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An open encyclopedia of software history

Did you know...

...that Windows XP has been supported in various forms for almost 18 years, which is the longest compared to any other version of Microsoft Windows?
...that Windows Server 2003 build 2462 includes login banners for a Personal edition of Windows 2000?
...that Windows 95 build 90c has a mention to Windows 94 which could suggest that Chicago was planned to be called Windows 94 in the first part of 1994 and could've been released in 1994?
...that the Windows XP team created a decoy theme called Mallard to hide the fact they were secretly working on Luna?
...that Windows Neptune was a cancelled version of Windows that ought to bring a new user interface reminiscent of Metro later introduced in Windows 8?

Featured article

Windows Longhorn build 3683

Windows Longhorn build 3683 is a Milestone 3 build of Windows Longhorn and is currently the earliest leaked build of Longhorn. The build was leaked in November 2002 by XBetas, and their effect can be seen in the setup handle. This build is most notable for being the first build to introduce the Plex theme and Windows Sidebar, alongside many features that would be used in later Longhorn builds such as Desktop Composition Engine and Windows Future Storage. This build still uses the i386 installation used in previous versions of Windows, and as such still has the same minimum requirements as Windows XP, however, using winnt.exe to install has been unsupported and no longer works.