Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 is a graphical web browser released in September 1997 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also with versions available for Apple Mac OS, Solaris, and HP-UX and marketed as "The Web the Way You Want It".It was one of the main participants of the first...
Microsoft's Windows Desktop Update was an optional feature included with Internet Explorer 4 , which introduced several updated shell features to the Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems...
that allows the user to add HTML content to the desktop
Desktop metaphor
The desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users more easily interact with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the monitor of a computer as if it is the user's desktop, upon which objects such as documents and...
, along with some other features. This function was intended to be installed on the then-current Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
operating system. It was also included in Windows 98
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
and later Windows operating systems until Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, where the feature was discontinued. This corresponded to version Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
Windows Internet Explorer 7 is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years...
.
Users can add HTML both in place of the regular wallpaper
Computer wallpaper
Wallpaper is an image used as a background of a graphical user interface on a computer screen or mobile communications device. On a computer it is usually for the desktop, while for a mobile phone it is usually the background for the 'home' or 'idle' screen...
and as independent resizable desktop items. Items available on-line can be regularly updated and synchronized so users can stay updated without visiting the website in their browser.
Active Desktop works much like desktop widget technology in that it allows users to place customized information on their desktop.
History
The introduction of the Active Desktop marked Microsoft's attempt to capitalize on the short-lived push technology
Push technology
Push technology, or server push, describes a style of Internet-based communication where the request for a given transaction is initiated by the publisher or central server...
PointCast was a company founded in 1992 by Christopher R. Hassett in Sunnyvale, California.-PointCast Network:The company's initial product amounted to a screensaver that displayed news and other information, delivered live over the Internet...
. Active Desktop placed a number of "channels" on the user's computer desktop
Desktop metaphor
The desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users more easily interact with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the monitor of a computer as if it is the user's desktop, upon which objects such as documents and...
that provided continually-updated information, such as news headlines and stock quotes, without requiring the user to open a Web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
.
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
Windows Desktop Update
Microsoft's Windows Desktop Update was an optional feature included with Internet Explorer 4 , which introduced several updated shell features to the Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems...
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.
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
has replaced the Active Desktop with Windows Sidebar (Now called Windows Desktop Gadgets starting with Windows 7), which also allows components to be added to the desktop. Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit is the most recent Microsoft operating system to support Active Desktop. It appears that the 64-bit version of Windows XP no longer supports Active Desktop. It still provides the option to display Web pages and channels built with Microsoft's Channel Definition Format
Channel Definition Format
Channel Definition Format is an XML file format used in conjunction with Microsoft Active Channel and Smart Offline Favorites technologies...
(CDF) on the desktop.
The HTML displaying capabilities are now mainly used for creating original wallpapers and adding search boxes to the desktop. For example, a user could copy the following code to display Wikipedia's search-box on the desktop:
action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search"
id="searchform"
name="searchform">
accesskey="f"
id="searchInput"
name="search"
type="text"
value="" />
id="searchGoButton"
name="go"
type="submit"
value="Go" />
External links
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/gallery/default.mspx Internet Explorer 4.0 Desktop Gallery (Defunct, Now redirects to the Internet Explorer page.)
