Open Specifications

Through the Open Specifications program, Microsoft is helping developers open new opportunities by making technical documents related to interoperability for certain popular Microsoft products available to view and download at no charge.

Although the Open Specifications technical documents are freely available, many of them include patented inventions. Some of these patents are available at no charge under the Open Specifications Promise or the Microsoft Community Promise. The remaining patents are available through various licensing programs. For more information, please visit the Microsoft Open Specifications Dev Center website or send an email message to the IP Licensing Team.

	Protocols Microsoft publishes technical documents for protocols that are implemented in Windows client (including .NET Framework) and Windows Server (collectively Windows), Office, SharePoint Products and Technologies, Exchange Server, and Microsoft SQL Server and are used to communicate with other Microsoft software products.
	Computer Languages  Microsoft publishes technical documents for the VBA programming language and Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML).
	Standards Support Microsoft publishes technical documents that describe support for specific standards implemented in Exchange Server and Outlook; Internet Explorer; OData; Microsoft SQL Server; Windows WordPad; and Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
	Data Portability   Microsoft publishes technical documents for the file formats created by Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook and by SQL Server. Additionally, it publishes technical documents that describe how user-created data in SQL Server can be extracted for use in other software products.

Microsoft revises the technical documents regularly and, particularly, in connection with the release of significant product updates and new versions.

Q&A and Blogs

	Exchange Server Open Specifications and Standards Support - Microsoft Q&A Home to technical questions and answers about Exchange Server Open Specifications and Standards Support documents.
	Office Open Specifications, Standards Support, and File Formats - Microsoft Q&A Home to technical questions and answers about Office Open Specifications, Standards Support, and File Format documents.
	SharePoint Server Open Specifications - Microsoft Q&A Home to technical questions and answers about SharePoint Server Open Specifications documents.
	SQL Server Open Specifications, Standards Support and Data Portability - Microsoft Q&A Home to technical questions and answers about SQL Server Open Specifications, Standards Support and Data Portability documents.
	Windows Open Specifications and Standards Support - Microsoft Q&A Home to technical questions and answers about Windows Open Specifications and Standards Support documents.
	Open Specifications Blogs These blogs, authored by the engineers who support the Open Specifications documents, provide a different venue for further discussion of those documents.

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