04.Secret History of Microsoft Bob

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?
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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.

For context, I’m one of the few developers that hates Computer Easter Eggs. I philosophically reject compromising user time, space, or reliability for my own vainglorious boasting, so I’ve never added one, and this is no exception - not a single byte of additional space, nor of computing power, nor of bandwidth, was ever due to the origin of the ballast. Nor was there any code that awaits anything - or any code at all, for that matter. I’m from the days the you knew how many cycles each instruction took, and when every byte was sacred. I would never do such a thing!

The ballast described was necessary to the technical solution already chosen, so a different origin (random data, the compressed works of Shakespeare, or whatever) would not have been any smaller or different. In other words, not a single byte more was consumed due to how the ballast was created. It was a doff ‘o the cap to a sentimental product done in a way that neither added to nor took away from Windows in any way.

To reiterate, not a single line of code was ever added to the product related to this, and not a single byte additional was consumed by the data. The only relation to the original Bob was in the seeding of the process that yielded the pseudorandom encrypted ballast data that we had to have anyway. That’s it.

Hope you enjoy the story! BTW, I’m nothing but proud of the work we did back then and this is one of a million stories from those days. If there’s an appetite for this kind of thing, please give it a like or let me know!

Please share the video with someone you know that would be interested! It's a narrow topic so I'm totally dependent on your shares!
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TLDR: Microsoft Bob was used to see 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!

[JonC]

Dude!! Thats crazy, great story though!!

[leeacton]

I was a developer on Bob and this is the first time I've heard this story. Thanks!

[danwillief]

I have a copy of Bob somewhere around here. I even have win95, and everything up to eleven. I use to attend all the tech shows in SF. I still have all the badges and even a couple of tee shirts around that were tossed out into the crowds. PCs were a hobby. I worked on sperry-univac, and like you PDP 8, 9, 11.and many other unix systems. I wrote my own diags most the time. My career started in USAF on the Q7 and IBM 360. Then later I did install 100's of Z80 desktops frontends for several IBM 360s. I have some 40 systems somewhere in this head of mine. At 73 much of that is sliding away. I enjoy your old videos like Bob. Thank You.

[ChrLOwens]

“Blob of bob” almost made me spit my drink out.

[James-rxeb]

"The older I get, the smarter I used to be"

[Tigrou]

We might have finally found a use for quantum computing : once it will be a thing, it could be used to decrypt Microsoft Bob data on Windows CDs.

[FerminSanchezOriginal]

"the older I get, the smarter I used to be"? Totally stealing this one, thanks!!

[meatpockets]

My copy of Windows 95 came with a unhidden clone of Microsoft Bob called Packard Bell Navigator. The best feature was the exit to Windows button.

[martynchalmers]

Dave: "Bob, execute order 66 upon the world"

[frojoe]

I have seriously fond memories of MS BOB. I spent HOURS playing around in it.
I had the Gateway 2000 version and man was it COOL!

[johnsmith]

"because at 5pm she was baking brownies and just couldn't talk after that."

🔥🔥🔥

[wisestein]

I am really loving these stories Dave. I too am from rural Canada and love programming, algorithms and just watching things compile. When I was a kid I also had way too much fun playing with Microsoft bob.

[CarltonDodd]

I thoroughly enjoyed that story and all of its sub-stories! Any time you want to record stories, I'll be happy to hear them. Thanks for sharing this one!

[MarkJeanmougin]

I worked retail when MS launched Bob to compete against the shell that Packard Bell shipped. We all got a little yellow Bob pin with the glasses we were required to wear for like 2 months. :)
What a fantastic story! Thanks for the share. Points for "blob of bob"

[dvohwinkel]

hmmmm.. baking brownies... 420... everything was funny... I think there is a hidden code :)

[petertrom]

Dave, I recently subscribed to your channel. I truly enjoy your stories of your days at Microsoft, and I've shared them all with my IT colleagues. I cannot tell you how fascinating it is to me to just listen to you. Thank you!

[singletona]

The fact you are one of the peogenetors of modern windows, or at least a few of the things that spring to mind when talking about windows, and are sharing your history with the world while you can is gratifying.

[Chaosonic]

I loved Bob as a kid. I spent so many 100's of hours "playing" it. To me, it was a fun organizational game.

[BobFrTube]

;)

I watched MS Bob from when it was a cute prototype. From my perspective, the failure was due to it's been far too controlling and not allowing the normal freedom one had interacting with applications. A longer conversation if you're interested. Your stories bring back memories ...

[shaihulud]

I played around on Bob so much as a kid. I thought it was so cool to decorate all the rooms and I would pretend to have official banking and household stuff to do.

That’s the coolest t-shirt ever.