Windows supported Unicode in 1993 (NT 3.1) and 1995 (Win95) via UCS-2, a fixed-width 16-bit encoding. In 1996, it was realized 16-bit wasn't enough, and was ex

Windows supported Unicode in 1993 (NT 3.1) and 1995 (Win95) via UCS-2, a fixed-width 16-bit encoding. In 1996, it was realized 16-bit wasn't enough, and was expanded in Unicode 2.0, which also included UTF-16, a variable-width encoding, which required the BOM. Windows 2000 supported UTF-16 on release. Why didn't Windows 2000 support UTF-8, which was invented in 1992 and implemented in Plan9 in that same year? Who can say...