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Windows Neptune

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File:Windows Neptune Desktop.jpg
Windows Neptune desktop. This image comes from build 5111.

Windows Neptune is a version of Microsoft Windows that was shown as a technology demonstration of a possible home consumer edition of Windows 2000. It is unknown whether Microsoft ever intended to release it. After Neptune was shown, the "Whistler" project was formed that eventually went on to become Windows XP. Development on Neptune ended in January 2000. [1]

In April 1999, it was formally announced that Windows Me was going to be the final product in the 9x family. One Neptune build did make it to beta testers (on Dec 27, 1998) and showed off some early work on the new logon screen ("Welcome" in Windows XP) and an activity center-based User Accounts control panel. These beta testers speculated that Neptune was slated for release, in 2001 or 2002, as the first NT-based consumer Windows offering.

Features

Windows Neptune was supposed to feature an HTML-based user interface based on Forms+, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) connectivity, Bill Gates's WinTone vision, and the NT kernel used in Windows 2000.

Some of the changes introduced in the Neptune build, such as a rudimentary firewall for Internet and network connections, were later integrated into Windows XP as the Internet Connection Firewall [2], later renamed the Windows Firewall.

Two circulated builds of Neptune are known to exist - build 5000 (leaked to very few people) and build 5111 which is very common.

Build numbers

Windows Neptune alpha release had the build number 5111 because, although it wasn't 9x/DOS-based, it was a successor to the 9x line. It continued the 9x build numbers (Me was build 3000) and did not follow the build numbers for the Windows NT-based operating systems; for example, Windows 2000, released 14 months after the Neptune alpha release, was build number 2195. Windows Vista Beta 1 was assigned build number 5112 in July 2005, surclassing the 9x line.

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