Whoa! Some rather fascinating news on the Windows and Xbox front, as apparently the source code of Windows NT 3.5 has leaked out in the open, alongside that of the Xbox.
The original Xbox gaming console, that is.
As spotted, the Xbox leak is about as authentic as it gets, with the codebase of the Xbox Development Kit, the kernel, emulators, as well as internal documents are doing the rounds. Apparently, this new leak had already been distributed among the enthusiastic community for some time.
You may be aware that the kernel of the original Xbox is based on Windows 2000, and it itself leaked all the way back in 2004.
If you’re into gaming, you may be familiar with Xbox emulators. These programs are already up and running, and this latest leak isn’t actually going to help in getting the kernel setup on these and have the Xbox operating system running on these emulators.
That is to say, this leak will not let you fire up your old Xbox games on newer hardware.
Same goes for the Windows NT 3.5 source code, which is for a near final build of that classic OS. And while you can go seek that and look through the source code to see how the operating system was built, this is just one in many other leaks for old and new versions of Windows.
Besides, Microsoft had already provided access to the source code of Windows NT to government, enterprises and universities to read and audit the codebase.
So, while this is mesmerizing stuff from a historical point of view, both these platforms are now vintage, and their source code leaks will not have any impact on the current Xbox One console or Windows 10.
