I suspect, however, that Windows is a little more sophisticated in their implementation of the concept. "Starts with X" is a much wartier approach than (invented example) a rules-based framework that checks against exe metadata/checksum.
If it's the comedy post on reddit[0] then that's not how you determine which version of windows you're running on[1][2].
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2hwlrk/comment/...
[1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winbase/...
[2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/win32/sysinfo/vers...
† btw, what became Windows 11 started development as just another Windows 10 feature update, and what gets branded as a "new release" vs an "update" is mostly a marketing decision.
The move from Windows 10 to Windows 11 came with some pretty severe restrictions on supported hardware, so the version jump in this case makes sense to me. It would be a lot more difficult to push an "update" which obsoleted so much hardware like that.
That's hardware, and just like with the Linux kernel you have some tough choices to make about what you continue to support. Apple rendered my Intel Mac Mini a brick because despite having a 64 bit CPU its BIOS/UEFI or whatever was 32 bit and I was stuck with MacOS 10.6, no way to upgrade to 10.7 Lion.
It's true if every developer reads MSDN /s
Some Java apps do `osname.startsWith("Windows 9")`
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397664 https://github.com/jenkinsci/platformlabeler-plugin/blob/pla...
What Java devs get up to then that's their problem.
Same reason we never had an iPhone 9. Other companies skip the number 9 too for the same reason.
Companies will not admit this in public as to not offend the CCP or it's people. It's why their reasons when questioned tend to seem a little odd or incomplete.