UPN

UPN most commonly refers to the United Paramount Network, a defunct American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. The network was launched as a joint venture between United Television (a subsidiary of Chris-Craft Industries) and Paramount Pictures. UPN offered a mix of dramas, comedies and syndicated programming and was positioned as a national alternative to the major networks. In 2006, UPN and The WB announced a merger to form The CW, which began broadcasting in September of that year, ending UPN's operations as a separate network.

UPN also stands for User Principal Name, a term used in Microsoft directory services such as Active Directory and Azure Active Directory. A UPN is the user’s logon name, typically in the form user@domain, and is used for authentication and access to resources. The UPN suffix is stored in the directory and can be configured to match DNS domains. UPNs facilitate single sign-on across on-premises and cloud services; however, issues can arise when the UPN suffix does not match expected email domains, or when legacy systems do not support certain suffix formats. In practice, organizations often assign UPNs that resemble email addresses to simplify user recognition and cross-service logon.