List of Microsoft Windows application programming interfaces and frameworks explained

The following is a list of Microsoft APIs and frameworks.

APIs

Current

• Component Model
  • ActiveX (while not supported in the default web browser Microsoft Edge)
  • Component Object Model (COM)
  • Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM)
  • COM+
  • Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), including: OLE DB
  • Cryptographic API (CAPICOM)
  • ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)
  • Collaboration Data Objects (CDO);
  • Windows Runtime (WinRT)
    • Universal Windows Platform (UWP)
• DirectShow
• DirectX
  • Direct2D
  • Direct3D
  • DirectDraw
  • DirectInput
  • DirectMusic
  • DirectPlay
  • DirectSetup
  • DirectSound
  • DirectWrite
  • XACT (Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool)
  • XAudio 2
• Media Foundation (Windows Vista / Windows 7)
• Interface
  • Graphics Device Interface (GDI) and GDI+
  • Application Programming Interface (API)
    • Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)
    • Remote Application Programming Interface (RAPI)
    • Speech Application Programming Interface (SAPI)
    • Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI)
• Extensible Storage Engine (Jet Blue)
• Object linking and embedding (OLE)
  • OLE Automation
• Uniscribe (see section: Software Factories)
• Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
• Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
• Winsock
• Win32 console
• Windows API (current versions: Win32; Win64)

Deprecated

• Active Scripting
• Collaboration Data Objects for Windows NT Server
• Dynamic Data Exchange
• Older data access technologies
  • Jet Database Engine
  • Data object
    • Jet Data Access Objects
    • Remote Data Objects (RDO)
  • Remote Data Services (RDS)
• Setup API
• Windows API (old versions: Win16; Win32s)
• XNA libraries for cross platform Xbox 360/Windows development

Frameworks

• .NET Framework
  • Remoting, Assemblies, Metadata
  • Common Language Runtime, Common Type System, Global Assembly Cache, Microsoft Intermediate Language, Windows Forms
  • ADO.NET, ASP.NET
  • Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
  • Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
  • Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)
  • Windows CardSpace (WCS)
  • Universal Windows Platform (UWP)
  • Windows PowerShell
• Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
• Text Services Framework
• Windows Driver Model
• Windows Driver Foundation

Libraries

• Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC)
• Active Template Library (ATL)
• Framework Class Library (FCL)
• Object Windows Library (OWL)
• Standard Template Library (STL)
• Visual Component Library (VCL)
• Windows Template Library (WTL)
• Windows UI Library (WinUI)
• Text Object Model (TOM)

See also

• List of Microsoft topics