TL;DR: Microsoft will likely never release the original source code of Windows into the wild, but the company is clearly interested in sharing important episodes of its software development history.

Members of the Windows 1.0 team at their 40-year reunion this week. L-R, kneeling/sitting: Joe Barello, Ed Mills, Tandy Trower, Mark Cliggett, Steve Ballmer (holding a Windows 1.0 screenshot) and Don ...

We’re not 100% sure which phase of Microsoft’s “Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish” gameplan this represents, but just yesterday the Redmond software giant decided to grace us with the source code for MS ...

The company worked with IBM to release a 1998 uncompiled version DOS 4.0 on Thursday, although unfortunately, this release lacks the app-switching capabilities that landed it the nickname MT-DOS.

Windows 1.0 officially released to the public 40 years ago today (November 20), and despite its age, still has some common similarities with what users can expect from the operating system today.

Unlock the full InfoQ experience by logging in! Stay updated with your favorite authors and topics, engage with content, and download exclusive resources. Vivek Yadav, an engineering manager from ...

In the annals of PC history, IBM’s OS/2 represents a road not taken. Developed in the waning days of IBM’s partnership with Microsoft—the same partnership that had given us a decade or so of MS-DOS ...

On this day in 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded a company called Micro-Soft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The two men had worked together before, as members of the Lakeside Programming group in ...

What was Microsoft’s best Windows operating system of all time? If you’re like us, you have…opinions. Even if you’re not the type to parse through all of the little details that separated Windows 98 ...

First developed in 1981 by computer scientist Chase Bishop, the software project that would eventually become Windows actually started life under a far wonkier name: "Interface Manager." The title was ...