Yes, Windows 8 is actually Windows 6.2, versioning-wise. As I’m sure you remember, Windows 7 is Windows 6.1, and Windows Vista was Windows 6.0.
Don’t be surprised if Microsoft ends up making the successor of Windows 8, Windows 6.3, because most likely, this is the plan.
The Windows OS version increment can be a source of incompatibilities with existing applications, especially if they’re designed to check for upper bound OS version.
Microsoft is simply doing away with some potential compatibility issues by keeping versioning changes as small as possible.
Remember how well Vista apps ran on Windows 7? Well, the promise from Microsoft is that Windows 7 applications will play just as nice on Windows 8.
