Microsoft has been following a pretty steady version number scheme with their operating systems lately:
Windows 7, then Windows 8, and then…Windows 10.
Wait, what?
That’s right. They just skipped Windows 9.
So don’t worry, you didn’t miss a major version of Windows. Microsoft simply decided not name their Windows 8 successor as Windows 9, but went with Windows 10 instead.
Windows 9 was assumed to be the name for Microsoft’s operating system after Windows 8 but Windows 10 was announced instead.
Mary Jo Foley, who regularly reports on Microsoft, explained it this way in a piece she wrote on September 30, 2014, the day of the Windows 10 announcement:
“But Microsoft went instead with Windows 10 because they wanted to signify that the coming Windows release would be the last “major” Windows update. Going forward, Microsoft is planning to make regular, smaller updates to the Windows 10 codebase, rather than pushing out new major updates years apart. Windows 10 will have a common codebase across multiple screen sizes, with the UI tailored to work on those devices.”
So there may be no Windows 11. Ever. Windows 10 may grow and improve thanks to smaller, and regularly released, updates.
Sounds good to me.