Here we go: http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-build-9888-shows-up-with-a-kernel-version-of-100

They choose "10" instead of "9" for the version due Windows 9x/Me version check calling convention, and now they change the Kernel version? :|

Didn't they learn anything from Windows Vista, where the kernel version string went from 5.2 (server 2003) to 6.0 and everything fails to install or runs even it it was technically compatible?

Hope this is just a joke, or only the string version of the build, not the Kernel instead -_-'

EDIT:

build-name tracking site https://buildfeed.net/

If the software breaks because of a version number change, the software is broken to begin with. If Microsoft are changing the version, it's likely because they made internal changes which may break backwards compatibility, in which case the bumped version number is warranted.

Surely version check failings are down to the developers of the software concerned. Anybody who checked for 5.x and failed to allow it to work on 6.0 is either stupid or deliberately did it to force users to buy a new version.

Yes, it's related to bad software development, but at the end the final users will affected. Most of issues probably could be resolved forcing compatibility mode (where the OS doesn't it automatically for you), but most of finally users, like 98% of Windows users, will complaint Microsoft about that.That's not a smart choice imo, especially if maintaining the the 6.4 version could solve that.

Yes, it's related to bad software development, but at the end the final users will affected. Most of issues probably could be resolved forcing compatibility mode (where the OS doesn't it automatically for you), but most of finally users, like 98% of Windows users, will complaint Microsoft about that.That's not a smart choice imo, especially if maintaining the the 6.4 version could solve that.

So you want a permanently meaningless/useless kernel version number just to deal with some bad software written in the 9x days that should've been fixed in the Vista transition anyway?

Microsoft gets tons of crap for maintaining terrible APIs and illogical rules just for backwards compatibility. They also get crap for breaking backwards compatibility. "Damned if they do; damned if they don't." Being a hugely popular software product is such a pain.

Yes, it's related to bad software development, but at the end the final users will affected. Most of issues probably could be resolved forcing compatibility mode (where the OS doesn't it automatically for you), but most of finally users, like 98% of Windows users, will complaint Microsoft about that.That's not a smart choice imo, especially if maintaining the the 6.4 version could solve that.

It's funny because Microsoft invests huge amounts of effort to maintain backwards compatibility, supporting 3rd party developer's dumb mistakes, but 99% of the time, people don't notice it. But the second something does break, everyone criticizes Microsoft for either (A) shoddy programming that fails to maintain backwards, or (B) maliciously trying to make users upgrade by ending compatibility.

The longer Microsoft is alive, the more stuff they have to support, so they eventually need to cut support for the oldest software. They can't cover every developer's deliberate abuse of undocumented features. Developers should obviously know the version number is going to be different on different versions of the OS - that's what the version number is for!

Users only notice when something breaks. Users don't notice the million times something doesn't break. Kinda like the CIA's motto: "Our successes are secret, our failures are known."

I know that Microsoft invest really a lot in backward compatibility with 3rd party software, especially bad written 3rd party software (and this is the reason why I use Microsoft OSs instead of Linux even when I do not play games), but first they change the OS name with the excuse of 3rd party software looking for 199x era strings, but now they are (maybe) changing the kernel version, jumping from 6.4 to 10.0, it looks like nonsense to me, it looks like more a fashion move then a smart change. This would probably cause issues, more then "omg, BSOD caused by avast after november 2014 update rollop".

I can still run a lot of software made back in the 90's, so I am glad to a point that MS at least tries to maintain backwards compatibility whilst moving forward at the same time.

( I am a bit tweaked off that Win64 has memory compatibility issues with Win32 and Win16 ) .

first they change the OS name with the excuse of 3rd party software looking for 199x era strings

I'm pretty sure that was never confirmed by MS to be a reason, just something 'some dude' wrote somewhere which is now treated as truth..

I'm willing to be proven wrong of course, but naming tends to be more about long term promotional/prv/advertising than 'dumb code' if only because they could probably catch 99% of that software doing the dumb thing and spoof the return to be Win7 or whatever if needs be.

first they change the OS name with the excuse of 3rd party software looking for 199x era strings

I'm pretty sure that was never confirmed by MS to be a reason, just something 'some dude' wrote somewhere which is now treated as truth..

I'm willing to be proven wrong of course, but naming tends to be more about long term promotional/prv/advertising than 'dumb code' if only because they could probably catch 99% of that software doing the dumb thing and spoof the return to be Win7 or whatever if needs be.

Indeed, they didn't officially confirm it.
But some dude claiming to work at Microsoft said that that was the technical reason. And a simple examination of public known source code proved him correct, there is a horrible amount of software doing bad practices. Who knows about propietary software.

Probably this is the case of someone raising the very real concern from the technical side (putting a '9' will bring us trouble!) and the marketing guys got the perfect excuse to bump the number to 10.