Windows Illinois

Windows Illinois is an unreleased beta of Windows based off of Windows 3.1 that was most likely a testing version never meant to release that was probably made to test Windows not being reliant on a single program, thus explaining the lack of the Program Manager. It starts up with Clock, Minesweeper, and Paintbrush, all being closeable without Windows having a need to shutdown. It is most likely related to the development of Windows 95, thus the similar name to Windows Chicago, the beta of 95, and the removal of the Program Manager (Which was included in 95, but it was not reliant on it). The goal of Illinois would be met in Windows 95, where a program always displayed as a window didn't need to be open. It had a program called Walpap.exe, not present in any other Windows version, which when terminated would cause Windows to crash with the error "CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED" being displayed.
It was first mentioned by a Microsoft employee in 1997 in a forum. He stated "I remember there being a testing version of Windows we were working on that probably ended up as Windows 95 called Indiana...", using the incorrect name. The first time a correct name was used was in 2003 in an MSN chat room, where another Microsoft employee stated "Chicago wasn't the first version of 95, well, kinda. We made a version of 3.1 without progman.exe (Program Manager) that never released, that I believe was the spiritual predecessor to Windows 95.".
A floppy disk containing Build 3 was sold on Ebay by a former Microsoft employee, which sold on auction on January 2nd, 2016. It gained public attention online, which resulted in the highest bid submitted being $15,333.33, bidded by user Drchad33, who dumped the image file a day after receiving it on archive.org on the 14th of February the same year. No other builds have been found since.
== Builds ==
Build 1 - Compiled ???, version 3.???
Build 2 - Compiled ???, version 3.???
Build 3 - Compiled December 15th, 1992, Version 3.1.2571 ILLINOIS
It is unknown if there are any builds past build 3. The former Microsoft employee, however, did state he barely remembered at least a build 7, though he may be wrong.
== Changes ==
* Progman.exe has been removed
* Walpap.exe has been added
* Titlebars have no text
* Paintbrush, Clock, and Minesweeper start automatically
* Winver has been changed to state the date of compilation and the version number with the name Windows Illinois
Category:Fictional Windows versions