I don't think it is fair to call it a "failed" alpha port. AFAIK WinNT was developed on multiple CPU architectures from the get go to ensure they didn't take an

I don't think it is fair to call it a "failed" alpha port. AFAIK WinNT was developed on multiple CPU architectures from the get go to ensure they didn't take any dependencies on one architecture. Alpha was one of those architectures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_3.1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_3.1 (also courtesy of the fact that Dave Cutler and a whole bunch of other guys from DEC were hired by MS to build NT) and continued to be supported for a while. I think Alpha's lack of success in the marketplace eventually killed NT's support for it.