Not Windows 9 or Windows TH but it’s simply Windows 10. Lots of theories and Microsoft gave lame reasons but seriously why not?
Let’s back up a bit. Windows version numbers were never consistent – the names were just names. It was:
- Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11
- Windows 95 (version 4.0)
- Windows 98 (version 4.1)
- Windows NT (version 5.0)
- Windows ME
- Windows 2000
- Windows Vista (version 6.0)
- Windows 7 (version 6.1)
- Windows 8 (version 6.0)
- Windows 8.1 (version 6.3)
- Windows Metro
- Windows 10 (version 6.4)
So as you can see, it was never the actual software version. Sometimes they used names, sometimes they used the year or just random numbers. Looking at patterns, they named Windows 95 to be obviously different from Windows 3.11, then Windows 7 after Windows Vista and now Windows 10 after 8.1. Seems like they change the naming convention whenever they want to show that it is a very big difference from the previous version (or trying to get people to forget it). Windows 10 is still based off Vista kernel code so it’s technically still the same main version.
Ultimately Windows 10 is just a name. There won’t be a Windows 9 – get over it already. Myerson gives us a few clues. Starting at around the 2:10 mark, he says: “We know, based on the product that’s coming, and just how different our approach will be overall, it wouldn’t be right to call it Windows 9.” He then talks about how Windows One would make sense with Xbox One, OneDrive, and OneNote, “but unfortunately Windows 1 has been done by the giants that came before us.” And so it seems the only other viable option was Windows 10.
Looking at how important Windows 10 itself is – it would probably have 10.1, 10.2++. Microsoft is clearly distancing itself from Windows 8 and Windows 10 is its grand plans to have a single platform, powered by a common code base, running universal apps . For obvious reasons it can call itself ‘Windows X’ – though that would be way cooler. Or just ‘Windows‘. (For all you non Apple user – Mac’s OS X is their version 10. For you Apple Users, you should remember that it was System 1-7, then OS 8, OS 9 and it has been on OS X for a while with different cat names.)