Active Desktop - History

History

The introduction of the Active Desktop marked Microsoft's attempt to capitalize on the short-lived push technology trend led by PointCast. Active Desktop placed a number of "channels" on the user's computer desktop that provided continually-updated information, such as news headlines and stock quotes, without requiring the user to open a Web browser.

Active Desktop debuted during the 1997 release of Internet Explorer 4.0 for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, as a feature of the optional Windows Desktop Update offered to users during the upgrade install. While the Windows Desktop Update is commonly referred to (improperly) as Active Desktop itself, it is actually an entire Windows shell upgrade from v4.0 to v4.71, or v4.72, with numerous changes to the Windows interface, resulting in an appearance and functionality level nearly indistinguishable from the then yet-to-be-released Windows 98. Features include the option to allow uppercase filenames (the old v4.0 desktop would forcibly display uppercase filenames in title case), configurable one-click hot-tracking file selection, customizable per-folder HTML display settings, QuickLaunch mini-buttons on the Task Bar next to the Start button, upgraded Start Menu allowing drag and drop item reordering and allowing right-click context menus for item renaming, etc. With the update, Windows Explorer now features an Address bar in which Internet addresses can be entered and seamlessly browsed.

Active Desktop was largely considered to be a failure, with one of the main problems being its high use of system resources and reduction in system stability. Although little used, the availability of Active Desktop was key to Microsoft's legal argument in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust suit that Internet Explorer was a feature of Windows rather than a separate product.