Contoso

Contoso also known as Contoso Ltd. is a fictional company used by Microsoft as an example company and domain.

Usage

Contoso and its website, contoso.com, are used in documentation and help files for many Microsoft products. Contoso's website redirects to Microsoft.com. Examples of its usage include:

• It is used in Microsoft Dynamics AX for demo purpose and training.
• It was used as a demo app in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.
• Contoso.com is used as a demo domain in Microsoft Exchange training material
• "Contoso Toolbar", a fictional toolbar, is used to demonstrate the Add-on Performance Advisor in Internet Explorer 9.
• Contoso.com is used as an example domain in Microsoft Exams 70-511, 70-515, 70-640, 70-680 and 70-685
• Contoso.net is used as an example domain in the account configuration wizard from Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Microsoft Outlook 2012, while Contoso.com is used as an example in the help file.
• Contoso Bank's Website is used as a demo site for SmartScreen Filter in Internet Explorer
• Contoso Pharmaceuticals is also sometimes used
• contoso.com is used as an example domain in Windows Workspaces Center
• Contoso Bank's Website contains a demo online banking site
• A "Contoso University" website is used for demonstrating ASP.NET MVC capabilities in the Getting Started with EF using MVC tutorial, through ASP.NET MVC and the ADO.NET Entity Framework.
• Contoso is used as an example company in many MSDN Blogs blog posts
• corp.contoso.com is used as an example FQDN in the "Active Directory Domain Services Installation Wizard" in Windows Server 2008
• Contoso is used in IIS 7.0 as an example for site bindings in the Edit Site Binding dialog box
• Contoso is used in SharePoint 2013 as an example for bindings in the Web Apps
• Contoso is used as a news agency delivering a collection of news articles, blog posts, white papers, case studies, videos and comments on fictional news in a demo News app in Windows 8.^{[citation needed]}

Contoso Employees

• Ellen Adams is listed as an example of a Contoso employee in the "Auto Account Setup Wizard" in Outlook 2007 and 2010.
• Allen Brewer is listed as an accountant in the Windows XP Book "Exam 70-270: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional".
• Percy Bowman is listed at the janitor in the Windows XP Book "Exam 70-270: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional".
• Jay Calvin is listed as Owner in the Windows XP Book "Exam 70-270: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional".
• Austin Williams is listed as CEO in the Windows XP Book "Exam 70-270: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional".
• William Fox is listed as fired for having used personal devices in a working environment in the Windows XP Book "Exam 70-270: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional".
• Misty Shock is listed in the example in this article http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123726(v=exchg.65).aspx
• Chris Meyer is listed in the example in this article http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123726(v=exchg.65).aspx
• Walter Harp, Jeff Smith, and Ben Smith are listed in the example in this article http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/table-services/#header-7

In popular culture

On April 1, 2011, an April Fool's Day joke from Google Enterprise said that Contoso abandoned many of Microsoft's technologies in favor of Google Apps.

See also

• List of fictional Microsoft companies
• Tempuri