Ah, version numbers.
I was once trying to get a DEC switch working and the support guy asked me for the version number of the backplane firmware.
"V7.2.3.2-10-97.17:50" I replied.
"Let me check my notes." he said.
(OK, I don't actually remember the exact number, but you get my drift.)
Please do some fact checking before posting stuff like this. There WAS a product called Windows NT4 (both server and workstation). THAT was Windows v4.
Er, I said that. About a third of the way down. The end of the paragraph that starts with "To understand what happened next....". That was the only product that was officially released with "Windows version 4" as part of its name, but the whole Windows 95/98/ME family was also "Windows 4" in the sense that the build numbers all started with 4.x, and the software internally identified itself as Windows 4 point something. The point being that when Microsoft sold both DOS and NT based versions of Windows, they generally attempted to have the two products have roughly the same version number at the same time. This didn't matter once we got to NT5/2000/XP, as after that the NT variants were all we had.
And yes, client versions of NT did exist right from version 3.1, so Microsoft had clearly considered the possibility of moving its client OS base to NT pretty much from the beginning. However, it was selling NT as a server solution at the time. (And let's not even go into the lip service that was still some of the time being paid to OS/2). Microsoft was clearly preparing for such a move when it made the user interface of NT4 very similar to that of Windows 98, but the big push only came with Windows 2000.
I feel ashamed.
That was a really interesting read.
As I said, I feel ashamed
Please do some fact checking before posting stuff like this.
I take it English is not your first language. Or did you just not read the whole article?
Something slightly akin to Windows 7 pretending to only be 6.1 internally happened with the Opera Browser. The latest version is 10, and no other browser has been around long enough to reach this. After discovering that too many sites couldn't have two-digit version numbers, the final release pretends to actually be Opera 9.80. Maybe they hope to stall until IE reaches version 10 or something and sites get fixed.
As a user of free and open-source operating systems, I am obliged to make the following crack. If I don't, Richard Stallman's ninja army will hunt me down and sing some of his songs. I apologise in advance.
Windows 1 and 2 were products that Microsoft sold before Windows 3, and they didn't work very well
So just like all the other ones, then?
Windows 1.01 was just a Interface UI for DOS
Windows 2 was a bit better and allowed Word and Excel to run, plus third party stuff too
Windows 3/3.1/WFWG 3.11and NT speaks for themselves
Windows 4 is commonly acknowledged as Windows 95
Windows 5 was Windows 2000
Windows 5.1 was Windows XP
Windows 6 was Windows Longhorn/Avalon was which became MS' greatest ever calamity, i.e. Vista
Windows 7 is the hope that y'all forget about Vista :)
Hope this makes it clear.
I wear my geek hat proudly (I'm almost 60) and thoroughly enjoyed your article.
Now I understand why I needed Vista 64 bit drivers to make my printer operate with Windows 7.
Most enlightening!
Still, I'd always always rather buy something called "Windows 7" than bleedin "Snow Leopard".
The real irony is that I now have to run my daughter's Ipod on an old Windows XP laptop because my Mac, being nearly four years old, cannot load a version of Itunes recent enough to connect to it.
Still, I realise that there are few things more foolish on an Interweb forum than to dare criticise a Mac, so I'll leave it there.
Many large organizations have the name confusions.
Many times documents will have a note as to the version of it. Then, they may do a redo of it, giving it another type of name altogether. This has gone back before computers.
Cosmetic changes, such as document names, are something people may do, that shows they're doing something, of a nature that will not cause objections.
I once set up the microfilming of bank records going back to 1816. From there it progressed to microfiche,
then to digital. This was in the 1980's.
Some documents would have 4 different names to index
This is often a problem in research of old records.
Most of the cosmetic name changes started and became more often, in the 1940's and 50's as corporate
and government organizations grew in size.
Schools taught that computers would reduce paperwork
In the institutions, printers became so fast, they needed
sound shrouds to protect hearing in the same room.
manuel: A four year old Mac should be running at least Tiger, which is compatible with iTunes 9, which should support any model of iPod. A five year old Mac might be running Panther, but this should be upgradeable (for a fee) at least to Leopard, which again should run iTunes 9 and support any iPod fine. I am therefore curious as to how you have hit that particular problem.
Where does Microsoft Bob fit into all of this? ;-)
Michael - I have OSX 10.3.9. I have tried loading a version of Itunes capable of supporting the Ipod Touch and I can't. You may be right - it could be more than 4 years old, but still, it's unimpressive.
I become relaxed and happy just thinking about the day (quite soon) when I will reprogramme it with a large axe.
I've actually written code for NT 3.5. After being brought up on Unix and Mac systems programming, it was a very rude shock. It was appallingly badly designed (and as for WinSock, I still quake at the memory).
Where does Microsoft Bob fit into all of this? ;-)
Ask the developer who invented it. Ask him why he can't sit down in comfort.
That's where MS Bob ended up fitting.
I want to find the guy who invented Clippy. Oh, yes, he and I need to speak. I got some sea bass with fricking laser beams set aside in my bathtub just waiting for him.
I will give up XP 64-bit when they pry my cold, shriveled fingers off of the keyboard.
Or when driver support dries up, whichever comes first.
Wake me when "Windows DeathKernel 9: A New Beginning" hits the big screen.
I really shouldn't have read that. Can someone please pass the aspirin? My brain hurts.
You did warn us though.
@Spectre765: You found driver support for XP x64? Where?
One of the few things that Vista got right from Day 1 was better driver support in the 64 bit version. XP x64 has quite possibly the worst driver support of any version of Windows other than NT 3.1/3.51
From a professional viewpoint (and I've had to deploy and support damn near all those versions of windows, servers included), the only decent one of the lot is Windows 2000 Pro and Server. Server 2003 was ok, but Server 2008 is a bit of joke and don't get me started on IIS7.0.
Vista is the biggest mistake MS made since Windows ME which 7.0 has rectified somewhat, but they really need to bin the whole codebase and start again. Unfortunately, Linux is going the same way - it's gone from a lightweight run-from-floppy OS into a bloated and slow liability.
Of course, if you start from source and compile your own, Linux is lovely :)
"my Mac, being nearly four years old, cannot load a version of Itunes recent enough to connect to [an iPod]"
I call bullshit.
Even assuming you have an iPod that absolutely requires the latest iTunes 9, that will run on any G4, G5, or Intel machine that can run at least OS X 10.4.x.
The official requirement for 10.4.x is a G3 or better and built in firewire, which includes every iBook with 366+ Mhz (inroduced Sep 2000), every iMac with 400+ MHz (July 2000), and the Pismo Powerbook (Feb 2000).
Assuming that iTunes 9 really does need a G4 not a G3 (plausible as it may well have code that requires Altivec) the very last G3's sold were the 900 MHz iBooks in October 2003, and the 900 MHz G3 iMacs in March 2003. Other than missing a vector unit (which MP3 & AAC decoding will benefit from for sure), they are much faster than many G4's, which started at 400 MHz.
In summary: unless I missed something obscure, anything sold in the last six years can run the latest iTunes. Something "almost four years old" most certainly can.
I don't know about XP, but NT means simple New Technology. XP probably is something as inane.
Eric,
Switch to Greek. XP is chi rho. Cairo. An internal Microsoft designation.
Just a minor nit: the "ill fated" Itanium processor is alive and well and powering big-iron servers all over the place. Which may not be what was originally hoped for it, but it's still a large and profitable niche.
That's another interesting and entirely separate discussion that it probably wouldn't b a good idea to get into just now, namely: commodity Linux/Intel based hardware certainly is eating its way up from the low end of the server market, and already controls certain niches with special requirements in the high end - basically, huge websites - but the complete eclipse of proprietary big iron from IBM, HP and Sun/Oracle isn't happening as fast as was generally expected a few years ago.
(See also: the last non-Intel "G5" Macs, which were basically a valiant but failed attempt to take an excellent high end server processor design and use it in desktops, for which its power and cooling requirements turned out to be too overwhelming.)
Great article, Michael. I too have used virtually every version of Windows (with the blessed exception of 1 and 2), and not always of my own chosing... thus is the corporate world defined.
IMHO, Win ME is undeniably the worst version of the lot. It tries to be flashy, but falls short in so many ways. 2000 Pro was good, but, like Vista, took several service packs to get there (about 4 if I recall correctly).
I've been using Vista 64bit for about a year, and have found it surprisingly very stable... must be the AMD dual CPU and Gigabyte motherboard ;-) But then I've never had much truck with Intel since that crappy Celeron CPU I got stuck with in my first home PC.
"my Mac, being nearly four years old, cannot load a version of Itunes recent enough to connect to [an iPod]"
I call bullshit. Posted by Bruce Hoult
Er, thanks Bruce.
Itunes capable of supporting the Ipod Touch doesn't run on 10.3.9 (at least that's what Apple's own upgrade process tells me).
Your "bullshit" call appears to be saying that my machine is theoretically capable of running it with a different operating system. Right, thanks. "I call pointless", as you might say.
I suppose this is one advantage of Microsoft taking so long between product releases after XP, and then the final product (Vista) being so poorly received that they had to keep XP on sale in some channels. Pretty much nobody who has bought a PC since 1991 needs to pay to upgrade their operating system in order to run recent software (or hardware for that matter).
Of course, Apple does basically operate an honesty system with respect to Operating System upgrades. There are no product keys, compulsory registration requirements, or any checking of any kind that you have paid for it. I would think they are particularly unlikely to care in the event that you were to upgrade from one obsolete system that they no longer sell (10.3, say) to another obsolete system that they no longer sell (10.4, say), which would be enough of an upgrade to run iTunes 9.
Not that I would ever endorse doing such a thing.
I haven't touched Vista yet and stayed with XP. Now that 7 is out, is it better than XP, or should it first go through the service-packs routine?
Excellently informative article, more like this please!
I used Windows 2.0 (must have been?) in an HP XT or similar in, i think, 1988. It wasn't bad really: considering what else was available apart from on mackintoshs and things like that, and it was "available" and not _too_ expensive. you could do spreadsheets on Excel without having to go things like " /wgdd " and the like.
Everybody likes to hate Microsoft: I think it's because it did a Terence Conran - it "took all the [geeks'] precious things, and it gave them to bloody everyone".
DOS and Windows brought much of humnaity, the very very big bit that just wants computers to mostly work most of the time, fairly well, out of the Darkness of unDOSness, and into the dawn of this age of little machines.
I liked WIN98 best I think, although I was younger then and didn't want to do so much so fast, and I think XP is more stable. That's what this is on. The Boy, however, favours Windows 7 and has been using it entirely without mishap, doing complex things, on a old Dell laptop, for some months, and is even able to upload heavy stuff to and from school.
Good exposition.
I didn't know about Windows 3.2, thanks for that.
Pity you never mentioned the OS/2 fiasco, it's an interesting part of the Microsoft story and reveals a lot about their psychology at the time, and possibly now.
I forgot to thank Michael for the post, which, strangely enough, I also found interesting (as well as some of the comments. BTW Ben, which machines run AMD dual CPU?)
I was younger then and didn't want to do so much so fastYeah, and for some strange reason we are always told that this works the other way around:-)
Andrew: There is one possible connection between OS/2 and the purported subject of the post - version numbers of Windows.
The team of developers Microsoft brought from DEC were supposedly to bring new technology to the development of OS/2 version 3.0. At one point this was known as NT OS/2 3.0. At some point, either due to the preferences of the engineers or the preferences of Microsoft management, they abandoned the OS/2 heritage, and developed a new OS separate from it. This became Windows NT, and OS/2 version 3.0 was developed by IBM. However, the OS/2 heritage is perhaps another reason why the first version of Windows NT was version 3, although this does not explain the .1.
The whole OS/2 saga is so big that it would have swallowed the whole post if I had attempted to bring it in, and in truth it is very hard to know the whole story. The outline is pretty clear. Microsoft and IBM agreed to work together to build a successor to DOS. At the same time Microsoft was developing this graphical "Windows" project to provide a GUI on top of DOS. Microsoft managed to get Windows to provide more features working in Windows than had been thought likely, the product was a huge success, and Microsoft abandoned the joint project with IBM, eventually developed its own next generation OS (NT) that it ultimately sold as the successor to Windows.
However, the point at which Microsoft decided on this, and how deliberately they decided on this rather than just going with market events as they happened really is hard to know. There was far too much spin and lying in which a company said it supported something while really doing something else to know what was actually going on, and when it happened.
You lot remind me of a bunch of Corvette enthusiasts, arguing about the number of strands in the horn wire of the early '58's.
IOW, wrangling about stuff that means absolutely nothing of consequence to 99.99987% of product users.
Guess what? Microsoft isn't selling to people to whom this sort of things is either a) comprehensible or b) meaningful - just as Chevrolet is not selling cars to people who understand the part numbering system for the exhaust rocker arms. You're all discussing all this stuff as though MS was supposed to plan product designations according to some laid-down law of the Geek Priesthood. But you folks are not their target market.
That's why I always laugh when the propellor-heads around here open another joyful bout of Microsoft Bashing - it's A Fun Game For All The Family! They're right - MS products can be awfully bad, sometimes, but that doesn't change the fact that the market loves them and buys them by the boatload. Technical superiority does not always map to market favour, in fact, it often doesn't. Deal with it.
BTW, I still have in captivity a PC with Windows 3.1 installed and running (quite well) - to support a CAD software version which we need alive for a support contract commitment. For what it was, it really wasn't bad at all.
llater,
llamas
I couldn't agree more with Llamas.
I work on mainframes ( you know the REAL computers that were supposed to be replaced with PC's 20 years ago because At&T was going to run payroll on a PC - yeah, right !).
Most Windows users, myself included couldn't care less about which bits Microsoft didn't twiddle the way some of you think they should have.
Windows does what I need it to do and I don't waste my time trying to find out how it was
designed/put together.
If it is SO bad why don't one or more of you whiz-kids design, build and market a BETTER system according to your superior grandiose approach.
Someone said earlier, and I agree, a LOT of you need to get out more.
That was the single worst explanation of Windows version numbers I have ever seen. Bar none. Please stick to what you're good at.
Editor's note: as you don't say why, safe to say you can be ignored
Michael, I think these people are absolutely right, and you should refund their subscription money immediately.
BTW, to tell Michael, of all people, to get out more, one has to be really new to this place:-)
BTW, to tell Michael, of all people, to get out more, one has to be really new to this place:-)
Hehe, he is so well travelled he is a one man global warming machine...Yes indeed, epic fail!
@ Adam:
I have a somewhat dated dual core AMD machine with ATI graphics, and Logitech webcam. I use it mostly for web browsing and have had few problems finding 64-bit drivers at the manufacturers' websites. The hardware list:
AMD Athlon x2 5000+
Biostar A760G mobo
Sapphire Radeon HD4650 video
Kingston 2Gb memory
WD 500Gb hard drive
Logitech webcam
No hardware problems so far.
I hate it when a political blogger does a geeky post better than the geek bloggers. I'm a geek blogger. I wish I had explained the issue half as poignantly as this.
kelly H: Why? I mean, sure, Michael Jennings did a good job. But I could have done the same, and so could a few hundred thousand others. There's no inherent reason why a political blogger can't do a technology post just as well as (or better than) a technoblogger.
Vista is now a capable OS. The original release sucked hard, especially the networking stack. I could hardly get my broadband to cooperate with it. But after two SPs, it's settled down and is now rock solid. Of course, the audio stack still sucks somewhat. But yes, I'm looking forwards to Win7.