually only the first thread creates windows. Windows places messages into that queue whenever mouse activity occurs on that thread's window, whenever keyboard activity occurs while that window has focus, and at other times. A process can also add messages to its own queue. To accept user input, and for other reasons, each thread with a window must continuously retrieve messages from its queue, and act on them. A programmer makes the process do that by writing a loop that calls GetMessage, and then calls DispatchMessage, and repeats indefinitely. This is the message loop. There usually is a message loop in the main program, which runs on the main thread, and additional message loop in each created modal dialog. Messages for every window of the process pass through its message queue, and are handled by its message loop. A message loop is one kind of event loop.
In computer science, the event loop is a programming construct or design pattern that waits for and dispatches events or messages in a program. The event loop works by making a request to some internal or external "event provider", then calls the relevant event handler. The event loop is also sometimes referred to as the message dispatcher, message loop, message pump, or run loop.
Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) is a set of system services in Windows Vista and later that allows Windows software to process and filter network traffic. Microsoft intended WFP for use by firewalls, antimalware software, and parental controls apps. Additionally, WFP is used to implement NAT and to store IPSec policy configuration.
In computer programming, DLL injection is a technique used for running code within the address space of another process by forcing it to load a dynamic-link library. DLL injection is often used by external programs to influence the behavior of another program in a way its authors did not anticipate or intend. For example, the injected code could hook system function calls, or read the contents of password textboxes, which cannot be done the usual way. A program used to inject arbitrary code into arbitrary processes is called a DLL injector.
The original Visual Basic is a third-generation event-driven programming language from Microsoft known for its Component Object Model (COM) programming model first released in 1991 and declared legacy during 2008. Microsoft intended Visual Basic to be relatively easy to learn and use. Visual Basic was derived from BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects, Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects.
The Windows software trace preprocessor is a preprocessor that simplifies the use of WMI event tracing to implement efficient software tracing in drivers and applications that target Windows 2000 and later operating systems. WPP was created by Microsoft and is included in the Windows DDK. Although WPP is wide in its applicability, it is not included in the Windows SDK, and therefore is primarily used for drivers and driver support software produced by software vendors that purchase the Windows DDK.
Object Manager is a subsystem implemented as part of the Windows Executive which manages Windows resources. Resources, which are surfaced as logical objects, each reside in a namespace for categorization. Resources can be physical devices, files or folders on volumes, Registry entries or even running processes. All objects representing resources have an Object Type property and other metadata about the resource. Object Manager is a shared resource, and all subsystems that deal with the resources have to pass through the Object Manager.
PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it was made open-source and cross-platform on August 18, 2016, with the introduction of PowerShell Core. The former is built on the .NET Framework, the latter on .NET.
In computing, Nano-X is a windowing system which is full featured enough to be used on a PC, an embedded system or a PDA. It is an Open Source project aimed at bringing the features of modern graphical windowing environments to smaller devices and platforms. The project was renamed from Microwindows due to legal threats from Microsoft regarding the Windows trademark.
Yesod is a free and open-source web framework based on Haskell for productive development of type-safe, REST model based, high performance web applications, developed by Michael Snoyman et al.