Microsoft Visual Studio

Yesterday I thought of having a research on Microsoft visual studio and look what I found so thought of sharing with u all. Microsoft Visual Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It can be used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all platforms supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, .NET Framework, .NET Compact Framework and Microsoft Silverlight.
Visual Studio includes a code editor supporting IntelliSense as well as code refactoring. The integrated debugger works both as a source-level debugger and a machine-level debugger. Other built-in tools include a forms designer for building GUI applications, web designer, class designer, and database schema designer. It accepts plug-ins that enhance the functionality at almost every level—including adding support for source control systems (like Subversion and Visual SourceSafe) to adding new toolsets like editors and visual designers for domain-specific languages or toolsets for other aspects of the software development lifecycle (like the Team Foundation Server client: Team Explorer).
Visual Studio supports languages by means of language services, which allow the code editor and debugger to support (to varying degrees) nearly any programming language, provided a language-specific service exists. Built-in languages include C/C++ (via Visual C++), VB.NET (via Visual Basic .NET), and C# (via Visual C#). Support for other languages such as F#, M, Python, and Ruby among others is available via language services installed separately. It also supports XML/XSLT, HTML/XHTML, JavaScript and CSS. Language-specific versions of Visual Studio also exist which provide more limited language services to the user. These individual packages are called Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual J#, Visual C#, and Visual C++.
Microsoft provides "Express" editions of its Visual Studio 2008 components Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, and Visual Web Developer at no cost. Visual Studio 2008 and 2005 Professional Editions, along with language-specific versions (Visual Basic, C++, C#, J#) of Visual Studio 2005 are available for free to students as downloads via Microsoft's DreamSpark program. Visual Studio 2010 is currently in beta testing and can be downloaded by the general public at no cost.
Architecture
Visual Studio does not support any programming language, solution or tool intrinsically. Instead, it allows various functionality to be plugged in. Specific functionality is coded as a VSPackage. When installed, the functionality is available as a Service. The IDE provides three services: SVsSolution, which provides the ability to enumerate projects and solutions; SVsUIShell, which provides windowing and UI functionality (including tabs, toolbars and tool windows); and SVsShell, which deals with registration of VSPackages. In addition, the IDE is also responsible for coordinating and enabling communication between services. All editors, designers, project types and other tools are implemented as VSPackages. Visual Studio uses COM to access the VSPackages. The Visual Studio SDK also includes the Managed Package Framework (MPF), which is a set of managed wrappers around the COM-interfaces that allow the Packages to be written in .NET languages. However, MPF does not provide all the functionality exposed by the Visual Studio COM interfaces.The services can then be consumed for creation of other packages, which add functionality to the Visual Studio IDE.
Support for programming languages is added by using a specific VSPackage called a Language Service. A language service defines various interfaces which the VSPackage implementation can implement to add support for various functionality. Functionality that can be added this way includes syntax coloring, statement completion, brace matching, parameter information tooltips, member lists and error markers for background compilation.If the interface is implemented, the functionality will be available for the language. Language services are to be implemented on a per-language basis. The implementations can reuse code from the parser or the compiler for the language.Language services can be implemented either in native code or managed code. For native code, either the native COM interfaces or the Babel Framework (part of Visual Studio SDK) can be used. For managed code, the MPF includes wrappers for writing managed language services.
Visual Studio does not include any source control support built in but it defines the MSSCCI (Microsoft Source Code Control Interface) by implementing which source control systems can integrate with the IDE.MSSCCI defines a set of functions that are used to implement various source control functionality. MSSCCI was first used to integrate Visual SourceSafe with Visual Studio 6.0 but was later opened up via the Visual Studio SDK. Visual Studio .NET 2002 used MSSCCI 1.1, and Visual Studio .NET 2003 used MSSCCI 1.2. Both Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 use MSSCCI Version 1.3, which adds support for rename and delete propagation as well as asynchronous opening.
Visual Studio supports running multiple instances of the environment (each with its own set of VSPackages). The instances use different registry hives (see MSDN's definition of the term "registry hive" in the sense used here) to store their configuration state and are differentiated by their AppId (Application ID). The instances are launched by an AppId-specific .exe that selects the AppId, sets the root hive and launches the IDE. VSPackages registered for one AppId are integrated with other VSPackages for that AppId. The various product editions of Visual Studio are created using the different AppIds. The Visual Studio Express edition products are installed with their own AppIds, but the Standard, Professional and Team Suite products share the same AppId. Consequently, the Express editions can be installed side-by-side with other editions, unlike the other editions which update the same installation. The professional edition includes a superset of the VSPackages in the standard edition and the team suite includes a superset of the VSPackages in both other editions. The AppId system is leveraged by the Visual Studio Shell in Visual Studio 2008.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Yesterday Tom asked me about adobe photoshop lightroom. So I told him that adobe photoshop Lightroom is a photography software program developed by Adobe Systems for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, designed to assist professional photographers in managing thousands of digital images and doing post production work. It is not a file browser like Adobe Bridge, but rather an image management application database which helps in viewing, editing, and managing digital photos.
History
In 2002, veteran Photoshop developer Mark Hamburg began a new project, code-named “Shadowland". Hamburg reached out to Andrei Herasimchuk, former interface designer for the Adobe Creative Suite, to get the project off the ground. The new project was a deliberate departure from many of Adobe’s established conventions. 40% of Photoshop Lightroom is written using the Lua scripting language. After a few years of research by Hamburg, Herasimchuk, Sandy Alves, the former interface designer on the Photoshop team, and Grace Kim, a product researcher at Adobe, the Shadowland project got momentum around 2004. Herasimchuk chose to leave Adobe Systems at that time to start a design company in the Valley, and then Hamburg chose Phil Clevenger, a former associate of Kai Krause's, to create a new look for the application.
Photoshop Lightroom's (LR) engineering talent is based largely in Minnesota, comprising the team that had already created Adobe’s ImageReady application. Troy Gaul, Melissa Gaul, and the rest of their crew (reportedly known as the “Minnesota Phats”), along with Hamburg, developed the architecture behind the application. George Jardine, a skilled photographer and previous Adobe evangelist, rounded out the early team, filling the Product Manager role.
Beta development
On January 9, 2006, an early version of Photoshop Lightroom, previously just called Lightroom, was released to the public as a Macintosh-only public Beta, on the Adobe Labs website. This was the first Adobe product released to the general public for feedback during its development. This method was then later used in the development of Adobe Photoshop CS3. Further Beta releases followed. Notable releases included Beta 3 on July 18, 2006, which added support for Microsoft Windows systems. On September 25, 2006, Beta 4 was released, which saw the program merged into the Photoshop product range, followed by a minor update on October 19, which was released as Beta 4.1.
Version 1.0
On January 29, 2007, Adobe announced that Lightroom would be shipping on February 19, 2007. US list pricing was set at $299. The UK retail price was £199. Lightroom v1.x is not updated when an upgrade to v2 is installed; a new serial number is required, too.
Version 2.0
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Beta was advertised in official emails from Adobe in April 2008. New features include:

* Localized corrections (edit specific parts of an image)
* Improved organization tools
* Multiple monitor support
* Flexible printing options
* 64-bit support

The official release of Lightroom v2 was on July 29 2008, along with the release of Adobe Camera Raw v4.5 and DNG Converter 4.5. Adobe has added DNG Camera Profiling to both releases. This technology allows custom camera color profiles, or looks, to be created by the user and saved. It also allows profiles matching the creative styles built in to cameras to be replicated. Adobe released a complete set of such Camera Profiles for Nikon and Canon models, in addition to basic Standard Profiles for all supported makes and models, through Adobe Labs, at the same time as the Lightroom v2 release. This technology is open to all programs compliant with the DNG file format standard.
Version 3.0
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 beta was released on October 22, 2009. New features include:

* New import pseudo module
* Grain
* Publish mode
* Backup on export
* Custom package for print
* New noise reduction
* Improved Sharpening tool
Features
Unlike traditional image editing software, Photoshop Lightroom is focused on the following workflow steps:
* Library - image collection review and organization - similar in concept to the 'Organizer' in Adobe Photoshop Elements
* Develop - non-destructive RAW and JPEG file editing
* Sideshow - tools and export features
* Print - layout options and preferences
* Web - automatic gallery creation and upload
The Develop mode has a number of standard presets for color correction or effects and supports the sharing of custom presets online.

Microsoft Expression Studio 3

A friend of mine Sachit told me about Microsoft Expression Studio 3 so I thought of having a research on it and tell u guys about it.Microsoft Expression Studio is a suite of tools which is basically used for designing and building web and Windows client applications and rich digital media contents.Microsoft introduced Microsoft Expression on September 16, 2005 at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. Microsoft Expression Encoder was introduced at NAB 2007. Microsoft Expression Studio was released to manufacturing on April 30, 2007. The RTM news was announced at Microsoft's MIX 07 conference for web developers and designers.
Microsoft Expression Studio 2 was released on May 1, 2008, which also included a graphical makeover for the suite to an inverse of the previous a white on black theme. This release brings all products in the suite to version 2, and now also includes Visual Studio Standard 2008. Microsoft Expression Studio is also available to students as downloads via Microsoft's DreamSpark program. Microsoft Expression Studio 3 was released on July 22, 2009, This release brings all products in the suite to version 3, with significant improvements especially targeting Silverlight 3. Expression Media is no longer a part of package, while all other products have been significantly improved and enriched.It available in the following languages English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese(Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation software, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. It has been described as "an industry standard for graphics professionals" and was one of the early "killer applications" on the Macintosh, later also for MS Windows.

Adobe's 2005 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS4 is the 11th major release of Adobe Photoshop. The CS rebranding also resulted in Adobe offering numerous software packages containing multiple Adobe programs for a reduced price. Adobe Photoshop is included in most of Adobe's Creative Suite offerings.

Photoshop's popularity, combined with its high retail price, makes Photoshop's piracy rate relatively high.Adobe countered by including SafeCast DRM starting with Adobe Photoshop CS.

Early History
In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended Thomas turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program, which had been renamed ImagePro. Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner; a "total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped" this way.

During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at Apple and Russell Brown, art director at Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988.While John worked on plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in Ann Arbor writing program code. Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1990 for Macintosh exclusively.

Features
Photoshop has strong ties with other Adobe software for media editing, animation, and authoring. The .PSD (Photoshop Document), Photoshop's native format, stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .EPS or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality.

Photoshop's popularity means that the .PSD format is widely used, and it is supported to some extent by most competing software. The .PSD file format can be exported to and from Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, and After Effects, to make professional standard DVD s and provide non-linear editing and special effects services, such as backgrounds, textures, and so on, for television, film, and the Web. Photoshop is a pixel-based image editor, unlike programs such as Macromedia FreeHand (now defunct), Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, which are vector-based image editors.

Photoshop can utilize the color models RGB, lab, CMYK, grayscale, binary bitmap, and duotone. Photoshop has the ability to read and write raster and vector image formats such as .EPS, .PNG, .GIF, .JPEG, and Adobe Fireworks.

CS3
Photoshop CS3 is marketed with three main components of improvement over previous versions: "Work more productively, edit with unrivalled power, and composite with breakthrough tools." New features propagating productivity include streamlined interface, improved Camera Raw, better control over print options, enhanced PDF support, and better management with Adobe Bridge. Editing tools new to CS3 are the Clone Source palette and nondestructive Smart Filters, and other features such as the Brightness/Contrast adjustment and Vanishing Point module were enhanced. The Black and White adjustment option improves users control over manual grayscale conversions with a dialog box similar to that of Channel Mixer. Compositing is assisted with Photoshop's new Quick Selection and Refine Edge tools and improved image stitching technology.

CS3 Extended contains all features of CS3 plus tools for editing and importing some 3D graphics file formats, enhancing video, and comprehensive image analysis tools, utilizing MATLAB integration and DICOM file support.

CS4
Photoshop CS4 features additions such as the ability to paint directly on 3D models, wrap 2D images around 3D shapes, convert gradient maps to 3D objects, add depth to layers and text, get print-quality output with the new ray-tracing rendering engine, and enjoy exporting to supported common 3D formats; the new Adjustment and Mask Panels; Content-aware scaling (also known as seam carving); Fluid Canvas Rotation and File display options.On 30 April, Adobe released Photoshop CS4 Extended, which includes all the same features of Adobe Photoshop CS4 with the addition of capabilities for scientific imaging, 3D, and high end film and video users. The successor to Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS4 is the first 64-bit Photoshop on consumer computers (only on Windows – the OS X version is still 32-bit only.)

CS5
Adobe is currently developing Photoshop CS5, which is expected to be released in mid-2010. In a video posted on its official Facebook page, the development team revealed the new technologies under development, including three dimensional brushes and warping tools

Language Availability
Photoshop is available in the following languages:
Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian.
The Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Middle Eastern, and North African language versions are available from Winsoft.

Plugins
Photoshop functionality can be extended by add-on programs called Photoshop plugins which act like mini-editors that modify the image. The most common type are filter plugins that provide various image effects. They are located in the 'Filter' menu. Photoshop plugin API has become a standard, and many other image editors also support Photoshop Plugins.
Adobe Camera Raw (also known as ACR and Camera Raw) is a special plugin, supplied free by Adobe, used primarily to read and process raw image files so that the resultant images can be processed by Photoshop.It is invoked by attempting to open such a file, rather than from the 'Filter' menu, but like other plugins is listed in the 'Help > About Plug-In' menu (as "Camera Raw").
Trademark
Adobe discourages use of "Photoshop" as a verb, as in using photoshopping to refer to photo editing or image manipulation, to prevent its trademark from becoming a genericized trademark. Nevertheless, photoshop is commonly used as a verb. Its essential ubiquity in the high-end market almost assures that it will be inducted into reference works (such as dictionaries) as a viable definition for any type of computerized image alteration, whether done through the use of the software or not.
Consumer Market
While Photoshop is the industry standard image editing program for professional raster graphics and other digital art, its relatively high suggested retail price has led to a number of competing graphics tools, such as GIMP, Pixel Image Editor, Paint.NET, 36-image converter (for Windows only) and GraphicConverter (for Mac OSX only), becoming popular. To compete in this market, and to counter unusually high rates of piracy of its high end products, the company introduced a consumer-oriented version of Photoshop as Adobe Photoshop Elements. A more user-friendly interface and new tools such as the "red-eye" reduction brush were aimed firmly at the more casual image editor. Many professional features were omitted. Removing CMYK functionality, for example, initially made Elements unsuitable for commercial prepress work; paradoxically, the ability of Adobe InDesign to enable an entirely RGB workflow has meant that Elements can now be used as part of a professional workflow.

.NET Micro Framework

The .NET Micro Framework (NETMF) is a .NET platform for resource-constrained devices with on the order of 320 KBytes of memory still available. It includes a small version of the .NET CLR and supports development in C# and debugging (in an emulator or on hardware), both using Microsoft Visual Studio. It also features a subset of the .NET base class libraries (about 70 classes with about 420 methods), a GUI framework loosely based on Windows Presentation Foundation, and additional libraries specific to embedded applications. The .NET Micro Framework aims to make embedded development easier, faster, and less expensive by giving embedded developers access to the modern technologies and tools used by desktop application developers. Additionally, it allows desktop .NET developers to use their skills in the embedded world, enlarging the pool of qualified embedded developers.

• Features

* A memory footprint of about 300 KB; for comparison, the next smallest .NET implementation, the .NET Compact Framework running on Windows CE, needs about 12 MB
* Can run directly "on the metal" without an operating system; running on an OS is also possible
* Supports common embedded peripherals and interconnects, including flash memory, EEPROM, GPIO, I2C, SPI, USB
* Optimized for energy-efficiency in battery-powered devices
* Does not require a memory management unit
* Provides multithreading support even when running on single-threaded operating systems
* A hardware abstraction layer allows porting to additional architectures
* A managed device driver model allows drivers for many devices to be written in C#
* Execution constraints to catch device lockups and crashes
* Transparent support for storing objects in non-volatile memory

• Support

The .NET Micro Framework is currently supported on ARM architecture processors (including ARM7 and ARM9) and on Analog Devices Blackfin. Porting, which requires access to the .NET Micro Framework source, is performed by Microsoft and hardware partners under license from Microsoft. The .NET Micro Framework has its roots in Microsoft's SPOT initiative and was used in MSN Direct products such as smart watches before being made available to third-party developers early in 2007. It is a common platform for Windows SideShow devices and is beginning to see adoption in other markets, such as home automation and sensor networks. Microsoft does not charge fees for developing applications using the .NET Micro Framework and makes an SDK freely available for download and can be used with all version of Visual Studio including the free Express editions. In May 2009, Microsoft announced that they were releasing the source code of the framework to the development community. They also stated that they would no longer charge royalties for the distribution of the product, and make the porting kit available at no cost.In June, the .NET MF 3.0 Porting Kit was made freely downloadable.

• Versions

.Net Micro Framework 4.0 Beta
On Sept. 4th, 2009, Microsoft released .Net Micro Framework 4.0 Beta.An additional refresh was made on Oct. 4th, 2009.Features new to NETMF 4.0;
* HTTP and HTTPs: An object model is now provided for handing both HTTP clients and servers, similar to the .NET Framework.
* Multi-touch: Basic support for multi-touch events. Gesture support has been redesigned to be faster and more flexible.
* Versioning: Versioning has been implemented to strictly identify assemblies by the version number.
* Emulator support for SSL and HTTPS: The emulator now explicitly supports SSL and HTTPs emulation.
* Native XML Parser: The XML parser has been moved to native code for better performance.
* Native collections: The collection classes have been moved to native code for performance, enriched with new types.
* Time sync: Devices can use the new Time Sync API to sync the system time with a specified server's time.
* Arbitrary display size: A custom heap and allocation area is now provided to support bitmaps larger than 760KB.
* Large buffers: A new type, Microsoft.SPOT.Hardware.LargeBuffer, is provided for allocating buffers larger than 760KB, which would not fit in the managed heap. This type is located in assembly Microsoft.SPOT.Hardware.
* Watchdog and Power Level control: The power level and the watchdog behavior can now be controlled from the managed application.
* Thick pens and gradient fills: A richer graphic model is now provided for designing widgets and controls.
* TinyCore performance improvements.

Microsoft Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player (abbreviated WMP) is a proprietary digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices. Editions of Windows Media Player were also released for Mac OS, Mac OS X and Solaris but development of these has since been discontinued.In addition to being a media player, Windows Media Player includes the ability to rip music from and copy music to compact discs, build Audio CD's in recordable discs and synchronize content with a digital audio player (MP3 player) or other mobile devices, and enables users to purchase or rent music from a number of online music stores.Windows Media Player replaced an earlier piece of software called Media Player, adding features beyond simple video or audio playback.Windows Media Player 12 is the most recent version of Windows Media Player as of October 2009. It was released on October 22, 2009 along with Windows 7 and has not been released for previous versions of Windows.Windows Media Player 11 is available for Windows XP and included in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The default file formats are Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Advanced Systems Format (ASF), and supports its own XML based playlist format called Windows Playlist (WPL). The player is also able to utilize a digital rights management service in the form of Windows Media DRM.

• History

Microsoft Windows has had a media player since 1991, when Windows 3.0 with MultiMedia Extensions was released.This version of Windows, which was included with "Multimedia PC"-compatible machines but not available for retail sale, included the Media Player application, was capable of playing .mmm animation files, and could be extended to support other formats.It used MCI to handle media files. In November of the following year, Video for Windows was introduced with the ability to play digital video files in an AVI container format,with codec support for RLE and Video1, and support for playing uncompressed files. Indeo 3.2 was added in a later release. Video for Windows was first available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1, and later integrated into Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. In 1996 Microsoft released ActiveMovie, a replacement for Video for Windows that incorporates a new way of dealing with media files, and adds support for streaming media (which the original Media Player couldn't handle).ActiveMovie was renamed to DirectShow in 1996, and a new Media Player was created, known internally as Media Player 2.[citation needed] Version 6.4 was included with Windows Me, Windows 2000 and Windows XP, but was dropped in Windows Vista.There was another large revamp in Windows Media Player version 7, with the release of Windows Me, with a new user interface, visualizations and increased functionality. WMP7 came with the WMA and WMV codecs.

• Features

* Allows the user to connect, share and sync data with portable handheld devices and game consoles. Media can be optionally transcoded to a format better suited for the target device, automatically, when synchronizing.
* Playback of audio, video and pictures, along with fast forward, reverse, seek and time compression and dilation.
* Supports local playback, streaming playback and progressive downloads.
* Support for any media codec and container format using specific DirectShow filters.
* Full media management, via the integrated media library, which offers cataloguing and searching of media. Media can be arranged according to album, artist, genre, date et al..
* Video Smoothing which upscales frame-rate by interpolating added frames, in effect giving a smoother playback on low-framerate videos.
* Includes a 10-band graphic equalizer and SRS WOW audio post-processing system. Windows Media Player can also have attached plug-ins which process the output audio or video data.
Windows Media Player 11 running in mini mode in Windows Vista and Windows XP.
* Features a taskbar-mounted Mini mode in which the most common media control buttons are presented as a toolbar on the Windows taskbar. Flyout windows can display media information, the active visualization or the video being played back.
* Can use video overlays or VMR surfaces, if the video card supports them. In Windows XP, it uses VMR7 by default, but can also be made to use the more advanced YUV mixing mode by enabling the "Use high quality mode" option in Advanced Performance settings. This turns on deinterlacing, scaling and improved color accuracy.
* Version 11 introduced improved support for DirectX accelerated decoding of WMV video (DXVA decoding)
* Features integrated CD-burning support for audio as well as data CD's. Data CD's can have any of the media formats supported by the player. While burning Data CD's, the media can, optionally, be transcoded into WMA format.
* Audio CD's can be ripped as WMA or WMA 10 Pro at 48, 64, 96, 128, 160 and 192 kbit/s, WMA lossless (470 to 940 kbit/s), WMA variable bitrate (from 40-75 kbit/s up to 240-355 kbit/s), MP3 at 128, 192, 256 and 320 kbit/s, or uncompressed WAV. 24 bit high-resolution CD's are also supported, if capable audio hardware is present.
* Information on CD's such as album name, artist and track listings can optionally be automatically downloaded from the Microsoft Windows Media Database when the CD is inserted.
* Includes intrinsic support for Windows Media codecs which support multichannel audio at up to 24-bit 192 kHz resolution.
* Can play files in WMA, WAV or MP3 media formats. However, it will not play MP3 files that contain compressed ID3 headers ("tags"); trying to do so results in a "The input media file is invalid" error message.
* Supports subtitles and closed-captioning, if present in the media.
* Features "Synchronized Lyrics", by which different lines of lyrics can be time-stamped, so that they display only at those times.
* Windows Explorer shell integration to add files and playlist to the Now Playing and other playlists can be controlled from the Windows Explorer shell itself, via right-click menu.
* Provides an embeddedable ActiveX control for Internet Explorer so that developers can play Windows Media on web pages.
* A fully featured tag editor was featured in versions 8-11 of WMP, called the Advanced Tag Editor. However, the feature was not present in the latest preview version of Windows Media Player 12.

• Features new to Windows Media Player 11
  

Windows Media Player 11 features many changes. The Media Library no longer presents the media items (such as albums and artists) in a tree-based listing. Rather, on selecting the category in the left panel, the contents will appear on the right, in a graphical manner with thumbnails featuring album art or other art depicting the item—a departure from textual presentation of information. Missing album art can be added directly to the placeholders in the Library itself (though the program re-renders all album art imported this way into 1x1 pixel ratio, 200x200 resolution jpegs). Views for Music, Pictures, Video and Recorded TV are separate and can be chosen individually from the navigation bar. Entries for Pictures and Video show their thumbnails. Windows Media Player 11 also includes the Windows Media Format 11 runtime which adds low bitrate support (below 128 kbit/s for WMA Pro), support for ripping music to WMA Pro 10 and updates the original WMA to version 9.2. Other features:
* Stacking - Stacking allows graphical representations of how many albums there are in a specific category or folder. The more items there are, the larger the pile or stack is.
* Instant Search - Searches and displays results as characters are being entered, without waiting for Enter key to be hit. Results are refined based on further characters that are typed.
* CD Burning - CD Burning now shows a graphical bar showing how much space will be used on the disc.
* Global Status - Global status shows a broad overview of what the player is doing. The information presented includes status information regarding buffering, ripping, burning and synchronization.
* Improved synchronization features for loading content onto PlaysForSure-compatible portable players. WMP 11 supports reverse-synchronization, by which media present on the portable device can be replicated back to the PC.
* Support for ripping audio CD's to WAV format.
* Media Sharing (via Windows Media Connect) allows content (Music, Pictures, Video) to be streamed to and from Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) AV enabled devices such as the PS3, Xbox 360, and Roku SoundBridge. This includes DRM protected PlaysForSure content. WMP 11 on Windows Vista can also connect to remote media libraries using this feature; this is not available on the Windows XP version.
* Integrated web-browsing support to browse online music stores.
* Disc spanning splits a burn list onto multiple discs in case the content does not fit on one disc.

• Removed features and bugs

* On Windows XP by default, Windows Media Connect 2.0 does not work after Windows Media Player 11 has been installed. Windows Media Player 11 includes the UPnP AV server for sharing media across the network which replaces similar functionality in Windows Media Connect, however it does not include the client, unlike Windows Media Connect.
* The ability to remove or reinstall Windows Media Player 11 has been removed in Vista, as it is integrated with the operating system. This forces users with bugs to either reinstall Vista or find help.
* The License Management tool available in prior versions of Windows Media Player has been removed since version 11. This prevents users of music download services from directly using Windows Media Player to back up their licenses and restore them to another computer. The user now must depend on the download service being able to assist with re-acquiring that license. Not all services support this so in some circumstances the user could lose the ability to play media which they've purchased for use with Windows Media Player 11. e.g. Walmart states: "Important Note: In many cases, we cannot replace song and license files if they are lost. We strongly suggest you back up your music by creating an audio CD or CD's using Windows Media Player 11"
* It is not possible to change the media player's background to black. Instead, the background is a near-white shade of the color chosen in the color chooser.
* The Quick Access Menu, which enabled browsing the library via a pop-up menu, has been removed. As a result of this, the library cannot be browsed when the player is in toolbar mode.
* In previous versions of Windows Media Player, the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + I" could be used to capture the frame of video being displayed at the time the shortcut was initiated. This feature was removed for Windows Media Player 11.
* Unlike previous Windows Media Player installers, Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP tries to validate the copy of Windows as genuine. It will not install if the copy of Windows is not.
* The HighMAT burning capability integrated into Windows Media Player 10 is not available in Windows Media Player 11.
* On Windows XP by default, Windows Media Connect 2.0 does not work after Windows Media Player 11 has been installed. Windows Media Player 11 includes the UPnP AV server for sharing media across the network which replaces similar functionality in Windows Media Connect, however it does not include the client, unlike Windows Media Connect.
* The ability to remove or reinstall Windows Media Player 11 has been removed in Vista, as it is integrated with the operating system. This forces users with bugs to either reinstall Vista or find help.
* The License Management tool available in prior versions of Windows Media Player has been removed since version 11. This prevents users of music download services from directly using Windows Media Player to back up their licenses and restore them to another computer. The user now must depend on the download service being able to assist with re-acquiring that license. Not all services support this so in some circumstances the user could lose the ability to play media which they've purchased for use with Windows Media Player 11. e.g. Walmart states: "Important Note: In many cases, we cannot replace song and license files if they are lost. We strongly suggest you back up your music by creating an audio CD or CDs using Windows Media Player 11"
* It is not possible to change the media player's background to black. Instead, the background is a near-white shade of the color chosen in the color chooser.
* The Quick Access Menu, which enabled browsing the library via a pop-up menu, has been removed. As a result of this, the library cannot be browsed when the player is in toolbar mode.
* In previous versions of Windows Media Player, the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + I" could be used to capture the frame of video being displayed at the time the shortcut was initiated. This feature was removed for Windows Media Player 11.
* Unlike previous Windows Media Player installers, Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP tries to validate the copy of Windows as genuine. It will not install if the copy of Windows is not.
* The HighMAT burning capability integrated into Windows Media Player 10 is not available in Windows Media Player 11.

• Other Versions of Media Player

Microsoft has also released versions of Windows Media Player for other platforms including Windows Mobile, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Palm-size PC, Handheld PC, and Solaris. Of these, only the Windows Mobile edition continues to be actively developed and supported by Microsoft. Version 1 of the Zune software was also based on Windows Media Player, later versions are not.
Windows Mobile
Windows Media Player for Pocket PC was first announced on January 6, 2000, and has been revised on a schedule roughly similar to that of the Windows version.Currently known as "Media Player 10 Mobile", this edition (released in October 2004) closely resembles the capabilities of the Windows version of WMP 10, including playlist capabilities, a media library, album art, WMA Lossless playback, support for DRM-protected media, video playback at 640x480 with stereo sound, and the same Energy Blue interface aesthetics also seen in recent versions of Windows XP Media Center Edition. It also supports synchronization with the desktop version of WMP 10, and additionally supports synchronizing and transcoding of recorded television shows from Media Center. Media Player 10 Mobile is not available as a download from Microsoft; distribution is done solely through OEM partners, and is typically included on devices based on Windows Mobile.Windows Mobile 6 includes a copy of Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, but with a similar (but not quite identical) theme as Windows Media Player 11.
Mac OS X
Version 9 was the final version of Windows Media Player to be released for Mac OS X before development was cancelled by Microsoft. WMP for Mac OS X received widespread criticism from Mac users due to poor performance and features. Developed by the Windows Media team at Microsoft instead of the Macintosh Business Unit and released in 2003, on release the application lacked many basic features that were found in other media players such as Apple's iTunes and QuickTime.[citation needed] It also lacked support for many media formats that version 9 of the Windows counterpart supported on release 10 months earlier.The Mac version supported only Windows Media encoded media (up to version 9) enclosed in the ASF format, lacking support for all other formats such as MP4, MPEG, and Microsoft's own AVI format. On the user interface front, it did not prevent screensavers from running during playback, it did not support file drag-and-drop, nor did it support playlists. While Windows Media Player 9 had added support for some files that use the WMV9 codec (also known as the WMV3 codec by the FourCC), in other aspects it was seen as having degraded in features from previous versions.On January 12, 2006 Microsoft announced it had ceased development of Windows Media Player for Mac.Microsoft now distributes a third-party plugin called WMV Player (produced and maintained by Flip4Mac) which allows some forms of Windows Media to be played within Apple's QuickTime player and other QuickTime-aware applications.

Adobe Flash Player

The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing animations and movies using computer programs such as a web browser. Flash player is a widely distributed proprietary multimedia and application player created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe after its acquisition. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other Macromedia and third party tools.Adobe Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both a multimedia authoring program and the Adobe Flash Player, written and distributed by Adobe, that uses vector and raster graphics, a native scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of video and audio. Strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files, but in colloquial language these have become mixed: "Flash" can mean either the authoring environment, the player, or the application files.Flash Player has support for an embedded scripting language called ActionScript (AS), which is based on ECMAScript. Since its inception, ActionScript has matured from a script syntax without variables to one that supports object-oriented code, and may now be compared in capability to JavaScript (another ECMAScript-based scripting language).The Flash Player was originally designed to display 2-dimensional vector animation, but has since become suitable for creating rich Internet applications and streaming video and audio. It uses vector graphics to minimize file size and create files that save bandwidth and loading time. Flash is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs embedded into web pages.The Flash Player is available as a plugin for recent versions of web browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer) on selected platforms. Adobe states that each version of the plugin is backwards-compatible, with the exception of security changes introduced in Version 10.The Operating systems required to use Flash Player are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris and Pocket PC.The various language's by which you can view Flash Player are Chinese Simplified, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish and Korean.You can download Adobe Flash Player for free from http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/.You can also deliver web applications with accurate color, so your favorite web destinations look the way they were intended. Color correction works with the monitor's ICC color profile and allows you to convert SWF files to standard RGB.It can even show exceptional video with streams that automatically adjust to changing network conditions. Leverage new quality-of-service metrics to provide a better streaming experience.