Oldest GUI app still running on Windows 11
The gist
A blogger found a CD player binary linked in 1992 still runs on Windows 11 unchanged.
The find marks the earliest official Windows binary that runs on today's PCs.
How it unfolded
- Nov 15, 1985REVERSI.EXE dated 15-Nov-1985, taken from Windows 1.01, runs fully playable on Windows 11 using otvdm, a WINE-based virtual DOS machine.
- Nov 16, 1992CDPLAYER.EXE from Windows NT 3.1 Build 347, linked on 16-Nov-1992, runs on Windows 11 via the still-shipped crtdll.dll, with a small DLL (cdemu.dll) emulating a CD-ROM drive to play audio.
- Feb 22, 1993FREECELL.EXE with a date modified of 22-Feb-93, an early Win32s release version, runs and is fully playable on the latest Windows 11 without changes.