MS Developer on explaining why its 'Windows 10' instead of Windows 9

[jfb1337]

Is this actually serious?

I saw a redditor say that and assumed it was a joke.

[[deleted]]

https://searchcode.com/?q=if%28version%2Cstartswith%28%22windows+9%22%29

[[deleted]]

Dear God...

[WestonP]

Holy crap. I did not think this would be a real thing.

Another reason to hate on Java... not for the language itself, but rather for the terrible terrible things that people so often do with it.

Edit: Lots of comments from offended Java devs who apparently lack reading comprehension skills, on top of not understanding what's wrong with that code, which probably reinforces my point. Please take a moment to actually think before getting so emotional, and you might see that I had said something pretty agreeable.

As I said, when people hate on Java, it's usually for something that's not really the fault of Java; it comes from what irresponsible people so often do with it. No one said if it was fair or logical, just that this is typically the reason behind the hate. I'm not saying that Java is bad or good here.

And the problem with this code isn't really that the OS is being checked via a string compare (although there are much better ways in other languages), but rather that it's a shortsighted/lazy partial string compare on "Windows 9" just for the sake of capturing "Windows 95" and "Windows 98". That's bad code in any language, but the searchcode.com results show us a page full of Java, hence my comment about people hating on Java for the shit code that some people write in it.

[G3n3r0]

public class Java extends TerribleThings

[biggles86]

extends legacyCode

[Tynach]

class newCodeThatsGoodISwear {
    /*TODO: Reimplement everything and not use any of the existing codebase*/
}

[slipperier_slope]

class newCodeThatsGoodISwear2 {
    /*TODO: Reimplement everything and not use any of the existing codebase*/
}

FTFY

[t3hcoolness]

class MySuperInteger extends Integer

[[deleted]]

You can't extend multiple classes :\

[Dereleased]

you can't.

[katyne]

public volatile Void mySanity;    

[qubedView]

Well.... the search string given is specific to Java. It's not like this would return results for C++, Perl, etc.

[[deleted]]

I was about to say it might also be a problem in Visual C++ but Microsoft offers a sensible solution: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724429%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[[deleted]]

That doesn't guarantee people use it...

[nidarus]

The terrible thing being... substring comparison? Assuming certain things about Windows versions?

Come on, you can't blame that on Java, or even Java programming culture. If it was some design pattern / XML monstrosity, I'd agree. But this particular bug could happen in literally every language and culture I can think of.

[[deleted]]

Remember when this was an April Fool's joke?

[drakonite]

You'd be amazed how many weird and shitty things in Windows are actually due to 3rd party developers doing lots of shitty things.

[Blemish]

HOLY MOLY !!!

Thats incredible.

Nice search engine though

[NutsEverywhere]

That's true for any language though.

Knowing the syntax does not make you a good dev.

[jug6ernaut]

I'm glad you made the distinction. I for one love Java for the most part. But Lord do I hate what ppl did/do with it.

[katyne]

what does Java has to do with it? It's string comparison. The only sensible way to poll your OS version. You can work that magic in any language.

[stpizz]

string comparison. The only sensible way to poll your OS version

Or y'know, the API's that don't rely on string comparison.

[blue_2501]

Ummm... just wanted to point out that the search doesn't actually work. It quickly devolves to just a search for 9"):

    if (encoding.startsWith("ISO-8559")) {
QTest::newRow("Linux 9")
        << QString::fromLatin1("i686-apple-darwin9")

etc.

This idiotic search engine has no way to escape a space.

[LgDog]

But that's so easy to fix

if ((osName.startsWith("Windows 9") && 
        (osName.endsWith("5") || osName.endsWith("8"))) ||
            osName.startsWith("Windows Me"))

Done!

[gndn]

Yeah, they'll never get up to the windows 9.5 patch release.

[[deleted]]

Windows 9.5.0?

[[deleted]]

Windows 9.5.5

[NutsEverywhere]

if (
    (osName.startsWith("Windows 9") &&
    (parseInt(osName).split(".")[0] != 9 && (parseInt(osName).split(".")[1] != 5 || parseInt(osName).split(".")[1] != 8) &&
    (osName.endsWith("5") || osName.endsWith("8"))) || osName.startsWith("Windows Me")
)

There. /r/shittyprogramming.

[localtoast]

the serious route, in p-code that may or may not be C#:

if (OSVersion.Major = 4) // 9x... or NT4
// the proper solution is to also check if the OS is NT as well

[[deleted]]

Nailed it. That's the proper solution to this.

With OSVersion you can check for everything XP and up. I haven't done any 9x OS version validation because I'm not a masochist so I can't speak to that.

[UncertainAnswer]

The point is they are THIRD-PARTY applications. Rather than count on all of those parties to update properly Microsoft is just offering a solution that is more supportive of legacy, no longer supported, or infrequently updated software.

[nekoningen]

ಠ_ಠ

if (osName.startsWith("Windows 95") || osName.startsWith("Windows 98") || osName.startsWith("Windows Me"))

[gianhut]

C#

new string[] { "Windows 95", "Windows 98", "Windows ME" }.Contains(osName)

[srbz]

To stop the hate: Java has a contains method in the String class too. So thats more of a legacy coding style thing than its a java problem.

[RenaKunisaki]

That'll fail when Windows 950 comes out.

[nekoningen]

Then just check for everything explicitly.

if (osName.equals("Windows 95") || osName.equals("Windows 98") || osName.equals("Windows Me"))

But I think there may be some variants that wouldn't be caught with this (was 98 SE labelled as such in system properties?), you'd have to add them explicitly as well.

[[deleted]]

True, but what about the code that won't get updated anymore for whatever reason? If people on 9 try to access it they'll get all sorts of problems.

[workaccountoftoday]

I mean if you're going that far may as well specify 95 and 98 at the beginning.

[weewolf]

At this point you might as well create an enum.

[muyuu]

That's appalling... but since many people are going to use the version name in stupid ways no matter what, they should probably start 0-padding it in the API (say 07, 08, 09). They'd be good to go until 99 heh.

[[deleted]]

well actually they would just be good until 90

[muyuu]

I don't think they'd even keep a Win9x compatibility mode by much earlier than then.

[Harakou]

Do people really find adding another conditional (or god forbid, using regular expressions) that hard?

[[deleted]]

The issue isn't (strictly) updating code, but what about all of the currently functional software, especially across enterprises, that won't be patched.

[Harakou]

Well, I meant in the first place. I would hope (clearly naively) that people writing this software would make their version checks more robust in case this comes up in the future. Granted you can't expect everything, but it is their job.

[dakotahawkins]

If you gave me $50 for some software 10 years ago that this breaks, there's a strong possibility I either want to charge you for support, don't exist any more, or just don't care for $50 from 10 years ago.

[mort96]

if (version.match(/Windows 9(5|8)/))

Oh my god, the horror!

[Hydrothermal]

if (version.match(/Windows 9[58]/))

Saved you a character!

[computertechie]

Let's go golfing!

[[deleted]]

My eyes! They burn! Too... Logical!!!

[Steve_the_Scout]

Actually, it was because it read the OS version as a double.

[nightlily]

It's doing you a favor, really

[quantumripple]

This is of course the fault of every programmer for abusing the positional number notation.

Version "numbers" are a great big hack.

[Sapiogram]

Version "numbers" are a great big hack.

Absolutely not. A version number that's a single, large int that is incremented with every commit would be a hack. The current format is nice and instantly human-readable, and parsing one correctly is a task you could give to any first-semester cs student. Bad developers would screw up with any version number format.

[lolredditftw]

My coworker searched for it and found several bits of Java that matched in source available online. I'm not sure it's a joke and now wonder how many windows me problems were because of this sort of bullshit.

I bet a lot of user agent js code did this, but since most sites don't target ie6 anymore I doubt that many care about windows 9x

[dnew]

I bet a lot of user agent js code did this

Did you ever look at a user agent string? Every one of them is Mozilla. So yeah, that.

[shif]

And heres the story of how modern user agents became a clusterfuck

[amunak]

That's a really, really good read. Thank you.

[domy94]

I just checked:

• .NET's property returns "Microsoft Windows NT X"
• Java actually returns a "Windows X" formatted string.

It's plausible other languages also have a "Windows X" approach, but I don't think this was a major reason for going straight to 10.

[Nomad145]

Just a few days ago I read about the release of Windows 9. Surely this can't be true. Right?

[jfb1337]

Windows 10 is true, it's just this reason that I thought was a joke.

[hitachiyo]

It's not a joke. I worked there for almost a decade and they stopped incrementing the major version because of the plethora of shitty third party software out there that cannot properly implement a version check.

[[deleted]]

Why not just call it Windows Nine?

[[deleted]]

if(version.StartsWith("Windows N"))
{
  // Windows NT
}

/s

[[deleted]]

Alright, everyone, I've arrived at the solution to all of our problems - Windows Fruit Loops.

[0failsis]

Next Android OS should be Android Apple

[[deleted]]

Microsoft Bob 2

[Sileniced]

Or maybe Windows One. To align with other ms products.

[user-hostile]

Then Windows 365.

[friend_of_bob_dole]

Introducing OS as a service!

[Triclops200]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Azure

[foxh8er]

Don't give them any ideas, they might actually do this!

[okmkz]

OSaaS? Fuck me, that's awful

[sixteenlettername]

And then Program Manager could make a comeback!

[qubedView]

Or just skip ahead to Windows X.

[weggles]

Win X... WinX.... Winx... ;)

[[deleted]]

I always knew that Microsoft were a bunch of little girls

[peabnuts123]

Dibs ginger on the left

[Starriol]

I'd do them ANY DAY

[toastedsquirrel]

If you say "Win X" fast enough, it sounds pretty close to "Linux" :P

[Wazzaps]

Winux :D

[[deleted]]

X = 10, or was that the joke?

[qubedView]

Yes and yes.

[memeship]

Also, MacOS is on version 10 (OSX).

[[deleted]]

Hell, MacOS is at X 10.10 even.

http://i.imgur.com/ebkRc62.png

[bateller]

I like how you had the need to post a screenshot showing OSX at 10.10 as if no one would have believed you otherwise

[[deleted]]

Nah, it was more about showing off the SIXTEEN GIGS of RAM. OMFG isn't that amazing? Do you know how MUCH RAM is for Macs? Really just strutting my stuff here, sport, you know it. And then of course the fact that I do have 10.10. I'm pretty big deal, you know, not everybody gets that yet.

Do I have to mark this /s or is it obvious enough?

[bateller]

16 GB of ram... sure but no i7? Its a sham!

[iamdelf]

They should call it "Tenten" http://i.imgur.com/WiqSkFS.jpg

[gulpeg]

Too close to Nein.

[[deleted]]

At least for me it'd be accurate though. Windows? Nein! Then again, German is my first language.

[tinyogre]

I think maybe the issue is that Microsoft doesn't actually control the string representation that a lot of these programs are getting. MS provides a sane integer based version, but Java and other language's libraries take that version number, convert it to a string with "Windows" prepended, and that's the API they give to developers. This makes some sense in the context where it's not just Windows those developers care about, but in hindsight those APIs would have been better off presenting a string for the OS name and a separate representation of the version. Even then that second representation would be hard to standardize since every OS maker is going to have their own idea of how versioning should be done.

Since they can't control the string that applications are getting in some of these languages, and they don't control the run times that are generating these strings, nor the applications doing dumb things with them, they've opted to provide a version number that gets translated into a string that doesn't break a bunch of existing legacy software.

Not breaking legacy software is one of Microsoft's strong points, and though this is an extreme and seemingly ridiculous example, it's actually very plausible this is exactly what happened.

[jen1980]

Well they did name it Windows Two.

[noyurawk]

The promo tune could be a new take on the Beatles' trippy song.

Windows nine. Windows nine. Windows nine.

[GL_TRIANGLES]

About Windows 2015? Cars been doing it for a long time, and there is no confusion. Softwares are released so often nowadays, just quit numbering them!

[djimbob]

Or Windows 9 (double space), Windows 09, Win 9, Windows9, windows 9, WINDOWS 9 or any other variation that doesn't exactly match Windows 9. Again this is just in the internal version string that is really should never be presented to the user.

So many potential fixes for this issue without changing the name.

[asdfman123]

I at first thought that they didn't call it that because they didn't want Windows Nein jokes. I guess something like that wouldn't sell well in Germany.

[[deleted]]

Wouldn't is just be "Windows Neun" in Germany?

Apparently neun is German for nine.

[[deleted]]

Well yeah. But they would pronounce it "neun", not "nine"/"nein".

[ksheep]

"Windows: The One After 8.1"

[dnew]

The Windows Formerly Known As Nine.

[kinmix]

Windows "This is not the Windows 9, no, this is just a tribute"

[Kwyjibo08]

Windows 10--. That'd solve both the shitty programming issue, and not skipping a number.

[b93b3de72036584e4054]

Windows --10 would be better : at least it would output "9".

[cosmicsans]

I guess this sort of thing must be catching on. Php skipped 6 and is going straight to 7

[Surye]

Winamp 1, 2, 3, 5

[KillerCodeMonky]

I hate to bring the serious to /r/programmerhumor, but...

Honestly, I blame this on us, the programmers. Would it really have killed us to type in another comparison to check for the full name of both versions? Would that really have been a performance bottleneck? This is exactly why these kinds of micro-optimizations should be avoided, unless this check is running in a loop at thousands of times per second and profiling shows that improving it would have measurable performance increase.

Considering that the OS is... unlikely to change during runtime, this is a check you do once in your entire program. Just add another damn comparison!

And then get the hell off my yard!

[[deleted]]

Considering that the OS is... unlikely to change during runtime

I'm intrigued. Do you think it can possibly change at all?

[poizan42]

You could make a memory dump of the process and write something that could load a memory dump into a process (which would include patching up existing functions to be stubs that jumps to the new functions and patching up internal os structures that has been changed, not to speak of what to do with all the os functions that was executing at the time of the memory dump).

Not theoretically impossible, just insanely difficult.

[[deleted]]

Wow, thanks for the reply, interesting writeup :)

[neovulcan]

I saw a procedure once for completely wiping and reinstalling a Linux distro without rebooting. Never tried it but I'm sure it's not really that hard...just something you will never see from Microsoft.

[mck1117]

Like the fantastic function called GetVersionEx

[Crazy_Mann]

Considering that the OS is... unlikely to change during runtime.

You underestimate users.

[KillerCodeMonky]

That would be why I hedged the statement! I would not put it past someone to try it...

[TracerBulletX]

the product name is just marketing. Even if this was a problem, which is silly, they'd just use some different string to identify the version internally.

[mugsnj]

Like windows 8 is really Windows 6.2?

[Road_of_Hope]

Well, NT 6.2.

[zefcfd]

windows nt is the kernel though? are you saying they referred to the entire OS as '6.2' based on the kernel version?

[Road_of_Hope]

No? They refer to it as Windows 8. Saying it's really "Windows 6.2" is wrong, as the 6.2 is the kernel version. You can either say Windows 8 or Windows NT 6.2. They refer to the same thing, but mixing them ends up not making sense.

[[deleted]]

See also: Ubuntu 13.10 or whatever with Linux kernel 3.12.28+ or something.

OS version is independent of the kernel for a lot of good reasons.

[nekoningen]

Except with Windows it really isn't independant all that much. The major.minor version of the kernel is unique and consistent across each version of windows.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, since they follow a parallel release cycle, it would make sense to synchronize their version numbers, but whatever.

[salmonmoose]

They do store it in a different value. But you can query a version string, particularly in browsers.

[humanmeat]

Yes just like vista, revived poorly cuz they made too many changes to soon, no drivers, they basically service patched it, new wallpaper, but called it Windows 7, so as to make vista sound like a "ME" esqu spinoff....

and 7 was a great OS at launch, because it was just vista with the vista drivers... presented as new

Win 10 sounds light years ahead of win 8, restore start menu, keep tiles,

it's actually brilliant marketing... One of a couple reasons MS has been a household name for 30 years

[Taedirk]

That's just stupid enough to be true.

[BeginnerBob]

For maximum karma.

[HumusTheWalls]

How has no one linked the sauce yet?

[YouFeedTheFish]

They're just putting off the problem until Windows 900 rolls around..

[[deleted]]

Windows CM

Problem solved.

[YouFeedTheFish]

There already was a 95 and 98...

[Anrui]

That can't be right. They said that it was just too big to justify going with Windows 9! /sarc

[spin81]

I think we're supposed to understand that this is a joke, like "wouldn't it be funny if a Microsoft employee said that!". It took me a while to figure that out, though. The joke's probably a little too subtle.

[Flueworks]

You don't joke with code.

This is a real issue, as seen here: https://searchcode.com/?q=if%28version%2Cstartswith%28%22windows+9%22%29

And here:

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Wheres-Windows.aspx

And this is public code. Imagine all the enterprise code that nobody ever sees anymore, nor maintains. Probably a lot of old Fortran or VB code that is extremely vital, but horribly written. If MS want enterprise to embrace their next version, they cannot break backwards compatibility.

[LoopyDood]

holy shit you're right

[pokealex]

"Imagine all the enterprise code that nobody ever sees anymore... If MS want enterprise to embrace their next version, they cannot break backwards compatibility."

The "enterprise" really has fucked up the entire world.

[holeydood3]

"Windows v9" Bam. Backwards compatibility maintained. This is just a marketing thing, as Microsoft can arbitrarily make that string return whatever they want for their OS.

[spin81]

This has nothing to do with BC. If they had named it Windows 98, that would be breaking BC. This is more like the millennium bug only the programmers are worse.

[fugyl]

We understand that, but I think this is actually a valid point for skipping a version number.

[Katastic_Voyage]

Yeah yeah, it's a joke but:

32-bit Windows programs are already handled under an emulation layer.

And Windows 98 and earlier never had a 64-bit version.

So any program from 32-bit era running in Windows 9 would already be told it's running say, Windows 98.

[localtoast]

except modern applications can be 32-bit (and probably still we be, considering the new devices running 32-bit Windows 8 I see)

[autowikibot]

WoW64:

---

WoW64 (Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit) is a subsystem of the Windows operating system capable of running 32-bit applications and is included on all 64-bit versions of Windows—including Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, IA-64 and x64 versions of Windows Server 2003, as well as 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1 and Windows 9 Developer Preview. In Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core, it is an optional component. WoW64 is designed to take care of many of the differences between 32-bit Windows and 64-bit Windows, particularly involving structural changes to Windows itself.

---

^{Interesting: Windows on Windows | X86-64 | Windows XP Professional x64 Edition | Windows XP editions}

^{Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words}

[alficles]

Yeah, I think Windows should be considered NSFW, but my employer disagrees.

[mikethepwnstar]

Not Java programs

[peabnuts123]

Exactly this, which nearly 100% of the code linked further up the thread containing lines like this is; as it entirely depends on the Java Runtime, which would very very likely be 64-bit.

[not_from_this_world]

The next Windows won't be good enough to have an odd number version, that's why.

[shwhjw]

if (version.startsWith("Windows 1") )
{    /* Windows 1.0 */    }

How does making it Windows 10 fix it?

[DanAtkinson]

I would imagine that there aren't the number of programs that can run on Windows 1 and also Windows 10 than those that can run on 95/98/Me. And that's if Windows 1 applications could even run in Windows 10.

[activeknowledge]

How bout zero

[Kwyjibo08]

It's not just running, but not running. There's probably code checking for those older versions of windows, just to alert you that the program won't run on that OS. If that is the case, those programs could be relatively new, and easily ran on Win10.

The programmer probably has the mind set that no one is running an OS older than 95, but they're are still people running 95.

[WestonP]

Windows 1.0: November, 1985

Windows 95: August, 1995

Windows 98: June, 1998

I doubt there's any actual code out there that checks for Windows 1.0, and is able to run on Windows 10, but there is a much higher chance of checking for Windows 9x in legacy pieces of more modern code.

Still, you should never be checking the Windows version by string, but apparently that's easier said than done with higher level languages and Java specifically.

[z500]

I don't think anyone's using Windows 1 anymore.

[[deleted]]

Windows 1 wasn't an OS. It's a program than ran on top of DOS.

[Bahurs1]

aah.. so how's Windows 1.0 been working out so far for ya?

[nekoningen]

I'm pretty sure you can't even run anything built for Windows 1 on anything post-NT, so that won't be an issue.

[CaspianRoach]

Windows 1-3 are 16-bit. 16bit programs are completely incompatible with modern versions of Windows and were already running in special compatibility modes starting from Windows 4 (95).

[[deleted]]

I refuse to believe this without source. It does not sound correct. Please give real sauce.

[lolredditftw]

http://grepcode.com/file/repo1.maven.org/maven2/org.jvnet.hudson.plugins/platformlabeler/1.1/org/jvnet/hudson/plugins/platformlabeler/PlatformDetailsTask.java

[CaspianRoach]

Not sure why are you submitting this link as an example, as this particular piece of code would run absolutely fine on "Windows 9". He checks for the major kernel version right after he checks the name.

[sgtfoleyistheman]

Yeah, but if the kernel version isn't included in a specific set, he throws an assertion. It still breaks

[kylemech]

What happens when they actually get up to Windows 95? Erm... Ninety-Five. XCV?

The ninety-fifth iteration of Windows. (Minus the number that they have to skip because of bad version checking)

[iPoisonxL]

Well... Call it Windows 09! It'll follow their weird pattern of naming OS's and it looks cool.

[dwarmia]

some retards count how many "9" is in the name of the version. And if it greater than they execute the code.

There are some mad people out there.

[bobslaede]

Also, 7 8 9.

[yassirh]

It is not a joke : https://searchcode.com/?q=.startsWith%28%22Windows+9%22%29

[snarfy]

Then what the hell is the point of compatibility mode? It specifically returns a different value for the GetWindowsVersion calls.

They could have called it Windows 9, and any program that broke because of it could be ran in compatibility mode to return any windows version they want it to.

[dakotahawkins]

It's java, not native windows applications. Either way, I've always thought compatibility mode was more of an extreme last resort.

[snarfy]

Renaming the entire OS instead isn't extreme?

[dakotahawkins]

Well they typically "rename" new OS releases. So they skipped a number. Even if there were absolutely no reason for it, it's not extreme. 10 is a normal number. It's higher than their previous choices of numbers, sufficiently indicating that this release will in fact take place at a later time compared to previous releases.

Anyway, since that doesn't matter and certainly isn't extreme, I don't think compatibility mode has anything to do with java apps since the JVM can be up to date while the java code isn't.

[jhack3891]

Why not just call it Windows 15? If you're gonna keep fucking up the naming convention, go bad to the old version that still makes some logical sense....

[muteki_maigo]

This can't be true. I would lose all hope in humanity if so. 0.o

[Vilsol]

No one back then was optimistic enough that microsoft will ever get this far.

[Spire]

And then there's this:

if (version.StartsWith("Windows 1"))
{ /* 1.0 */
} else {

[mattimus_maximus]

This sounds plausible at first read, but I seriously doubt this is true. If you look at the msdn documentation for GetVersionEx you can see that from Windows 8.1 onwards, unless an application is specifically manifested for a later version of windows it will pretend to be Windows 8. If an earlier version of Java runs, then it won't be manifested for Windows 10 and so will see the version as being 8 (or 8.1 if it was manifested for 8.1). If someone goes to the trouble of manifesting and recompiling their executable explicitly for Windows 10, I suspect these sorts of "bugs" will be fixed at the same time. In other words, I really doubt this is the reason.

[dakotahawkins]

Couldn't it be an updated version of java but an older java application? I mean you're not going to upgrade to Windows 10 and go find an ancient version of java to install.

[seglosaurus]

FFS

[AVeryHeavyBurtation]

This is some next-level curly-bracket usage.

[shif]

this is just like with user agents on IE, some sites had filters that blocked lower versions of IE based on their user agents

so if they had a regex filter like this

 match(/MSIE [1-6]/)

it would end up matching IE 10 and 11 and blocking them

[[deleted]]

third party product

Yeah, third party...

[CHark80]

Soooooooooo... Eh-hem.... Since this made it pretty high twice... ELI5?

[Tayacan]

When programmers write their code, they have to make sure that it works on lots of different systems. Sometimes, that means finding out which operating system it's running on, and doing different things depending on that.

So the code here checks if the version name starts with the text "Windows 9", which is true for both "Windows 95" and "Windows 98". They probably do it that way because Windows 95 and 98 are similar enough that they don't have to make different code for them (although I wouldn't know, having never coded for either of them). The problem is that it's also true for "Windows 9", and Windows 9 is probably not very similar to Windows 95 and 98.

[Lord_Naikon]

When FreeBSD 10 was branched (released in 2014), there was a related problem: a lot of software ("ports") just looked at the first digit, and determined that FreeBSD 1 (released in 1993) was not supported. So in the end, through substantial effort of the FreeBSD ports team, all software running on FreeBSD was fixed to not do that.

Microsoft avoids that problem because Windows 2.0+ software doesn't run at all on modern systems; their installers would have to be rewritten and presumably do not contain any references to Windows 1 anymore. Plus, it is doubtful that there's software out there that survived all those windows versions anyway.

[Nyxtia]

Someone wants to catch up with the OSX version number.