1.3 Overview

Most Windows interoperability protocols are described in the following technology overview documents.

Short Name	Overview Document Full Name	Description
[MS-ADFSOD]	Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) Protocols Overview	AD FS is the Microsoft implementation of federation services. AD FS provides browser-based clients (internal or external to a network) with seamless, one-prompt access to one or more protected Internet-facing applications, even when the user accounts and applications are located in different networks or organizations.
[MS-ADOD]	Active Directory Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the functionality and relationship of the protocols that make up the client-server and server-to-server behavior of Active Directory. The Active Directory protocols provide directory services for the centralized storage of identity and account information, as well as storage for other forms of data such as group policies and printer location information, a foundation for authentication services in a domain environment, domain services, and directory replication services in Windows.
[MS-AUTHSOD]	Authentication Services Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the functionality and relationship of the Authentication Services protocols, which are used to verify the identity of users, computers, and services through the interactive logon and network logon authentication processes.
[MS-AZOD]	Authorization Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the Authorization protocols, which control granting access to resources after authentication has been established. An authenticated request is not sufficient for access; a corresponding decision has to also determine whether a request is authorized. To accomplish this, several authorization models are provided in Windows.
[MS-CCROD]	Content Caching and Retrieval Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the protocols implemented in the Windows Peer Content Caching and Retrieval framework. This framework is based on a peer-to-peer discovery and distribution model designed to reduce wide-area-network (WAN) link bandwidth utilization and provide faster content downloads from a local area network (LAN).
[MS-CERSOD]	Certificate Services Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the protocols implementing Certificate Services. Certificate Services protocols are used for certificate enrollment, certificate policy, and remote administration of certificate services. This document describes the intended functionality of the Certificate Services protocols and how these protocols interact with each other.
[MS-FASOD]	File Access Services Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the functionality and relationship of the File Access Services (FAS) protocols, which enable network file access and sharing in Windows and allow a client computer to discover, access, and share files that are hosted on, and made available by, another computer.
[MS-FSMOD]	File Services Management Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the protocols used for configuring, managing, and monitoring file services in Windows over the network. The File Services Management protocols support scenarios such as share management, DFS namespace management, SMB Server management, SMB network redirector management, file server resource management, and file replication.
[MS-GPOD]	Group Policy Protocols Overview	The Group Policy protocols are used to create, read, update, and remove Group Policy Objects. These protocols enable the Group Policy client to retrieve policy settings from a Group Policy server. The base functionality of Group Policy can be extended through client-side extensions that implement application-specific policy settings, and through Administrative tool extensions that implement authored configuration settings.
[MS-MQOD]	Message Queuing Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the Message Queuing protocols. Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) is a communications service that enables reliable and secure asynchronous messaging between applications over a variety of deployment topologies.
[MS-MSSOD]	Media Streaming Server Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the protocols implemented in Windows Media Streaming technologies. Media Streaming technologies are used to convert both live and prerecorded audio format and to distribute the content over a network or the Internet.
[MS-NAPOD]	Network Access Protection Protocols Overview	Network Access Protection (NAP) verifies the identities of users and the proper software configuration of client computers and system states, such as antivirus software and anti-malware, through network access processes. NAP also provides mechanisms for a client to remediate problem states, such as out-of-date software or loading new antivirus signatures.
[MS-NETOD]	Microsoft .NET Framework Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the protocols that map to the .NET Framework distributed technologies that enable network communications. This includes the protocols implemented in the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), identity and directory services, data access, ASP.NET, and .NET Remoting technologies of the .NET Framework.
[MS-PRSOD]	Print Services Protocols Overview	Describes a distributed system of print servers that manage printers and make them available to print clients. One or more servers can be used, each server independently managing one or more printers. Print clients use the component protocols to submit print jobs, manage jobs, receive job notifications, and administer printer drivers and print queues.
[MS-RMSOD]	Rights Management Services Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the Rights Management Services (RMS) protocols, which enable information-protection functionality that works with RMS-enabled applications to help safeguard digital information from unauthorized use, online and offline, inside and outside of the firewall. RMS is designed for organizations that need to protect sensitive and proprietary information, such as financial reports, product specifications, customer data, and confidential email messages.
[MS-STOROD]	Storage Services Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the Storage Services protocols, which provide the following services: disk and volume management services, data backup and restore, removable media management, file access control, and file encryption in Windows.
[MS-TPSOD]	Transaction Processing Services Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the functionality and relationship of the Transaction Processing protocols. Transaction processing is designed to maintain a computation system in a known, consistent state. It allows multiple individual operations to be linked together as a single, indivisible operation called an atomic transaction.
[MS-VSOD]	Virtual Storage Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the functionality of and relationship among the virtual storage protocols, which provide a means for a client to access, read, and write to virtual storage, such as a virtual disk file, on a remote server. Virtual storage protocols also can provide this functionality to multiple clients by using a shared virtual SCSI disk.
[MS-WMOD]	Windows Management Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the Windows management protocols, which provide the ability to control settings and to collect data for a set of client and server computers. These protocols enable a computer to query another system and to perform administrative operations to monitor, troubleshoot, and conduct hardware and software inventories in remote computers.
[MS-WSUSOD]	Windows Server Update Services Protocols Overview	Provides an overview of the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) protocols. These protocols enable communication between the WSUS client and server to enable clients to discover software updates available on the server. They also enable communication between servers to propagate software update information, the updates, and the administrative intent in a hierarchical deployment.

Microsoft works with many companies and participates in industry initiatives to enable Microsoft products to interoperate using networks and network services. Network protocols are developed and promoted by a variety of formal standards bodies, industry consortia, and individual companies worldwide. Microsoft actively participates and contributes to the standardization process in many standards bodies and develops implementations to make Windows interoperable with other products that use these protocols.