Developer Rebuilds Microsoft Word 1.1a as Native x64 App for Windows 11

Overview

• A public GitHub repository by developer Justin Marshall provides source and build instructions for a native x64 port of Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1a that runs on Windows 10 and 11.
• The project rebuilds the original 16‑bit source with modern replacements for 16‑bit assembly, segmented memory, and Win16 APIs rather than using emulation.
• There are no prebuilt binaries, so users must compile the code locally using Visual Studio 2022, a Windows 10/11 SDK, CMake 3.25 or newer, and PowerShell, which limits use to developers and hobbyists.
• Marshall and coverage report an extremely small runtime footprint — under about 1MB of RAM on Windows 11 — but that measurement comes from the project notes and has not been widely benchmarked.
• The work builds on the 2014 public release of Word 1.1a source from the Computer History Museum and is framed as a preservation effort that also highlights how lean early software was compared with modern editors.