Microsoft Foundation Classes.  A C++ library for programming on [Microsoft Windows].  MFS started out as a thin wrapper over the Windows GUI API, but it has over time been expanded to cover all kinds of aspects, like e.g. C++ templates for programming [COM] servers.

MFC is not strictly part of the OS, but a library that comes with the VC++ compiler.  It has been licensed by some (not all) other compilers as well.  It is known for using non-portable C++ syntax, which make it difficult to port it to free programming environments like [Cygwin] or [Mingw].

Lately MFC is de-emphasized by [Microsoft] in favour of the [.NET] runtime.

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[Category Acronym]