By: Children Trundle. The Microsoft Network, or MSN, represents a collection of services provided by the Microsoft Company. This range of Internet services started on August 24, 1995 as an online service and Internet service provider, at the same time when the Windows 95 operating system was released. In time more and more products have been added to the MSN group just as the Windows OS got improved progressively. The MSN brand name was used by Microsoft to put on the market a number of popular web-based services in the 1990s, such as Hotmail and Messenger. Then, lots of services got reorganized in 2006 when Microsoft reinvented MSN in the form of Windows Live. In spite of the alterations, MSN.com, MSN’s Internet portal, maintained its popularity. Actually it is the 6th most visited domain name on the Internet.

As an Internet service provider, the MSN was designed as a dial-up online content provider.

It used to supply proprietary content via an artificial folder-like interface built in the Windows 95 interface linked to the Windows Explorer file management.

The most common of capabilities provided by the first form of the MSN included email service, chat rooms, newsgroups, weather info, product support and discussion. Although the WWW space could not be accessed directly through the MSN platform, in time Internet access became part of the service provided by Microsoft through its web browser, Internet Explorer. This became available as a download from MSN service as part of the package Windows 95 Plus.

The first MSN classic version proved insufficient for the growing demands of the Internet, and only a year after its launch, Microsoft had to come up with MSN 2.0.

Besides Internet access, this updated version brought web-based multimedia content under the name MSN Program Viewer. In recent years, in the US and Canada, MSN is still a dial-up Internet service provider, yet it comes second after AOL. The MSN service presently includes anti-virus and firewall protection as well as an email account on MSN.com.

The majority of the MSN services received a new name in 2006: Windows Live. Among these services that suffered modifications, MSN Groups, MSN messenger, MSN Hotmail, MSN Spaces, MSN Virtual Groups and MSN Alerts were included. Once Windows Live was released, new services were announced: Windows Live Favorites and Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner. At the same time, MSN switched to online news and entertainment as well as in its quality as a common interest content provider via the Internet portal, MSN.com. The software and the services that support MSN belong in fact to Windows Live.