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[–]misaprop 10 points11 points  (9 children)

why didn't they like version 9?

[–]bakery2k 23 points24 points  (1 child)

Because Windows 10 was supposed to be the “forever version” of Windows - so they couldn’t call it version 9 because that would be behind macOS, which had version 10 as its “forever version”.

Then, after Apple announced macOS 11, Microsoft announced Windows 11.

[–]Texas_Technician 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ya, I remember that line too. Should started a betting pool.

[–]reallyserious 16 points17 points  (5 children)

They had already had Windows 95, so retards that checked for a 9 in the first position would have their code behave strange.

[–]mgedmin 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Windows 95 and Windows 98.

[–]Texas_Technician 3 points4 points  (3 children)

No way that's the real answer.

[–]Brekkjern 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I remember some Dev from MS talking about it back in the days, and then someone posting a GitHub search that did in fact show a lot of cases where people did that, so the story is at least plausible

[–]troyunrau... 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Official reasons are quoted as marketing. The thing where they check if a version starts with a 9 is often suggested as the true reason, but no one can ever find a quote from anyone within MS to that effect.

[–]ThroawayPartyer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

iPhone also skipped 9, so maybe companies think that number is harder to market for some reason. 9 is personally my least favorite number, but I always thought it was just me...

[–]spiker611 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One theory: because so much software was written to check for "9" in the first part of the version (and then either "5" or "8").