Windows Night

Windows Night is the original never-released NT 6.0 version, that was known as such before the development reset: after it was known as Windows Vista.

Build 3551
Milestone 1 build, August 2001, from mid-2001. Looks identical to Windows Whistler XP Beta 3 except for some changes in the winver.
 * Windows Whistler Theme
 * Windows Aquacolor Theme
 * Windows Whistler XP Theme
 * Lunar Theme

Build 3663
Milestone 2 build, July 31 2002

2002.

Build 3670
Milestone 2 build, August 28 2002.
 * Windows Longhorn Theme
 * BsOD Detector Support
 * Redesigned Notifications

Build 3683
Milestone 3 build, September 15 2002, this build features Desktop Window Manager and Plex interface theming, but the rest also looked like XP like M1/2.
 * Plex Theme
 * Lunar Theme

Build 3706
October 24 2002, features better working DWM.

Build 3713
Build 3713 (build date of November 14, 2002) was leaked on April 26, 2011. This introduces the new style taskbar, a taskbar that is thinner than the one in builds 3683 and 3706. Additionally, Sidebar is now enabled by default. This build also has Tablet PC components and Media Center Edition components.

Build 3718
November 14 2002.

Build 4000
Longhorn Under Construction, Revision 1, December 1, 2002.

Build 4001
Build 4001 (build date December 4, 2002) was the first to introduce the new WIM install style that is still in Windows to this day - a new, simplified Windows Image-based installer that operates in graphical mode from the outset, and completed an install of the operating system in approximately one third the time of Windows XP on the same hardware. It did not leak for nearly 10 years after its compile date.

Build 4002
Build 4002 (build date January 8, 2003) was a build that leaked 17+ years after its compilation. It featured a new wallpaper for the new milestone and 60 fps Desktop Composition Engine.

Build 4005
Build 4005 (build date January 28, 2003) was an interesting build due to its new design for the image-based installer and the new branding (that interestingly said 1985-2006.)

Build 4008
Milestone 4 build, January 31 2003.
 * Red Screen of Death
 * Black Screen of Death
 * Antivirus, Crash, Bug and Virus Fixes
 * New Blue Screen of Death
 * Barney Error Detector Support
 * USB and Bluetooth Support
 * Emoji support
 * Windows XP Theme
 * Dark Mode
 * Darker Mode
 * Even Dark Mode
 * Darkest Mode

Build 4015
Milestone 5 build, April 1 2003.
 * Microsoft Assistant Windows Mascot Support
 * Background Settings
 * Redesigned Settings
 * Microsoft Speech and Microsoft TTS Voice Recognition.

Build 4029
May 29 2003.


 * Redesigned Taksbar Mannager
 * Keyboard Background
 * Laptop and Computer Mouse Control Manager.
 * 3D and 2D Paint Support.
 * 3D Theme.
 * New login screen.
 * Improved perfomance
 * Added support for animated GIF wallpapers.
 * Multiple user accounts and user switching.
 * DVD-ROM and VHS-ROM Digital support.
 * Improved PDC build and DMOS-Expires support.

Build 4033
Milestone 6 build, June 30 2003.
 * Blu-Ray Disk support.
 * Phone Store support.

Build 4039
August 2 2003.

Build 4042
Milestone 7 build, September 8 2003. First build to include Slate UI.
 * Including Slate UI.
 * Slate UI Support.

Build 4051
October 1 2003, PDC demo build.

Build 4074
Milestone 8, April 2 2004. Shown at WinHEC, has feature complete file system/DWM/Aero, more or less, but may require workarounds for it to work in emulation software.

Build 4083
June 2 2004.

Build 4093
Milestone 9 (the only build), last one before reset in 2004.

"Omega-13" development phase
Internal builds over several months gradually integrated a lot of the fundamental work that had been done over the previous three years, but with much stricter rules about what code could be brought into the main builds. Builds in this period of time were described variously as Longhorn "Omega-13", from the very first build, 5000, to the last build, 5098.

Build 5000 (several builds were compiled, from August 3, 2004, to September 2, 2004) were leaked on January 26, 2020, alongside build 5001. The version from August 3, 2004 is the first ever build to use the new codebase of Windows Server 2003 SP1 beta/RC, which would be used in all post-reset builds. This codebase change can still be seen to this day, as Halo 2 for Windows Vista works on Server 2003 due to Server 2003 having code for Vista. These builds did not contain anything different than XP or a client compile of Server 2003 (but were based off of Server 2003), with the only change being Windows 'lh' branding (that excludes the Home Edition of the earliest version of build 5000, which used XP branding)

Build 3790.1232 (build date of August 19, 2004) was compiled shortly after 4093, marking the main lab's transition into the post-reset phase. This was their first post-reset build, being so similar to Server 2003 the theming service may sometimes be disabled after installation. It originally leaked in a Professional edition on August 14, 2011, with the Home Edition leaking on January 25, 2020.

Build 5001 (build date of September 27, 2004) was well known. It features Windows Media Player 10, some small changes and a modified Bliss wallpaper with a bull. Due to the wallpaper and the very quickly edited 'lh' branding as in 5000, this build was dismissed as fake for a long time and a dispute about its existence began. The dispute was resolved when it leaked legitimately on January 26, 2020.

Build 5048 (built on April 1, 2005) was the official WinHEC 2005 preview build, described as the Longhorn Developer Preview, and made available to WinHEC attendees on April 24, 2005. It was the only build from this time period that was made available by Microsoft; it was not officially distributed outside of WinHEC, but the build quickly appeared on file sharing networks. The Aero visual style made its first appearance in this build, and the Desktop Window Manager was present but disabled and hidden by default. At the keynote presentation, Bill Gates also announced that many of the WinFX developer APIs that were originally planned exclusively for Longhorn were going to be backported to Windows XP and Server 2003, and that the final user interface for Longhorn would not be seen for a while longer. Other features such as device-independent resolutions, rasterized icons, virtual folders, and registry virtualization were discussed as well.

Build 5048's closer resemblance to Windows XP than to the prior Longhorn builds from 2003 and 2004 surprised many, leading well-known Windows enthusiast Paul Thurrott to write: "My thoughts are not positive, not positive at all. This is a painful build to have to deal with after a year of waiting, a step back in some ways. I hope Microsoft has surprises up their sleeves. This has the makings of a train wreck."[18]  Months later, Thurrott stated that the Vista development process has since recovered in the more recent builds.

Build 5060 (build date of April 17, 2005) featured no major difference to build 5048, except it had a new style logon screen that would be used in Beta 1. The desktop wallpaper was changed. This build, along with builds 5054, 5058, 5059 (vbl_ux_dev_checkin) were all shown at WinHEC 2005.

Build 5087 (build date of June 16, 2005) featured the new Internet Explorer 7 beta, RSS feed support, and a dynamic screensaver. It was shown off at Gnomedex 2005. It remains unleaked, along with builds from WinHEC 2005 (except 5048).

Build 5098 (build date of June 28, 2005) marked the end of Omega-13. This was the final build of that milestone, that leaked on January 27, 2020. It featured the new Beta 1 wallpaper seen in builds 5059 and 5087. It also features a working Aero and removed the Luna theme.

released:2004

end of life:2017