List of Microsoft Windows application programming interfaces and frameworks

The following is a list of Microsoft APIs and frameworks.

1 APIs
- 1.1 Current
- 1.2 Deprecated
2 Frameworks
3 Libraries
4 Third Parties
5 See also

APIs

Current

Component Model
- ActiveX
- 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);
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 Template:Microsoft APIs section: Software Factories)
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
Winsock
Win32 console
Windows API's current versions: Win32, Win64

Deprecated

Active Scripting
Collaboration Data Objects for Windows NT Server
Dynamic Data Exchange
Older data access technologies
- Microsoft Jet Database Engine
- Data object
  - Data Access Objects (DAO)
  - Remote Data Objects (RDO)
- Remote Data Services (RDS)
Setup API
Windows API's old versions: Win16, Win32s

Frameworks

Libraries

Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC)
Active Template Library (ATL)
Base Class Library (BCL)
Object Windows Library (OWL)
Standard Template Library (STL)
Visual Component Library (VCL)
Windows Template Library (WTL)
Text Object Model (TOM)

Third Parties

Microsoft APIs and frameworks

Graphics	Desktop Window Manager Direct2D Direct3D D3D (extensions) GDI / GDI+ WPF Silverlight WinRT XAML Windows Color System Windows Image Acquisition Windows Imaging Component

Audio	DirectMusic DirectSound DirectX plugin XACT Speech API XAudio2

Multimedia	DirectX Media Objects Video Acceleration DirectInput DirectShow Image Mastering API Managed DirectX Media Foundation XNA Windows Media Video for Windows

Web	MSHTML RSS Platform JScript VBScript BHO XDR SideBar Gadgets TypeScript

Data access	Data Access Components Extensible Storage Engine ADO.NET Entity Framework Sync Framework Jet Engine MSXML OLE DB OPC

Networking	Winsock LSP Winsock Kernel Filtering Platform Network Driver Interface Specification Windows Rally BITS P2P API MSMQ MS MPI DirectPlay

Communication	Messaging API Telephony API WCF

Administration and management	Win32 console Windows Script Host WMI (extensions) PowerShell Task Scheduler Offline Files Shadow Copy Windows Installer Error Reporting Event Log Common Log File System

Component model	COM COM+ ActiveX Distributed Component Object Model .NET Framework

Libraries	Base Class Library (BCL) Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) Active Template Library (ATL) Windows Template Library (WTL)

Device drivers	Windows Driver Model Windows Driver Foundation KMDF UMDF WDDM NDIS UAA Broadcast Driver Architecture VxD

Security	Crypto API CAPICOM Windows CardSpace Data Protection API Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI)

.NET	ASP.NET ADO.NET Base Class Library (BCL) Remoting Silverlight TPL WCF WCS WPF WF

Software factories	EFx Factory Enterprise Library Composite UI CCF CSF

IPC	MSRPC Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) Remoting WCF

Accessibility	Active Accessibility UI Automation

Text and multilingual support	DirectWrite Text Services Framework Text Object Model Input method editor Language Interface Pack Multilingual User Interface Uniscribe

Contents

APIs

Current

Deprecated

Frameworks

Libraries

Third Parties

See also