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1.3.3 Naming Conventions

  • Article

The Windows protocols documentation set uses the following naming conventions for all overview documents, technical specifications, and reference documents.

  • All documents are assigned a short name enclosed in square brackets. The short name is used when citing the document or reference. Examples of short names are "[MS-DOCO]", "[MSFT-WSTS]", and "[RFC2119]".

  • All short names for documents in the documentation set have one of the following forms:

    • [MC-XXX] was originally used for documents that specify technology that has never shipped with Windows. However, that restriction has been removed, and there is now no distinction between documents with short names prefaced with "MC" and those with short names prefaced with "MS". An example of this type of short name is "[MC-BUP]", where the suffix "BUP" is an abbreviation for "Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) Upload Protocol".

    • [MS-XXXOD] is used for technology overviews (section 2.1.3). An example of this type of short name is "[MS-AUTHSOD]", where the suffix "AUTHS" is an abbreviation for "Authentication Services Protocols".

    • [MS-XXX] is used for all other overview, technical, and reference documents with short names that do not follow one of the preceding conventions. The suffix "XXX" is an abbreviation that refers to the subject covered by the document. An example of this type of short name is "[MS-WPO]", where "WPO" is an abbreviation for "Windows Protocols Overview". The short name of the current document, "[MS-DOCO]", also falls into this category.

  • Short names for reference documents that describe Microsoft technology conform to the following naming conventions:

    • [MSFT-XXX] is used for information in Microsoft TechNet articles.

    • [KBNNNNN] and [MSFT-KBNNNNN] are used for Knowledge Base articles, where NNNNN is the article number.

    • [PRA-XXX] is used for downloadable informative technical documents in PDF format.

  • Short names for RFC documents are in the form [RFCNNNN], where NNNN is the RFC number.

  • Each document has a title that conforms to the following conventions:

    • The titles of technology overviews end with the word "Overview".

    • The titles of technical specifications that specify Microsoft extensions to non-Microsoft protocols and structures end with either the word "Extension" or "Extensions".

    • The titles of technical specifications that specify algorithms, protocols, and structures end with the word "Specification".

      Note The titles of [MS-DOCO] and [MS-WPO] are exceptions to these document title conventions.

  • Each document has a long name, which is composed of its short name, a colon, and its title. Examples of long names are "[MS-DOCO]: Windows Protocols Documentation Roadmap" and "[MS-RPRN]: Print System Remote Protocol Specification".