With the beta leaked and Elecbyte gone, a 'no limit' hack that removed most of these limitations was made available in 2004 by Rou Hei, followed by subsequent updates to deal with bugs and other issues. The private WinM.U.G.E.N beta contained a two-character roster limit, locked game modes, and nag screens. Speculation has since pointed at leaks made public of a private Windows-based M.U.G.E.N beta that was provided to donators. The development group discontinued this project in 2003 and shut down their site. For a time, Elecbyte had a running request for donations on their site to legally obtain a Windows compiler so they could make a Windows version of M.U.G.E.N. Development of the DOS version ceased when Elecbyte switched to the Linux platform in November 2001. First released on the 17th of July 1999, M.U.G.E.N was initially created for MS-DOS.
