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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.

Current Table of Contents:

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

OS2

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

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

End Game

The Wow Stops Now

Longhorn Server

The Mojave Experiment

iPhone

Ribbonized

Transitions

Software + Services

The Windows 7 Developer Story

Mark Russinovich Interview

Success

iPad

Highs and Lows

Anticip8

Fast and Fluid

WinRT

Reimagining Feedback

Frankenstein

8 is Enough

The Product

Aftermath

Blue

Threshold

Universal

One Billion

Epilogue

We Fought the Web and the Web Won

Reference

Further Reading

Code

Hello, World

Hello, Windows API

Hello, Microsoft Basic

Hello, Visual Basic

Hello, C++

Hello, MFC

Hello, DDE

Hello, OLE 2.0

Hello, Java

Hello, HTML

Hello, JavaScript

Hello, Visual JPP

Hello, VBScript\t

Hello, C Sharp

Hello, Dot NET Framework and Windows Forms

Hello Again, Windows Forms

Hello, WinFX, Avalon, and XAML

Hello, Ribbon and Jump Lists

Hello, WinRT

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Kick off your book project, get started with GhostAI, get better at marketing, or spend the day doing all three! Free live workshops on Zoom. Saturday, June 27, 2026.

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