For me, it speaks volumes about how much trust MS has to regain with their customer base, and the massive technical debt they have to pay off to do so.

It's always puzzled me why Windows users get so nervous about upgrades (both patches and new versions). Then I had to think back to my own experiences that are approaching 20 years old, and realize how it never really got better in that time. Meanwhile the world finally moved on and began recovering from the negative impact Microsoft's anti-trust illegal actions had, with competition slowly returning. Microsoft does not dominate consumer and enterprise worker computing like they once did with the rise of mobile and the total cost of MS's past solutions becoming clearer.

After the Balmer years, their need to compete properly again became strong enough that they are finally taking on the right work to change and improve. I overall like their new direction, and hope they can become a proper triple bottom line company alongside the rare others in the computing space that meet that bar.

Windows 8 to me was brilliant in that goal, but landed badly. Microsoft needs that room to experiment and move things forward, this time without illegal actions making barley shippable code something acceptable to press to a disc. Win 8 was still enough in the Balmer era that they thought they could still force their way forward like the old days, but it failed since it no longer works to force OEMs to buy unused licenses since consumers had a choice with Apple's rebound/mobile rise. It also still came across as a reaction to the rise of Mobile and old style "Windows Everywhere" monopoly thinking.

Win 10 on the other hand seems to be an attempt at a single OS with multiple UIs that adapt to where it's running. It's spanning the range now from AR glasses, phones (the few that exist), tablets, laptops, desktops, and game consoles. Then pieces are showing up in Windows Server 2016 where it makes sense, unlike the really odd Windows Server 2012 UI that was a copy of Win 8.

Microsoft is in a tough spot with how much legacy code they still drag behind them, and Win 10 has shown a few times where cutting that legacy hurt folks for a bit. They still have a long road in front of them, though so far the past few years of solid efforts have really paid off. I'm glad to see them once again taking lessons from general computing history and applying them properly in several areas, especially when it comes to providing competition in the "old but new" cloud computing hosting category.


Oh right, this was a story about Windows 9 and why it's not a thing. The true story is even more simple, and yet ties into much I typed above about legacy code.

When Microsoft began testing what many apps and installers do when they encounter a modern OS called Windows 9, they discovered a lot were running some ancient code paths. Which ones? The ones that decided Windows 9 = Windows 4.x, aka the Windows 95/98/ME series of releases that thankfully died off. And not the Windows version 6.x series meaning it's a different OS with very little in common, and started life known as Windows NT. Why? Well, so many ways to ask an OS what version it is, and lots of incorrect assumptions made 20-40 years ago. Oops. Under the hood for the first time in ages, they unified the version internally with the marketing name. Windows 10 = 10.0.buildnumber = NT side of the OS family.

Computers are terrible kids, remember that.