Windows 9

Windows 9 was expected to be a part of Microsoft's line of Windows operating systems. However, such an edition was never released, which caused people to ask, "What happened to Windows 9?"

In October 2012, Windows 8 was released, with great promotional efforts. However, the operating system did not sell as well as expected, partially due to the removal of the start button, which every Windows user had grown accustomed to. To help compensate for this failure, Microsoft released Windows 8.1 in October 2013, one year later. This gave back the Start button, but the new "Start menu" was not improved or replaced. A few other updates were bundled with this release as well. Almost two years later, in July 2015, Windows 10 was released. Immediately, the public began asking, "What happened to Windows 9?"

It seems logical enough that Windows 9 should come after 8 and before 10. However, there are several reasons why this might not have happened. Here are some of them:

Culture sensitivity

In Japan, the number nine is considered unlucky. Since Japan does offer a sizable market for the Windows system, this number might have been excluded, much as some companies in the United States exclude the number thirteen.^[1]

Compatibility

Ideally, programmers would not make vague any assumptions. However, it is possible that some might make a program to check for "Windows 9" to make sure that it is running on either Windows 95 or Windows 98. This is a reason given by someone claiming to be a Microsoft developer on the social media website Reddit.^[1]

Meaning of a beginning

During the official launch event for Windows 10, Myerson implied that it was regrettable that this new system could not be called Windows 1, since a system under that name as already released years before. The number ten, being a round number in the English system, is perhaps the next best thing. Windows 10 was designed to offer a new beginning, in a way.^[1]

Meaning of finality

Windows 10 is intended to be the last release of a full Windows install which must be installed from the ground up on a computer. From now on, Microsoft plans to release updates and upgrades to be merged into installed Windows 10 systems. If they succeed, Windows 10 will be the last system released, so a round number to end on might be the goal of this name.^[2]

Disassociation

After the roll-out of Windows 8 failed to excel as expected and 8.1 was released to fix a few of their mistakes, Microsoft may have wanted to distance Windows 10 from this failure, and make Windows 10 seem much newer than 8.^[3][4]

The joke

Although no one believes this had anything to do with Microsoft's decision to skip number nine, a joking reason was offered by some Microsoft officials, by hiding it in plain sight on T-shits that Joe Belfiore and other Microsoft staff members were wearing. On the T-shirts, was binary code which could be decoded into the following phrase:

This joke (or at least part of it) has been around on and off of the internet for years. Sometimes people miss the meaning until they read it out loud. If they do, they see that in this case, the simple explanation is that apparently Windows 7 ate Windows 9.^[4]