Applications and Utilities
| Component | Description | Introduced |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Easy Transfer | Used to transfer many files at once from one computer to another. | Windows Vista |
| Windows Contacts | Keeps a single list of contacts that can be shared by multiple programs. | Windows Vista |
| Calculator | A calculation application. | Windows 1.0 |
| Character Map | Utility to view and search characters in a font, copy them to the clipboard and view their Windows Alt keycodes and Unicode names | Windows 3.1 |
| Paint | A simple graphics painting program. | Windows 1.0 |
| Windows To Go | A utility to create bootable versions of Windows 8, called Windows To Go | Windows 8 |
| Notepad | A simple text editor. | Windows 1.0 |
| Narrator | A screen reader utility that reads dialog boxes and window controls in a number of the more basic applications for Windows. | Windows 2000 |
| Sound Recorder | A simple audio recording program that can record from a microphone or headset, and save the results in WAVE format and Windows Media Audio format in some Windows versions. | Windows 3.1 |
| Command Prompt | A text-based shell (command line interpreter) that provides a command line interface to the operating system. | Windows 1.0 |
| WordPad | A simple word processor that is more advanced than Notepad. It has facilities to format and print text, but lacks intermediate features such as a spell checker and thesaurus. | Windows 95 |
| Private Character Editor | Utility to create private use characters as defined under Unicode and various East Asian encoding schemes. | Windows 3.1+ East Asian editions |
| Remote Desktop Connection | A client implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol; allows a user to securely connect to a computer running Terminal Services (Remote Desktop on Windows XP and Server 2003) and interact with a full desktop environment on that machine, including support for remoting of printers, audio, and drives. | Windows XP, downloadable for previous Windows versions |
| Windows Remote Assistance | Allows a user to temporarily take over a remote computer over a network or the internet to offer help with and resolve issues. | Windows XP |
| Internet Explorer | A web browser and FTP client.
See also: IE1, IE2, IE3, IE4, IE5, IE6, IE7, IE8, Features, History, Removal, Browser Helper Objects |
Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 |
| IExpress | Allows users to create self-extracting, self-installing INF installation-based packages. | Internet Explorer 6 |
| Windows Fax and Scan | An integrated faxing and image scanning application. | Windows Vista, older faxing and scanning applications were present in previous Windows versions |
| Windows Media Player | A digital media player and media library application that is used for playing audio, playing video and viewing images. In addition to being a media player, Windows Media Player includes the ability to rip music from, and copy music to compact discs, synchronize content with a digital audio player (MP3 player) or other mobile devices, and let users purchase or rent music from a number of online music stores. | Windows 95 |
| Windows Photo Viewer | A simple image viewer that can play a simple slideshow | Windows 7 |
| Windows DVD Maker | A DVD movie encoding and authoring software. | Windows Vista |
| Windows Journal | A notetaking application that allows for the creation of handwritten notes. | Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Vista |
| Windows Media Center | Designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub, to be viewed from a distance up to 3 meters (~10 feet) and controlled by specially designed remote controls. Lets users browse and view pictures, videos, and music from local hard drives, optical drives, and network locations, along with viewing, recording and deferred-playing live TV. Features an interactive TV guide with scheduled recording capabilities. Can also be used for visualization of other information (like sports scores) within the interface. | Windows XP Media Center Edition |
| Windows Task Manager | Provides information about computer performance and displays details about running applications, processes, network activity, logged-in users, and system services. | Windows 3.0 |
| Disk Cleanup | A utility for compacting rarely used files and removing files that are no longer required. | Windows 98 |
| Shadow Copy | A graphical front end for the Shadow Copy service that lets users choose from multiple versions of a file. The shadow copy service creates multiple copies of a file as they are changed over time, so that users can revert to previous versions. | Windows Vista. Windows Server 2003 included Previous Versions support only for client computers. |
| Snipping Tool | A screen-capture tool that allows for taking screenshots (called snips). | Experience Pack for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 |
Read more about this topic: Windows Components
Famous quotes containing the word utilities:
“Flowers ... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)