10 ms·
Microsoft Bob – Was Bob Hidden in Windows?
- guiambros 6y agoPretty fascinating story. Dave is one of my favorite YouTube channels (albeit pretty niche). From his video description: "Retired Microsoft developer 'davepl' reveals little-known secrets about Microsoft Bob, a Microsoft replacement desktop shell that shipped in 1995, including the legend that that a copy of Bob was secretly included within every copy of Windows: was secret software hidden on the Windows CD? 2020 is the 25th Anniversary of Microsoft Bob and this is the first I’ve ever spoken of this, inside or outside the Company, with the exception of letting one other Windows developer in on it way back. I’m the former ‘davepl’ at Microsoft and you might know me from such software applications as “Windows Task Manager” and “Windows ZIP Folders” and the WindowsNT port of “Space Cadet Pinball”, “Windows Product Activation”, the NT “Media Center”, and misc stuff as far back as MS-DOS. --- TLDR: Microsoft Bob was used to seed the pseudorandom encrypted digital ballast used to fill some of the unused space on the CDs for copy protection purposes. Credit due to Microsoft employee Raymond Chen for discussing this publicly on his blog and in a Scott Hanselman podcast as far back as 2007!"