The old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) may be taking that to an unexpected extreme as it revealed that Windows 11 is actually still running on code that was originally written back in the 1990s. Though when you look at just what code is involved, it actually makes a certain amount of sense. Investors were still less than pleased, though, and sent Microsoft shares down fractionally in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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It might sound like an incredibly risky move to use 30-plus-year-old code in modern-day projects. However, some of the code is actually so fundamental that it has simply been in use for that long. For example, Windows 11 still uses the Win32 API from Windows 95 to handle functions like right-clicking. That really has not changed since the mid-90s, so continuing to use that code is not so outlandish.
Interestingly, Microsoft never expected that the code it had written back then would continue to be useful and relevant for this long. Microsoft’s chief technology officer of Microsoft Azure Mark Russinovich noted, “I think one of the reasons it’s got this staying power is just a fundamental layer inside of Windows that so many apps have built on—so many technologies and ecosystems have been built on top of—that it’s kind of bedrock.”
New Xbox Dashboard Suggests Changes Afoot
Then, Microsoft rolled out its new dashboard mockup for Xbox, which suggested substantial new changes coming. We already knew some changes were likely to come, based on everything we had heard about the new Xbox so far. But the new dashboard helps solidify which of these changes are actually happening.
The profile icon has been moved to the upper right of the screen in this new version, and the five central icons have also had their positions switched. The “browse the store” button has been pulled as well. The PC version, meanwhile, has received multiple new sections, as well as game tiles that look a lot like the Microsoft Store for Windows does now, reports note.
Is Microsoft a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 33 Buys and two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 4.09% loss in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $559.98 per share implies 34.22% upside potential.
