Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) are set of services that allow applications written in JScript, VBScript, and Microsoft development tools to build Windows-native XML-based applications.
All MSXML products are similar in that they are exposed programmatically as OLE Automation (a subset of COM) components.
Developers can program against MSXML components from C, C++ or from Active Scripting languages such as JScript and VBScript.
For example, to create an MSXML 6.0 DOMDocument object, which exposes the IXmlDomDocument,[2] IXmlDomDocument2,[3] and IXmlDomDocument3[4] COM interfaces, the ProgID "MSXML2.DOMDocument.6.0" must be used.
For new XML-related software development, Microsoft recommends[5] using MSXML 6.0 or its lightweight cousin, XmlLite, for native code-only projects.