Message Queuing Overview

Applies To: Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server Technical Preview, Windows Vista

Message Queuing is a message infrastructure and a development platform for creating distributed, loosely-coupled messaging applications for the Microsoft® Windows® operating system. Message Queuing applications can use the Message Queuing infrastructure to communicate across heterogeneous networks and with computers that may be offline. Message Queuing provides guaranteed message delivery, efficient routing, security, transaction support, and priority-based messaging.

This overview covers the types of Message Queuing applications that can be written and the types of Message Queuing environments within which these applications can operate. (For information and procedures on deploying the Message Queuing infrastructure, see the Message Queuing online Help.)

Version Naming Conventions

With the release of Microsoft Windows 2000, the name of Microsoft's message queuing solution changed from Microsoft Message Queue Server to Message Queuing. In the Windows Platform SDK, the term Message Queuing refers to all versions of the product. The specific versions of Message Queuing include:

• MSMQ 1.0—the Microsoft Message Queue Server 1.0 product that operates with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, and Microsoft Windows Me.

• MSMQ 2.0—the Message Queuing service included in Microsoft Windows 2000.

• MSMQ 3.0—the Message Queuing service included in Microsoft Windows XP Professional and the Windows Server 2003 family.