Windows Everywhere: The rise and fall of the most important software platform of all time

by Paul Thurrott

This is the story of Microsoft Windows, but told in a different way and from a different perspective. It is the story of the aspirations that Microsoft had for the platform over time. Object-Oriented Programming in the era of “Cairo.” The brief moment when the .NET craze engulfed the company. The touch-first mania of Windows 8. And so much more.



Table of

Introduction

Command Line

Pre-History

In the Beginning

Wintel

IBM Defends the Original PC



Windows API

Windows Application Basics

Win32



BASIC

Microsoft Basic

BASIC Inventors Take on Gates, Microsoft

Visual Basic

Visual Basic Takes Over the World

Visual Basic to the Future



NT

OS2

NT

NT Death March

NT Everywhere

Cairo



C++ and MFC

Object-Oriented Programming

C++

MFC



Components

Clipboard and DDE

OLE

COM



The Internet

Marvel

Java

Netscape Navigator and JavaScript

The Internet Tidal Wave

Internet Strategy Workshop

Internet Explorer

Microsoft and Java

ActiveX



Start Me Up

Windows 95

Roads Not Taken

Civil War

Happy Halloween

Windows DNA

Visual Studio

The End of an Era



Antitrust

Antitrust

Findings of Fact

Five Words Apart

David vs. Goliath

Fallout



.NET

COOL

Microsoft Announces .NET

Anders

Why .NET?

What .NET?

Windows Forms

Overpromise, Underdeliver

Hailstorm



XP

Whistler and Blackcomb

Riders on the Storm

Bombshell

Are You Experienced?

Countdown

Meanwhile, in Cupertino

Trustworthy

Freestyle and Mira

Tablet PC

War Room

Brian Valentine Interview



Longhorn

Alpha Tales

More Alpha Tales

Geeks Bearing Gifts

A Lap Around Longhorn

Hillel Cooperman and Tjeerd Hoek Interview

It's Not Going to Work



Springboard

Springboard

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Interview

Bob Muglia Interview

XP Reloaded



Vista

Reset

Connected, Clear, Confident

Redmond, Start Your Photocopiers

Reorg

Jim Allchin Interview

E

1411 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 25, 2023

About the author

Paul Brian Thurrott is a technology reporter, published author, podcaster, and the news editor for Windows IT Pro Magazine. He regularly writes reviews for beta and completed Microsoft products, such as Windows 7 and Windows Vista. He is the host of Windows Weekly on TWiT.TV with Leo Laporte, a podcast attracting over 80,000 downloads for each episode.

Reviews

[Sofiane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I have been looking for. Windows Everywhere is a must read, a real page-turner for anyone like me who has been following the legendary tech journalist Paul Thurrott for 20 years. Windows Everywhere chronicles the rise of the PC revolution, heralded by two superpowers in the industry : Apple by Steve Jobs with his Macintosh and Microsoft by Bill Gates with his venerable Windows operating systems. Windows Everywhere goes even deeper by telling the history of Windows, from it's inception in 1985 all the way up to Windows 10. The battle that raged in the late 90s by Microsoft and its competitors, the anti-trust trials that left many people in shock and perceiving Microsoft as an evil corporate. The craze of the .NET, that was almost nebulous during mid 2000 but found it way out in Windows as .NET Framework. And then came Longhorn, the most ambitious project that MSFT emabrked at the turn of the millinium and ended up as the biggest debacle that never shipped but actually shipped as Windows Vista (Another Cairo.NET). And finally the touch mania of Windows 8 in attempt to catch up with competition dominated by Apple and Google. And much more. Paul said it all. Windows Everywhere also features interviews of many protagonists directly responsable during the development of Windows.NET and Longhorn, Jim Allchin, Hillel Copperman to cite a few. As a legendary and respected journalist with three decades in the industry, Thurrott has been running SuperSite for Windows during Microsoft's rise of power circa 1998 before he would move to Thurrott.com in 2015. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife Stephanie and his two kids Kelly and Marc. He still blogs with his partners in crimes, Mary Jo Foley, Brad Sams and Leo Laporte.