Windows Codename Indianapolis

Windows Codename Indianapolis was the longest lasting OS development process in Microsoft history. It began with Build 448 on June 14, 1994.

History
On June 7, 1994...the Chicago team was split into two separate teams, called Chicago and Indianapolis...on June 8, 1994...development of codename Indianapolis began off of the codebase of codename Chicago (or Windows 95)...by June 14, Build 448 was complied, it still refers to itself as Chicago build 122, as that is the build it was based off of, but some files call it Build 448...its true build number is unknown...although it is widely accepted that the build number was 448, in August 1994...the project was reset after Build 487...and the OS was built from the ground up...Build 493 was finally complied on October 3, 1994...after 2 months of quiet from the Indianapolis development team...It was slated for release in 1996 or 1997...however the code got corrupted on November 7, 1994...so development was temporarily halted until January 15, 1995 with Build 507, Build 519 resulted in a total redesign of the OS...including the fact that it was now no longer called "Windows Codename Indianapolis" but simply "Project Indianapolis"...on April 19, 1995...Project Indianapolis was announced by Microsoft...it was announced that it would not be a part of the Windows brand, on April 27, 1995...Build 543 was complied, something alot like Windows Vista's sidebar was added in this build...on May 24, 1995...Project Indianapolis finally received a final name, "Indianapolis"...on June 7, 1995...Build 558 was complied, it was the first Indianapolis build to call itself Indianapolis...however debate resulted in it returning back to "Project Indianapolis" on July 2, 1995...a public preview of Project Indianapolis was made available on exclusive copies of Windows 95 on launch day only...however, after that...development on Project Indianapolis went silent...until October 3, 1997...when MSDN users received Build 687, apparently...many builds were complied between August 24 of 1995 and October 3 of 1997...but none of them were publicly talked about, and were denied to exist until recently...when they were finally leaked, on October 27, 1997...Private Build 703 was complied, but was the last build before they restarted with Build 558...but with minor changes, it was also called Private Build 712...on November 5, 1997...it was announced that the original December 1997 release date had been postponed to January 1999, due to a development reset...on November 10, the first public build since the reset was made available, also known as MSDN Build 718...however the dev team went quiet again until June 14, 1998...only 11 days before Windows 98 was released...MSDN Build 746 was complied on June 24, 1998 only 3 and a half hours before Windows 98's release...the Project Indianapolis team yet again announced that the January 1999 release date was postponed until October 1999 for more bug fixing time. Many consumers started to think that the project was canceled, however...on July 14, 1998...the first public test was released to Microsoft Mail users, however...many found the OS unbootable...resulting in the release date YET AGAIN being postponed from October 1999 to February 2000 on July 19, 1998...however, on July 24, 1998...another public test was made, and it seemed perfectly usable...Project Indianapolis finally was seeing the end of its development...or so it thought, on October 31, 1998...MSDN build 1002 was complied, it was the final build before a FINAL reset...on November 13, 1998, it was announced that Indianapolis had yet again been postponed from February 2000 to May 2000 due to a development reset, Build 1017 had files relating to Neptune within it, and even had multiple files that said Odyssey, it was confirmed on January 3, 1999...that the upcoming Windows 2000 operating system used heavy amounts of Indianapolis' code...finally, on January 27, 1999...Project Indianapolis entered Release Candidate 1 stages, where it would stay until October 1999...a release date was confirmed on August 3, 1999...the release was October 1, 2000...only 16 days after Windows ME would be released...the shortest period between 2 home versions of Windows releasing, RC2 stages started on October 19, 1999 and ended on August 1, 2000...it was released to manufacturers on August 15, 2000 and to the public only 6 weeks and 5 days later under the name "Microsoft Indianapolis", Indianapolis was a major part in Windows XP's development...as after the Indianapolis team was split on August 1, most of them moved on to work on Blackcomb (Windows 7), Longhorn (Windows Vista) and Whistler (Windows XP). It was one of the few projects at Microsoft that began in the 20th century and ended in the early 21st century.