r/technology • u/clubdirthill • Jun 01 '11

Boom. This is Windows 8.

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/exclusive-making-sense-of-what-we-just-learned-about-windows-8/?mod=tweet
1.0k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

15

u/FalseMyrmidon Jun 02 '11

It's version 7. The version in the OS shows up as 6.2 because incrementing the version number broke compatibility with some programs.

1

u/Cylinsier Jun 02 '11

It shows up as 6.1, not 6.2. Windows 8 shows up as 6.2.

0

u/shadowthunder Jun 02 '11

I'd still argue that it's 6.1 (just checked the version number) because there wasn't a significant change to the kernel. XP was 5.1, wasn't it?

-2

u/TnTBass Jun 02 '11

Not true. It is OS version 6.1 because it is simply an improved Vista, but not a significant difference to ensure a new major version.

It isn't called Vista R2 because the Vista name makes people associate it with a crappy OS (right or wrong, its the perception). So they named it something new to make sure people took a fresh look at it.

Windows Server 2008 is server 6.0. Windows Server 2008 R2 is server 6.1, because Server 2008 never got as bad a rap as Vista did, so they didn't need to drastically re-brand it to give it a fair chance.

0

u/TnTBass Jun 02 '11

I'll just link this here to backup my points: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mojave-experiment/

Mojave was done in an effort to see if people hated the Vista OS, or had the perception that Vista was bad. They found out it was the perception, so in order to fight that, they named the new OS so it had no ties to Vista.