A Microsoft dev reports that many third-party products use the code “If Windows 9, then Windows 95, 98.”
Earlier this month, Microsoft surprised… pretty much everyone, by announcing that the upcoming version of Windows would skip nine and to straight to 10. It seemed like a very strange thing to do (especially considering the popular conspiracy that “even” numbered Windows releases are “cursed”), and Microsoft has thus far seemed to ignore the issue, pretending it’s no big deal. However, someone claiming to be a Microsoft dev has revealed via reddit that the reason for skipping nine is a lot simpler than you’d think.
Essentially, he claims that internal rumors revealed a lot of third-party products use some variation of the following code:
if(version.StartsWith(“Windows 9”))
{ /* 95 and 98 */
} else {
What this means is that a lot of these programs would have had trouble interacting with Windows 9, as they would keep thinking it was Windows 95 or 98. Skipping nine and going straight to 10 was a pragmatic solution to avoid this.
It certainly makes a lot of sense, but when I reached out to Microsoft with this information, they refused to confirm or deny it. All I got from them was the following non-response:
“Windows 10 carries Windows forward into a new way of doing things. It is not an incremental change, but a new Windows that will empower the next billion users.” – A Microsoft spokesperson.
I’ve reached out again to them for further clarification, so until then, this should only be taken as a very plausible rumor. It should be worth noting that Windows 10 will not be the 10th, or even the 9th iteration of Windows, so I guess it doesn’t really matter what number they decide to go with.
Source: reddit
Published: Oct 4, 2014 12:34 am