Windows CE Codenames

Found this nice bit of text describing the history of Windows CE codenames which for some Windows CE Engineers might be interesting:

Before the Windows CE product was released we had an internal set of tools known as the Oem Adaptation Kit also known as the OAK - an OAK of course is a type of tree.
The initial releases of Windows CE were therefore named after trees, as follows.

Windows CE 1.0 - Alder (Nov 1996)
Windows CE 2.0 - Birch (Nov 1997)
Windows CE 3.0 - Cedar (Apr 2000)

Interestingly, there was a second team within the Windows CE group that worked on the tools, I guess you could consider tools to be something that makes a job easier, or cuts the job down to size - therefore the tools releases were named after things that cut down trees - as follows...

Windows CE 1.0 - Alder - Tools: Axe
Windows CE 2.0 - Birch - Tools: Buzzsaw
Windows CE 3.0 - Cedar - Tools: Chainsaw

For Windows CE 4.0 the original plan was to call the O/S DougFir (DouglasFir), the thing that cuts down DougFir trees was going to be Dozer (BullDozer) - interestingly, at Windows CE 4.0 the o/s team and tools teams merged together to form a new, combined team - the codenames for the operating system and tools also changed at this time from trees/tools to Whiskeys - so the codenames for Windows CE 4.0 onwards are as follows.

Windows CE 4.0 - Talisker (Jan 2002)
Windows CE 4.1 - Jameson (Jun 2002)
Windows CE 4.2 - McKendric (Apr 2003)
Windows CE 5.0 - Macallan (Aug 2004)
Windows CE 5.0 Network Device Feature Pack - Tomatin (Apr 2006)
Windows CE 6.0 - Yamazaki (Sep 2006)

Microsoft plays with new non-Windows OS; If only it could start from scratch

Microsoft Research has developed a non-Windows OS for academic types to play with. The subliminal message from Microsoft: Folks, we’d love to start from scratch with an OS, but we just can’t go there.

That connection between Microsoft’s research and actual company desires may be a bit of a leap, but not by much. Windows is saddled with a legacy code base to ensure that all of the old applications work even as Microsoft trudges forward. Simply put, that means Windows will never be perfect–it has to satisfy too many people. Unlike Apple, Microsoft can’t just start over. Apple built OS X and left its predecessor OS–and the applications that went with it– behind as a relic.

But Microsoft can dream can’t it? Along those lines, Microsoft Research made the code of an OS called Singularity available. It’s a proof of concept OS that features a set of tools, libraries and managed code. As Mary Jo Foley notes, Microsoft’s research gang was happy to build an OS that didn’t rely on 30 year old technology.

The Singularity effort raises a few interesting questions:

• Could Microsoft start over with a new OS separate from Windows?
• If Microsoft started over with Windows and didn’t have compatibility with older applications what would the corporate revolt look like?
• Will Microsoft ultimately need a clean break from that monolithic Windows code at some point anyway?
• When would you make such a clean break?

I’m not going to pretend to have the answers, but the questions do make you go hmm. Should Microsoft start over?