Over the year, Microsoft has followed a pretty consistent naming scheme for its major OS releases. For example, we had Windows 95, 98, 2000, all the way up to Windows 8. But when the company released the next major version of Windows after Windows 8, it decided to call it “Windows 10” skipping the number 9.

Why did Microsoft skip Windows 9 and jump straight to Windows 10? We have a few answers. Let’s take a look.

Why Did Microsoft Skip Windows 9?

The Windows logo

When Windows 10 first launched, multiple theories intending to explain the rationale behind Microsoft’s decision to skip the number 9 popped up.

For instance, one of the more widespread and plausible ones was from a Redditor. Allegedly, many legacy programs use “Windows 9” as a reference to Windows 95 and 98 in their code. To avoid widespread technical issues, Microsoft decided to call the new OS “Windows 10”.

While this reason makes sense, it is not official. The reasons we have from official sources describe the motivation behind Microsoft skipping Windows 9 as simple marketing.

According to acclaimed Microsoft insider Mary Jo Foley, the company went with “Windows 10” because it wanted to signify that the OS would be the last major Windows update. So, the number 10 was a way of saying “hey, this is it, and there’d be no more Windows X releases”.

Related: How to Manage Windows Update in Windows 10

As we now know, Windows 10 wasn’t the last version after all. Microsoft released Windows 11 last year. But if we look a little closer, the release of Windows 11 may also have largely been a marketing move. For all intents and purposes, Windows 11 is just Windows 10 in disguise.

Did Forgoing Windows 9 In Favor Of Windows 10 Pay Off?

Say what you will about Windows 10, it was a commercial success. Even though it was buggy and unfinished at the start, Microsoft did fix almost all the issues.

In other words, skipping Windows 9 for Windows 10 did pay off.