Talk:Winver

Why did Microsoft remove the copyright date in Winver and the setup?
I remember back in early 2021 when I looked at the page of Windows 10 build 21318 which is a build of the Cobalt development semester, there was a change that really shocked me that I did not see coming, removing the copyright date from Winver and the Windows Setup.

Then, Microsoft backported the change to Windows Server 2022 and Windows 10 May 2020 Update starting with the build 1904x.899 range.

I really have no idea why Microsoft chose to do this. I think the most likely reason as to why this change was made because most testers already know the year that the build was compiled by looking at the build's tag on the desktop.

Also, there were times when Windows builds that were compiled at the beginning of a particular year would still have the previous year, which meant that the copyright date was not always synchronized with the compile date. For example, even though Windows 8 build 8176 was compiled on 4 January 2012, it still had a copyright date of 2011. The following builds that were compiled after that updated the copyright date to 2012.

Another possible reason why the copyright date was removed because it became very unnecessary to have a copyright date on the Winver and Windows Setup.

WindowsGuy2021, 1:19, 6 May 2022
 * Maybe it was too elaborate for MS to change the date every year. - 88.67.241.20 (talk) 20:33, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it's important to point out that the copyright notice serves a strictly legal purpose, i.e. it's there only to remind people that the software is copyrighted in a way that could be used as evidence in court. The format of the copyright notice is well defined in US law, so it's very likely MS legal was involved in the decision to remove the year. It certainly has nothing to do with the Windows team removing the copyright year because the year is already in the build tag. -- 19:09, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Windows 10 Winver
Should the Winver of Windows 10 November 2021 Update be added to the gallery for completion? -