I mentioned the Windows documentation not as an authoritative source for what "application" means, but more as an informal source for how people even in the 80s used "application" to mean any sort of software.
I mentioned Windows because it is the most likely to be known, but it also applies to other systems. For example the GEM installation manual[0] uses the term "application" to refer to non-system software and even seems to make the distinction between applications and programs where applications is the whole and program is a part of the application (notice in section 4 where it mentions that to install an application you use its installation program).
I did read the link, but i'm not sure how to interpret it, it just mentions that the word application can have several uses. Which, ok it does, but it doesn't sound like it was contradicting anything i wrote about "applications" not being just about specific types of software like productivity or even a subset of "programs" (the GEM manual even shows how it was used in the opposite where an application can be made up of multiple programs).
I mentioned Windows because it is the most likely to be known, but it also applies to other systems. For example the GEM installation manual[0] uses the term "application" to refer to non-system software and even seems to make the distinction between applications and programs where applications is the whole and program is a part of the application (notice in section 4 where it mentions that to install an application you use its installation program).
[0] http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/digitalResearch/gem/GEM3/5125-2...