Showstopper!
Showstopper! by G. Pascal Zacharyby G. Pascal Zachary
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 51 history books by recommenders
Readers call it an engaging, excellent account of building Windows NT, though it is light on technical detail and one copy had poor OCR text.
Readers call it an engaging, excellent account of building Windows NT, though it is light on technical detail and one copy had poor OCR text.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Entertaining, compelling account of NT
“"Showstopper" is the book that explains this time in Microsoft's history. An excellent read.”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “The little-known winstart.bat batch file” “I found Showstopper! even more compelling”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “The Soul of an Old Machine” “is an entertaining account of NT uprising”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux” Among the best tech project books
“Those two books are probably the two best about tech projects I've ever read.”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “The Soul of an Old Machine” “It’s an amazing accomplishment, and will probably convert you”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Our Commitment to Windows Quality”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Shallow on the technical side
“you might enjoy "Showstopper!" about the development of NT, even tough it is a bit shallow on the technical side”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Why Microsoft Entertainment Pack had a sticker announcing that it had Tetris?” Scan has OCR errors
“it seemed like it was a non-edited OCR'd scan of the original, plenty of words that should have been other similar words”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc”
Other history books people recommend
The four most recommended other history books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Dawn of Everythingby David Graeber and David Wengrow | 23 | 5 | 82% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Cadillac Desertby Marc Reisner | 18 | 0 | 100% | 11 | — | Approved |
| The Boxby Marc Levinson | 16 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Sapiensby Yuval Noah Harari | 13 | 9 | 59% | 8 | — | — |
| Showstopper!by G. Pascal ZacharyThis page | 12 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
9 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“you might enjoy "Showstopper!" about the development of NT, even tough it is a bit shallow on the technical side”
“"Showstopper" is the book that explains this time in Microsoft's history. An excellent read.”
“it seemed like it was a non-edited OCR'd scan of the original, plenty of words that should have been other similar words”
“It has been a while since I read a book on NT kernel”
“is an entertaining account of NT uprising”
“Those two books are probably the two best about tech projects I've ever read.”
“I found Showstopper! even more compelling”
“It’s an amazing accomplishment, and will probably convert you”
“I recommend two books, none of them is technical.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.