Windows 11 debuted in 2021, and despite the clear and concise name, it was not the 11th version of Microsoft's operating system. The Windows lineage stretches back over about 20 releases (depending on how you count them) to the mid-1980s. While there have been plenty of changes, some things remained remarkably consistent. Microsoft veteran Dave Pummer has pointed out one place where Windows hasn't changed in decades.
Plummer worked for Microsoft for about 10 years, starting in the early 90s. He spent those years developing Windows components we would consider essential even today, including the Task Manager, ZIP file support, and Space Cadet Pinball. Okay, the pinball game wasn't essential, but formatting disks certainly is. According to Plummer, the format tool in Windows 11 is still based on the one he designed in the 90s—a tool he didn't even expect to ship.
During Plummer's Microsoft tenure, the company was busy moving all its systems from the Windows 95 platform to Windows NT. Every Windows release of the last 20 years has been an evolution of the NT framework, and that has allowed for some interesting relics. According to Plummer, he was given a minor task in 1994 to port the Format tool from Windows 95 to NT. This was just one of countless features that needed to make the jump, but this one has been retained for three decades.
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Plummer says he built the Format tool in a single morning. He started by jotting down the functions Format would need, like file system, label, cluster size, and compression. He then opened Visual C++ 2.0 and went to work creating a simple vertical stack of those options. The result is the Format UI with which we are all familiar. Plummer notes he had to decide on a limit for FAT volumes. He chose 32GB somewhat arbitrarily, but that limit was carried forward along with the rest of the tool.
Plummer never expected to ship the version of Format he created that day—it was supposed to be a temporary solution until someone got around to rebuilding it. Still, this tool does what it needs to do, and Microsoft had much more pressing issues with Windows in those days. It began development of Windows Vista before XP was released in 2001, and the OS wasn't done until 2006. Plummer warns developers to be careful about using "temporary" solutions as you never know when one will survive basically unchanged for 30 years.
