Win32

Win32

The programming interface (API) for 32-bit Windows operating systems, starting with Windows 95. When applications are written to the Win32 API, they are activating advanced functions not available from the 16-bit API (Win16).

An application written to Win32 can run in all operating systems except where there are OS-specific features that are unavailable in the others. For example, Windows NT provides security features that are not in Windows 95/98. A program written for those features in NT will not run under the other Windows versions.

When Windows 95 came out, many 32-bit functions were made available to Windows 3.1 applications with Win32s, a subset of Win32. Win32s functionality had to be added to Windows 3.1 machines, and applications that used that API generally installed the necessary Win32s DLLs. See .NET Framework 3.0.

   An Application
   Using This
   API           Can Be Run In
   Win32                   95, 98, NT, 2000, XP
   Win32s             3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP
   Win32c                  95
   Win16         3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP

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(programming)

Win32 - An application programming interface that is common to all Microsoft's 32-bit Windows operating systems. These currently include: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT and Windows CE.