Correcting Grammar for Microsoft Products and Technology
I see book authors, editors, bloggers, press, team members, and occasionally even a VP misspell our products, technologies, and features that I thought I would build and maintain a list of the correct capitalization and spelling of the most commonly misspelled Microsoft products and technologies.
Sources: Internal site (brandtools) and the Microsoft Trademarks Web site.
Last updated: April 27, 2010
Incorrect |
Correct |
| .net or .Net | .NET |
| .Net framework 4.0, .NET framework 4.0 | .NET Framework |
| AdCenter, Ad Center, Adcenter | adCenter |
| Ado.net, ADO.Net | ADO.NET |
| Asp.net, ASP.Net | ASP.NET |
| Asp.Net ajax, Asp.NET Ajax | ASP.NET AJAX |
| Asp.Net Mvc | ASP.NET MVC |
| Biz Spark, Bizspark | BizSpark |
| Clear Type, Clear type, Cleartype | ClearType |
| Directaccess, Direct Access | DirectAccess |
| Direct Show, Directshow | DirectShow |
| Direct X | DirectX |
| Dream Spark, Dreamspark | DreamSpark |
| Home Group, Home group | HomeGroup |
| HotMail, Hot Mail | Hotmail |
| Info Path, Infopath | InfoPath |
| intellisense, Intellisense | IntelliSense |
| Iron Ruby | IronRuby |
| Kin | KIN |
| Linq | LINQ |
| MSN Messenger | Windows Live Messenger |
| One Note, Onenote | OneNote |
| Open type, Opentype | OpenType |
| PlayTo, Play to | Play To |
| Power Point, Powerpoint | PowerPoint |
| Powershell, Power Shell | PowerShell |
| Sea Dragon, Seadragon | SeaDragon |
| Sharepoint, Share Point | SharePoint |
| Silver Light, SilverLight | Silverlight |
| Skydrive, Sky Drive | SkyDrive |
| Sql Server | SQL Server |
| Visual Basic .net (the “.net” was removed in the 2005 version) | Visual Basic |
| Visual C# Express 2010 or Visual Basic Express 2010 or Visual C++ Express 2010 | Visual version 2010 Express as in Visual C# 2010 Express, Visual Basic 2010 Express |
| Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server | Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 |
| Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 or Visual Studio Professional 2010 | Visual Studio 2010 version, as in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio 2010 Professional |
| WebSite Spark, Website spark | Website Spark |
| Win 32 | Win32 |
| Windows Mobile (except when referring to previous versions like 5.0 or 6), Windows phone 7 Series | Windows Phone |
| Xaml | XAML |
| XBOX, xbox | Xbox |
| Xbox Live, XBOX Live | Xbox LIVE |
Caveats
These guidelines don’t apply to URLs (ex: www.asp.net) or to code –namespaces, variables, and classes should follow the .NET Framework naming guidelines.
This list only covers capitalization/spacing rules, it doesn’t cover the correct usage of (tm) or ® symbols or the correct word usage rules. For those, refer to the trademark Web site.
Also note that I have no idea why we are so inconsistent say on keeping features/brands two words versus one word or the order of product/version/year.
Comments
Anonymous
April 27, 2010
People do so much mistakes in writing down these terminolgies and short names...that they ignore the importance of accruacy....thanks for putting down the list to remind them all...whats the correct method.Anonymous
April 30, 2010
Thank you! I can sleep better tonight knowing the truth!Anonymous
May 02, 2010
Excellent list Dan, very useful and I'll recommend this to others as well. PS. WebsiteSpark should be one word :)Anonymous
May 05, 2010
This lady ain't your grandma she's your grammar...Anonymous
May 05, 2010
thanks a lot i could fix my problems with this postAnonymous
May 10, 2010
Send them to the Office team to go in the Dictionary so I don't have to keep adding them...Anonymous
June 06, 2010
Tks Dan. Really helpful to know this stuff. Used it on my blog post technologywanderer.wordpress.com/.../microsoft-kin-spot-control-with-silverlight-4Anonymous
February 13, 2011
Funny, Windows SOs are Case InSenSiTive, but Microsoft Grammar is Case Sensitive...