Windows NTX

Windows NTX is a series of never-released Windows versions based on Windows NT's codebase. It was first released on March 29, 1997, to manufacturers and on September 5, 1997, to the public.
== History ==
=== Windows NTX 1 & 2 ===
At the dawn of Windows NT's arrival, Microsoft wanted to expand its reach to High-end home computers. A new development lab named NTX (short for New Technology Xtreme) opened in August 1993 with the goal of pushing the limits of Windows NT to the next level. On September 17, 1993, Microsoft's NTX lab began discussing two new projects called "Project Dallas" and "Project San Francisco", both of which had the goal of beginning development in 1994 and 1995, respectively. On September 22, 1993, Microsoft green-lit both projects to begin development.
Both projects began development a lot sooner than expected, with Dallas beginning its development on November 3, 1993, while San Francisco began its development on May 25, 1994. Both were revealed to the public on December 7, 1994, featuring a shell mix of Chicago and Windows NT 3.5x. Microsoft announced that both projects were very shaky and that they didn't want to rush the systems.
Not much was said about the project in 1995, but on July 3, 1996, Microsoft announced the names of the systems as Windows NTX 1.0 and 2.0. Windows NTX 1, according to Microsoft, was scheduled for release in 1997, and once the system was released, they would devote the rest of their time to Windows NTX 2. On August 5, 1996, Microsoft began promoting NTX 1 with the slogan "Dimension Xtreme," and computer magazines were covering it.
On March 29, 1997, NTX 1.0 was launched for manufacturing. On June 9, 1997, Windows NTX 2 was announced to be on the horizon for release in 1999. The hype for the system's launch was real. On September 5, 1997, Windows NTX 1 was released for general availability. Everyone was waiting for the NTX 2 to come out, and Microsoft assured everyone that they were still developing it. On October 13, 1997, Microsoft revealed that the system was coming together nicely.
On April 13, 1998, NTX 2 was revealed to be in its Release Candidate phase. Also on April 13, 1998, Microsoft began stating that development for the system could be a bit slower due to being accused of trying to create a monopoly that led to the collapse of rival Netscape by giving its browser software away for free. On October 17, 1998, Microsoft planned to have NTX 2 ready by mid-1999, and everyone waited in anticipation.
On May 16, 1999, Microsoft announced that NTX 2 was coming soon, and everyone was revving with excitement. On June 12, 1999, Windows NTX 2 launched to the same success as its predecessor.
=== Windows NTX 3 ===
On September 6, 1999, Microsoft announced that the NTX lab was developing a new project, codenamed "Project Bubbly," a project meant to bring home computing and business computing together. Everyone wasn't sure about the project and thought that Microsoft was drunk or something.
On May 8, 2000, Microsoft confirmed that development for Bubbly was going really well and hoped it would launch by 2001 or 2002. On July 25, 2000, Microsoft revealed the name of the project as Windows NTX 3.0 and announced that development had really gone well through the 10 or so months of development so far. Everyone was ready for the new NTX system.
On June 19, 2001, Microsoft announced that NTX 3 would step out and be a system made on the architectures of x86, x64, and IA-64. This made people who used DEC Alpha, MIPS, or PowerPC computers retaliate, saying that they were still capable, but Microsoft told them that time was running out and the three architectures they listed were the future of computers. Most of these DEC Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC users switched to one of the three architectures by August 2001. On October 16, 2001, Microsoft began promoting the system with the slogan "Enter The Xtreme," and computer magazines were covering it.
On February 5, 2002, Windows NTX 3.0 was released, to much acclaim from most people. In a review from the New York Times, it stated that "The operating system does so well at being a visual improvement from versions 1 and 2, it acts like a true game changer." They also praised the operating system for being able to run at higher speeds than previous versions. The Washington Post deemed it "An experience you'll want to get."
=== Windows NTX 4 ===
Project Crotalus began development on January 12, 2004. On January 27, 2004, Microsoft announced Crotalus as an operating system that worked in 64-bits. This obviously made people ask more questions about Microsoft's new project. One confused WinXP user asked who was developing the project, to which Microsoft answered that the NTX lab was developing it.
On May 18, 2004, Microsoft summarized their WinHEC conference. They had discussions of Longhorn's release timeline and upcoming service packs for XP and Server 2003 and updated the Athens concept PC design, named Troy, based on a Longhorn user interface. They also planned for Crotalus to be released in early 2006. On July 29, 2004, Microsoft announced that Crotalus would be expected to reach its beta 2 stages by late 2004, beta 3 by early 2005, and the release candidates from summer 2005 to winter 2006, before a spring 2006 shipping date. On August 31, 2004, Windows Crotalus Beta 2 was officially released to the public.
On November 9, 2004, Microsoft revealed that the final name of Project Crotalus would be Windows NTX 4.0. On February 15, 2005, Microsoft announced the release date for NTX 4 to be at some point in April 2006.
On April 20, 2006, Microsoft officially launched Windows NTX 4, which was met with a mostly decent response.
=== Windows NTX 5 ===
Following the launch of NTX 4, the NTX Lab was tasked with making a project named "Project Motherboard," which was meant to bring the worlds of x86 and x64 together. The project started in 2007, which evolved into a new NTX version named NTX Gen. when it was brought up.
By the 2008 WinHEC, it was announced that the name of the system would be Windows NTX 5.0, which was meant to be released at some point in Mid-2009. The advertising campaign "Xtreme Capabilities, Xtreme Power" began on January 1, 2009, and the system would be launched on May 25, 2009.
The system was met with mixed results; some praised it for introducing new features that were welcome to the NTX OS, but others criticized it for being really stale to use. Microsoft was a little underwhelmed by the results of the new OS and didn't seem to know what to do with the NTX lab.
=== Windows NTX 6 & 7 ===
After the semi-promising letdown of NTX 5, Microsoft commissioned the NTX lab to make an OS that would work on x86, x64, and ARM32 devices. The project was given the codename Googolplex. Beginning development with hopes of being a major step from NTX 5, NTX 6 (as the name was revealed in March 2013) was announced to be the point where Microsoft would let NTX reach the mobile market.
The response to Windows NTX 6's launch was mixed, and Microsoft decided to put the NTX line on hiatus. Many thought that the NTX series was cancelled because of NTX 5 and 6's poor response, but these rumors were soon proven wrong.
On September 4, 2016, Microsoft revealed that they were going to come back to the NTX family at some point in the future. Later on April 23, 2019, Microsoft announced a project codenamed Wilmington. On June 4, 2021, Microsoft announced NTX 7.0, and the series began to shine into fame again. In October 2023, NTX 7's slogan "Xtreme Machine" showed up and the system was met with great appreciation on launch day.
== Look and feel ==
Windows NTX has allowed customization of its user interface since its first versions. Windows NTX 1 allowed the user to change the color scheme in their Control Panel, featuring the 3D look, partially inspired by NeXTSTEP, which also continued to support color schemes from earlier versions. Initially, it only made use of solid colors, though this was subsequently refined in NTX 2, which added the ability to use a 2-color gradient for the titlebar. This look and feel was later retroactively renamed to Windows Classic with the introduction of more advanced skinning functionality in later versions.
Visual styles, which support deeper customization of user interface elements, were introduced with NTX 3 and 4. Most of these were taken from XP, but users could still switch to the Classic theme if they so chose, which was necessary for accessibility functions such as the High Contrast themes that relied on the Classic theme's ability to set individual colors. This was further improved with the addition of the Desktop Window Manager in NTX 5, which allows desktop rendering to make use of hardware acceleration using DirectX and is used for advanced effects such as translucent title bars used by the new Windows Aero theme. For users whose systems did not support the Desktop Window Manager, the operating system also included the software-rendered Windows Basic theme.
The option to disable the DWM was removed in NTX 6, along with the ability to switch to the Classic theme. The Aero Lite theme was introduced in NTX 6 to replace the classic theme, allowing the user to customize its colors to a greater extent than regular visual styles and providing interoperability with the High Contrast accessibility feature. However, the classic theme implementation as well as support for disabled DWM still remain included with Windows for compatibility purposes.
Similarly to other contemporary operating systems, a toggle to switch between light and dark mode was introduced with NTX 6's service packs. Originally, this only applied to UWP applications, although it later expanded to also apply to the File Explorer as well as the taskbar. However, the feature mostly avoids the existing visual styles infrastructure and therefore most legacy desktop applications will not use dark mode unless the application manually implements it.
== Supported platforms ==
Windows NTX 1 and 2 support the x86 (PC/AT, PC-98) platforms, DEC Alpha platforms, MIPS platforms, and the PowerPC platform. Most of these platforms were easily accessible in the 1990s but were quickly phased out by 2002. The x86 was well archived for both versions, but on February 5, 2005, the other three versions of the two systems were found by Sawyer McMahon.
Windows NTX 3 and 4 dropped support for the DEC Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC platforms simply due to their outdated nature. The x86 platform was supported in both systems, along with the addition of the x64 and IA-64 platforms. The x64 extended the instruction set of the x86 family, while Intel Itanium computers ran on the IA-64 codebase. This also makes both NTX 3 and NTX 4 the first NTX operating systems in the NTX family to be compatible with 64-bit computers, as the other two were 32-bit systems for 32-bit computers.
After the epic failure of the Intel Itanium processor, Microsoft decided not to try having Windows NT-related operating systems on Itanium; this included the NTX family. This was evident in Windows NTX 5's list of compatible processors, which is notable as it only included x86 and x64 processors (like the Intel Core 2, Intel Atom, Intel Core i7, Core i5, and VIA Nano) with no mention of the Itanium family of processors. This significant change in processor type was the subject of numerous questions being asked to Microsoft regarding the IA-64 version of NTX 5. Microsoft responded, saying that the failure of the Itanium was a sign that they should stop trying with the Itanium family of CPUs.
Windows NTX 6 kept both the x86 and x64 architectures from NTX 5, but also included the ARM32 architecture. This system would be the last to support x86 and x64 and the only one to support ARM32.
Windows NTX 7 ditched the x86 and x64 platforms in favor of going for both the AMD64 and ARM64 architectures. Many people were confused as to why Microsoft ditched the x86 and x64 platforms for the NTX family, to which Microsoft responded that it was because of their age. Many were not pleased but eventually got used to the tide's change.
== Source code ==
From 2014 to May 2020, several Windows NTX source code files leaked. These leaks were legally done by the organization Mullen (an organization based out of Paris). Windows NTX's source code is both a trade secret and copyright protected by law, but Mullen asked Microsoft if they could release the various files of the source code from the versions of Windows NTX released up to 2013, to which Microsoft agreed. Recently, Mullen has tried to ask Microsoft about leaking the NTX 7 source code, but Microsoft hasn't responded.
== Logo ==
File:Windows Logo (1992-2001).svg.png|1997-2001
File:MSWINLOG.png|2023-present
Can someone add the 2002, 2006, and 2013 logos please?
== Timeline ==
System name 	Version	Codename 	Release date 	End of support
Windows NTX 1.0	1.0 	Dallas 	March 29, 1997 (RTM)
September 5, 1997 (GA)	April 14, 2001 (Mainstream)
July 1, 2005 (Extended)
Windows NTX 2.0	2.0 	San Francisco	June 12, 1999 	August 9, 2010
Windows NTX 3.0	3.0 	Bubbly 	February 5, 2002	April 13, 2014
Windows NTX 4.0	4.0 	Crotalus 	April 20, 2006 	May 11, 2017
Windows NTX 5.0	5.0 	Motherboard 	May 25, 2009 	September 9, 2020
Windows NTX 6.0	6.0 	Googolplex 	October 23, 2013	December 1, 2025
Windows NTX 7.0	7.0 	Wilmington 	November 4, 2023	March 25, 2035
== See also ==
Microsoft Windows
Category:Fictional Windows versions