{"id":22333,"date":"2008-05-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2008\/05\/14\/why-always-windows-xp-and-windows-vista-and-not-just-xp-and-vista\/"},"modified":"2008-05-14T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T10:00:00","slug":"why-always-windows-xp-and-windows-vista-and-not-just-xp-and-vista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20080514-00\/?p=22333","title":{"rendered":"Why always "Windows XP" and "Windows Vista" and not just "XP" and "Vista"?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Internet Explorer folks announced<\/a> that they were going to call their next version of Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP<\/i> and Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista<\/i>, many people responded to the awkward name by suggesting that it be shortened to Internet Explorer 7 XP<\/i> and Internet Explorer 7 Vista<\/i>. Why the longer names?\n Lawyers.\n Microsoft’s own trademark guidelines<\/a>† specify that the product names are Windows XP<\/i> and Windows Vista<\/i> and not just XP<\/i> and Vista<\/i>. The trademark is on the entire phrase, not just the last word. Furthermore, the trademark guidelines specify that products may not append just XP<\/i> or Vista<\/i> to their names; they have to say X for Windows XP<\/i> or X for Windows Vista<\/i>.\n In an earlier era, you had to be careful to say Windows NT<\/i> and not just NT<\/i> for the same reason. You see, the name NT<\/i> is a registered trademark of Northern Telecom, and part of the agreement with “the other NT” is that the Windows product would always be used with the word Windows<\/i> in front.\n If you took a close look at the Windows 2000 box, you may have seen the phrase “Built on NT Technology.” I don’t know how hard it was to do, but I suspect a good amount of negotiations with Northern Telecom took place to allow Microsoft to use that alternate formulation without the word Windows<\/i> in front. Indeed, if you looked really closely at the box, you’d have found a trademark acknowledgement for Northern Telecom deep in the fine print.\n Lawyers by training are very cautious people. After all, a new lawsuit against Microsoft gets filed approximately once every thirty seconds.¶ They’re probably also responsible for all your Office# shortcuts on the Start menu being named Microsoft Office This 2007<\/i> and Microsoft Office That 2007<\/i> instead of This 2007<\/i> and That 2007<\/i>, or even (shocking!) just This<\/i> and That<\/i>. It’s a daring move, and lawyers don’t like to be daring. Nobody ever got sued for playing it safe.††\n Nitpicker’s corner<\/b> (guest appearance)\n *Just burning off a footnote marker because I don’t like asterisks.\n †I myself violate some of these guidelines because I try to write like a human being and not a robot<\/a>. Only robots say Windows-based programs<\/i>.‡\n ‡That statement is not literally true. Here’s a reformulation of that statement for the benefit of robots:§ “People who say Windows-based programs<\/i> sound like robots.”\n §That statement is also not literally true. Here’s a reformulation of that statement for the benefit of people who take a robotic approach to reading: “Here’s a reformulation of that statement for the benefit of people who take a robotic approach to reading:”\n ||Burning off another footnote marker because I don’t like parallel lines either.\n ¶An exaggeration, not a statement of fact.\n #s\/Office\/Microsoft® Office™ System\/**\n **I have not researched whether that’s the correct way of writing it.<\/p>\n

††Okay, maybe somebody somewhere has gotten sued for playing it safe. It was just a catchy sentence, not a statement of fact. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Internet Explorer folks announced that they were going to call their next version of Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista, many people responded to the awkward name by suggesting that it be shortened to Internet Explorer 7 XP and Internet Explorer 7 Vista. Why the longer names? Lawyers. Microsoft’s own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-22333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-other"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

When the Internet Explorer folks announced that they were going to call their next version of Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista, many people responded to the awkward name by suggesting that it be shortened to Internet Explorer 7 XP and Internet Explorer 7 Vista. Why the longer names? Lawyers. Microsoft’s own […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}