All Things Microsoft > Microsoft Software

I did not know that

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Calum:
well that's it, regardless of whether it's called 3.11 for workgroups, 2000 or 7, it's still microsoft making shit up without any coherent pattern.
Let's hope their actual software design isn't as haphazard and directionless as their version numbering system, eh?

worker201:
Okay, that's fucked up.  I can see now, that if you go to Help > About, it does give you the version number.  But if you go to Control Panel > System, it tells you something else.  What's with the different story in different locations?  Inconsistency breeds foolishness.

The easy answer for "Why 7?" is that it is Windows six plus one.  This post at the Vista blog talks about how Windows 7 is somehow the 7th major OS release, and that the 6.1 is an internal thing that refers to the codebase, not the actual version number.  Are they making shit up?  Sounds like it to me.

Anyway, if I can, I'll try to avoid using 7 and Vista for as long as I can.  Which shouldn't be hard in the professional world.  I don't know if you know this or not, but most companies and government agencies have so many proprietary extensions and control programs on their computers that even a major security patch would destroy their entire computer systems.  And the longer you use such systems, the more of a bitch it is to upgrade them when support disappears.  It's really only home and small business customers who have to worry about which new version of Windows works or not.

Calum:
i can think of a pretty easy way to avoid using MS Windows, even at home.

by the way, in microsoft's case i think it's more that foolishness breeds inconsistency than the other way round.

Lead Head:
I've also heard that the "Version Number" refers to the codebase/kernel version, but I don't believe it that much personally. They say XP was a major release, but it is not too much different then Win2k internally. The biggest thing is that it has a prettier front end.

If you look at it, MS had NT 4.0 for a while, then they released its successor - Windows 2000 Pro, which was labeled at 5.0 internally - indicating that it is technically NT 5. So it can only be logical to assume that Vista was also technically NT6, indicating a major update change - which it is, and that 7 being 6.1 is a relatively minor update - which it is. 7 is just basically a refresh, what vista should have been from the start.

That article brings up something else too, if 95/98/98SE/Me were all 4.x versions, wouldn't that mean Microsoft was essentially selling the exact same thing over and over?

Calum:
yes.

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