The network does not keep secrets: the source code of the original Xbox and that of Windows NT 3.5 appear leaked in full detail

Day of surprises for Microsoft and not exactly the good ones. And it is that the news of the leaking of the source code of two Microsoft products, two products launched at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the century, has come to light XXI. We're talking about the original Xbox and Windows NT 3.5.

The news concerns the Microsoft's first desktop console and Windows NT 3.5, one of the first pure 32-bit versions of its long saga of operating systems.Two products that have seen all the development code responsible for giving them life exposed.

Xbox without secrets

The news has been echoed by The Verge, where they state that the leak that has exposed the source code of Xbox and Windows NT 3.5 , took place at the beginning of the month. A leak that has prompted an investigation by Microsoft.

Regarding the Xbox, the leaked data includes the kernel of the operating system used by the console and even including the software used for the development kit of the machine. The Xbox used a customized version of Windows 2000 with DirectX 8 support and the leaked source code appears to be authentic.

Something not insignificant, since the kernel or kernel is the central part of an operating system, in charge of carrying out all secure communication between the software and hardware of the computer (motherboard, processor, memory, storage units, mouse, keyboard…)

The Windows kernel has always been completely closed and hermetic, quite the opposite of Linux, which is open source.

All kinds of tools designed to help developers have been leaked, the case of internal emulators used for testing games and documents and reports intended to make it easier to understand and work with new hardware.

The leaking of this data can be of great help for emulators to prosper, because although they already exist on the market, they have found enough problems to offer adequate performance. And it is that many of them have had problems to emulate the kernel and the original Xbox operating system.

Also Windows NT 3.5

And along with the Xbox source code, the Windows NT 3 source code has also been released.5 (NT was initially considered the acronym for "New Technology). This is the code for a version very close to the one that finally hit the market in 1994, a filtration that includes all necessary build tools.

The good news is that Microsoft ended support for Windows NT 3.5 in December 2001, so its release It's not a security issue unless you have one of the few computers still using this version of Windows.

This is not the first time something like this has happened, as part of the Windows 2000 development code has already been partially leaked and Windows NT 4 in 2004. Even Windows 10 fell victim to leaks when some of its code was posted online in 2017.