All right to use as an abbreviation for United Kingdom as an adjective or as a noun, but only when space is limited. Otherwise, do not use unless you have no other choice.
All right to use as an abbreviation for United States but only as an adjective and only when space is limited. Otherwise, do not use unless you have no other choice. Do not use US, USA, or U.S.A.
If you use the abbreviation, you do not have to spell out U.S. on first mention. Always use periods and no space.
Spell out United States as a noun except when third-party, legally required content specifies otherwise.
In general, do not hyphenate words beginning with un-, such as undo and unread, unless it is necessary to avoid confusion, as in un-ionized, or unless un- is followed by a proper noun, as in un-American. When in doubt, check the American Heritage Dictionary, or consult your project style sheet.
Use unavailable instead of grayed or disabled to refer to unusable commands and options on the user interface. Use dimmed only if you have to describe their appearance. See also dimmed, disable.
Microsoft style
You cannot use unavailable commands until your file meets certain conditions, such as having selected text. These commands appear dimmed on the menu.
Abbreviation for Universal Naming Convention, the system for indicating names of servers and computers, such as \ServernameSharename. Spell out on first mention unless you are positive that your audience is familiar with the abbreviation. Use only in content for a technical audience.
Do not use except to follow the user interface or the application programming interface. Use restore instead.
Even if the product interface uses undelete, the action is still to restore. See also restore.
Microsoft style
To restore the deleted text, click Undelete on the Edit menu.
Use underline to refer to text formatting with underlined characters or to formatting. Use underscore to refer to the underscore character ( _ ).
Do not use the command name Undo as a noun to refer to undoing an action, especially in the plural. Write around instead, as in “to undo multiple actions” or “select the actions that you want to undo.” It is all right to say that a command undoes an action.
In general, use uninstall to refer to removing hardware or software from a computer system. However, if the context talks about adding (rather than installing) software or hardware, the preferred term is remove.
Do not use uninstall as a noun. See also remove.
Use as a general term for spyware, adware, and similar software.
Do not use deceptive software. See also security.
Use update as a noun to describe a broadly released fix for a specific problem addressing a noncritical bug that is not security-related. Use critical update to describe a fix for a critical bug that is not security-related.
Use update as a verb to describe the action of installing a software update or service pack. Also use update as a verb instead of refresh to describe the action of an image being restored on the screen or data in a table being updated. See also critical update, out-of-band release terminology (Chapter 6), refresh.
A tested, cumulative set of hotfixes, security updates, critical updates, and updates packaged together for easy deployment. A rollup generally targets a specific area, such as security, or a component of a product, such as Internet Information Services (IIS). See also out-of-band release terminology (Chapter 6).
Use to refer to a software package that replaces an installed version of a product with a newer version of the same product. The upgrade process typically leaves existing customer data and preferences intact while replacing the existing software with the newer version.
Do not use upgrade as a synonym for update, service pack, or any other release that occurs between product versions.
Microsoft style
To upgrade your operating system to Windows 7, place the CD in the drive.
To install the upgrade version, you must already have a previous version of the program on your computer.
The upgrade was successful.
Do not spell out as Universal Plug and Play. Do not use as a synonym for Plug and Play or PnP.
Use the trademark bug on first mention. Include the following in trademark lists: “UPnP™ is a certification mark of the UPnP™ Implementers Corporation.”
Use as an adjective followed by “certified,” if appropriate, and a specific term, such as “device,” “architecture,” or “standards.” For example, say, “This UPnP certified device features…” Do not use UPnP to refer to an uncertified device.
Do not use as a noun by itself. For example, do not say “UPnP is an architecture for pervasive peer-to-peer network connectivity.” Rephrase the sentence as “The UPnP architecture enables pervasive peer-to-peer network connectivity” instead.
Do not use in the name of any product, and do not use in the trademark of any device.
For any other guidelines required by the UPnP™ Implementers Corporation, see the UPnP Implementers Corporation website. (You must register to be able to use this website.)
Hyphenate as adjectives. Use instead of top left and top right.
For accessibility considerations, see left.
One word both as an adjective and as a noun. Do not use uppercased. Do not use as a verb.
When lowercase and uppercase are used together, do not use a suspended hyphen.
Microsoft style
You can quickly change the capitalization of all uppercase and lowercase letters.
Change all the lowercase letters to uppercase.
Not Microsoft style
You can quickly change the capitalization of all upper- and lowercase letters.
Uppercase all the lowercase letters.
When uppercase and lowercase is used as a compound adjective, do not use a suspended hyphen. That is, use uppercase and lowercase, not upper- and lowercase. See also uppercase, lowercase.
In general, use scale up instead of upsize, even though the jargon upsize has become common in client/server products.
Do not use in public content to mean license terms. All right to use in internal content. See also Microsoft Software License Terms.
Sometimes seen all capped. The collection of computers and networks that share news articles. Overlaps with the Internet, but not identical to it. From “User Network.”
Two words unless describing a label in the user interface. If the user interface uses the one-word form username, use username to describe the interface element, but use user name in the rest of the text.
Microsoft style
In the Username box, type your user name.
Not Microsoft style
In the Username box, type your username.
Use user rights only to refer to Windows security policies that apply to individual user accounts or administrative groups. The system administrator manages user rights through the User Rights Assignment snap-in. User rights are assigned, not granted or allowed.
When you refer to a named user right, use sentence-style capitalization and bold formatting for the name itself.
If an operation requires that the user be logged on to an account that is a member of a specific administrative group, refer to the group instead of to the associated user rights.
Do not use privilege as a synonym for user right. See also permissions, rights.
Microsoft style
You must have the Perform volume maintenance tasks user right to perform this task.
You must be logged on as a member of the Administrators group to perform this task.
Not Microsoft style
You must have the Perform volume maintenance tasks privilege to perform this task.
To help the worldwide audience and to reduce the possibility of ambiguity that makes localization more difficult, use by using instead of using by itself, even if the preposition seems unnecessary. Notice that the sentence, “You can change files using the Template utility” can mean either of the following, very different, things:
You can change files by using the Template utility.
You can change files that use the Template utility.
See also using vs. with, Words ending in -ing
International considerations
To help the worldwide audience and to reduce the possibility of ambiguity that makes localization more difficult, do not use with to mean by using. See also using vs. by using.
Microsoft style
You can select part of the picture by using the dotted rectangle selection tool.
Not Microsoft style
You can select part of the picture with the dotted rectangle selection tool.
With is all right to use in some marketing materials and sometimes with product or service names.
Microsoft style
With Home Essentials, you can create professional documents quickly and easily.
Although utilize is a synonym for use that means “to find a practical use for,” this shade of meaning is seldom necessary in software documentation.
Microsoft style
Some applications are unable to use expanded memory.
This content shows you how to use the Visual Studio 2010 features.
Not Microsoft style
Some applications are unable to utilize expanded memory.
This content shows you how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features.