The port of the Windows 95 Start Menu was not all it seemed(theregister.com)
theregister.com
The port of the Windows 95 Start Menu was not all it seemed
https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/29/windows_start_menu_port/
55 comments
He addresses this in the pinned comment:
> UPDATE: This only shipped in the NTSUR release, as far as I can now tell. I've confirmed with team members that I'm not crazy, I did write and we did ship the code I describe in this episode, but it was ultimately replaced circa NT4 with bitmaps!
I don't know what's true, but it seems odd to not mention that.
> UPDATE: This only shipped in the NTSUR release, as far as I can now tell. I've confirmed with team members that I'm not crazy, I did write and we did ship the code I describe in this episode, but it was ultimately replaced circa NT4 with bitmaps!
I don't know what's true, but it seems odd to not mention that.
Not sure what release he's referring to (NTSUR isn't the name of a release). But I find it interesting he decides to only do his homework after the video/discussion.
I think that's referring to the NT "Shell Update Release" which was an early beta of the Windows 95-style start menu that you could install on Windows NT 3.51.
[deleted]
You do realize that in corporations such as Microsoft, multiple people work on the same code, and code gets rewritten all the time, right?
Dave Plummer cannot know about any changes after he left the company.
You seem to be not aware of that.
Also I don't know about you, but I don't know shit about the code I wrote two weeks ago. How do you expect someone to remember all details about code he wrote more than 25 years ago?
Dave Plummer cannot know about any changes after he left the company.
You seem to be not aware of that.
Also I don't know about you, but I don't know shit about the code I wrote two weeks ago. How do you expect someone to remember all details about code he wrote more than 25 years ago?
Am very aware how Microsoft works, been involved with them my entire life, wrote a few books, etc! I agree with you though. That's why I don't record YouTube videos asserting what happened 25 years ago.
Yet you still decided to accuse somebody of malicious intent and of being a scammer.
That's not how a wise person should act online.
(that you seem to imply to be by using your published books as an argument, as if that would validate any accusatory statements)
That's not how a wise person should act online.
(that you seem to imply to be by using your published books as an argument, as if that would validate any accusatory statements)
> Yet you still decided to accuse somebody of malicious intent and of being a scammer.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1GeF9AjlqP8
He is a scammer and was convicted for it.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1GeF9AjlqP8
He is a scammer and was convicted for it.
> He is a scammer and was convicted for it.
A settlement is not a conviction.
A settlement is not a conviction.
> By agreeing to the settlement, [...] David W. Plummer, of Redmond, admit multiple violations of the state Consumer Protection Act. [...]
Have any non-youtube links?
haters gonna hate...
This claim was so easy to verify with a Windows NT 4 ISO and a resource editor, but nobody did. And nobody thought the bitmap has much better font rendering than NT 4.
Dave retired from Microsoft and started a business that sold scareware: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1GeF9AjlqP8
Dave retired from Microsoft and started a business that sold scareware: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1GeF9AjlqP8
Not sure why it's related what he did after leaving Microsoft but okay, the article clearly states that he said the were using it internally at least and doesn't know why the programmatic sideways text was taken out but that everything else he touched on was right. It seems you have an opinion on Dave and that's fine but unrelated to the article here.
It's related because that past suggests a history of being untrustworthy. I mean we're talking about running a company that literally stole money from people and intentionally infected peoples computers to try to trick them into giving you more money, not just something he did by accident one weekend but something he dedicated years of his life to. Him leaning heavily on how he worked at a company two decades ago doesn't help. Other than the scam company shut down by washington state, what has he done since?
As for the particular claim regarding the start menu, What he actually claimed is that his implementation was removed in production builds. However, at the same time, there's no evidence of it in any of the various Beta and release candidate versions of NT4. Not only that, but prior to the NT4 betas, it was effectively the NT 3.51 "Desktop Shell Update" and none of the releases of that have his claimed implementation. So when and where is it?
He states "I wrote the programmatic version in '94 and we ran it internally". The issue is that there really was no "NT4 beta" at that point in time, nor any start menu in NT to add his rotated text code to. It was only around the start of 1994 that what would be known as the Taskbar and Start Menu really appeared in Chicago milestones- we know he isn't referring to those, since 9x didn't support the needed LOGFONT structures. What would become the start menu on Windows NT only appeared with the "Newshell" project which was preview software that you installed on NT 3.51 to add the Windows 95 enhanced shell. originally a desktop update for Windows NT 3.51 which started around the time of 95's release in, well, 1995. There's no evidence of his special code there- in fact the NT 3.51 Desktop Shell Update previews all used a bitmap.
And you might think, ahh, hew must mean before that, but the rotation feature in question, I believe, was new to NT4 altogether- so it would presumably have appeared somewhere during the betas.
The problem with his claims seems to be that evidence never seems particular forthcoming. When new information comes out he retracts claims and re-titles videos in order to move his claim into "gaps" where his claims are less falsifiable.
As for the particular claim regarding the start menu, What he actually claimed is that his implementation was removed in production builds. However, at the same time, there's no evidence of it in any of the various Beta and release candidate versions of NT4. Not only that, but prior to the NT4 betas, it was effectively the NT 3.51 "Desktop Shell Update" and none of the releases of that have his claimed implementation. So when and where is it?
He states "I wrote the programmatic version in '94 and we ran it internally". The issue is that there really was no "NT4 beta" at that point in time, nor any start menu in NT to add his rotated text code to. It was only around the start of 1994 that what would be known as the Taskbar and Start Menu really appeared in Chicago milestones- we know he isn't referring to those, since 9x didn't support the needed LOGFONT structures. What would become the start menu on Windows NT only appeared with the "Newshell" project which was preview software that you installed on NT 3.51 to add the Windows 95 enhanced shell. originally a desktop update for Windows NT 3.51 which started around the time of 95's release in, well, 1995. There's no evidence of his special code there- in fact the NT 3.51 Desktop Shell Update previews all used a bitmap.
And you might think, ahh, hew must mean before that, but the rotation feature in question, I believe, was new to NT4 altogether- so it would presumably have appeared somewhere during the betas.
The problem with his claims seems to be that evidence never seems particular forthcoming. When new information comes out he retracts claims and re-titles videos in order to move his claim into "gaps" where his claims are less falsifiable.
You seem to be of the opinion that people cannot learn from mistakes and cannot change and should not be given second (third? fourth?) chances to rehabilitate themselves and recover from bad decisions or habits?
"In 2006, Plummer's SoftwareOnline.com company was sued by The Washington State Attorney General’s Office for alleged violations of the Consumer Protection Act after complaints were made about two products called Registry Cleaner and InternetShield"
People at this site are notoriously anti-Windows. We love to talk about dark patterns. Those products were total bullshit built to scare people, leveraging knowledge of Windows internals garnered as a junior programmer who ported code that drew fonts and lines on the screen. And now he's overstating even that.
People at this site are notoriously anti-Windows. We love to talk about dark patterns. Those products were total bullshit built to scare people, leveraging knowledge of Windows internals garnered as a junior programmer who ported code that drew fonts and lines on the screen. And now he's overstating even that.
So those people were the forefathers of modern computing.
(Android: "If you don't install updates, you will lose the right to make legal claims." "For your security, turn on Play protect to check apps outside of Play Store")
I’ve seen a couple videos of Dave Plummer and they were fun. Gave some insight to internals of Windows etc. I even followed him on YT back then.
But lately it feels like I see him all the time and there is something off with the guy. Can’t name what it is. Feels like he’s trying to milk whatever fame he got around the nerd circles as much as possible.
But lately it feels like I see him all the time and there is something off with the guy. Can’t name what it is. Feels like he’s trying to milk whatever fame he got around the nerd circles as much as possible.
Probably trying to bury bad SEO.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1GeF9AjlqP8
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1GeF9AjlqP8
Every time I see his videos I think “haven’t you already made a video on this exact topic already”?
Like, how many times can you make the “I made Task Manager” video, we got the idea the first time round..
He's got autism, which he has discussed openly on camera and I think wrote about in his book.
I don't think that's what OP was talking about.
For the first year or so of his rise Dave finished each videos by "I'm only in this for the subs and likes" and had monetization turned off.
Now he ends with "I'm mostly in it for the subs and likes" and has monetization turned on.
He's also removed his claim that all profits from his book and channel go to autism research.
Nothing wrong with making money from your work but it does show a change of focus.
For the first year or so of his rise Dave finished each videos by "I'm only in this for the subs and likes" and had monetization turned off.
Now he ends with "I'm mostly in it for the subs and likes" and has monetization turned on.
He's also removed his claim that all profits from his book and channel go to autism research.
Nothing wrong with making money from your work but it does show a change of focus.
Orthogonal : I have to say I really dislike the cookie permissions dialog El Reg now use.
The first page is shows you with the "reject all" is only for the page of options you're on to start with - the "legitimate uses" page has a ton of stuff opted-in by default, and to turn those off, you have to click on every company, one by one.
Also, once you've hit "reject all", I can find no way to get that permissions dialog back again.
It's a deliberate UI approach to trick you into accepting a ton of cookies without knowing you've done so.
The first page is shows you with the "reject all" is only for the page of options you're on to start with - the "legitimate uses" page has a ton of stuff opted-in by default, and to turn those off, you have to click on every company, one by one.
Also, once you've hit "reject all", I can find no way to get that permissions dialog back again.
It's a deliberate UI approach to trick you into accepting a ton of cookies without knowing you've done so.
Wouldn't removing all cookies and local storage force the dialog back?
Also, if the site needs consent to collect data, hiding the dialog with adblocker is preferable to clicking anything, no?
WinNT task manager is not the same as Win9x. I doubt it was "ported".
In Win9x calling the task manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL) instantly stopped all tasks except the Task Manager itself, and the Task Manager was always in memory. Most mis-behaving apps could be closed that way. Only a system that was frozen on I/O would not respond to CTRL-ALT-DEL with the Task Manager, and open a blue screen instead (the "system is busy: press any key to wait or CTRL-ALT-DEL again to reboot" BSOD).
In WinNT, pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL didn't do sh|t. All apps kept running. The Task Manager was loaded from disk (when the system found the time) and run in parallel with the other apps. On a busy system, especially if it was out of memory and doing disk thrashing, or some video/media was stuck with 100% CPU on high priority, there was no chance of recovering it with the Task Manager.
In Win9x calling the task manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL) instantly stopped all tasks except the Task Manager itself, and the Task Manager was always in memory. Most mis-behaving apps could be closed that way. Only a system that was frozen on I/O would not respond to CTRL-ALT-DEL with the Task Manager, and open a blue screen instead (the "system is busy: press any key to wait or CTRL-ALT-DEL again to reboot" BSOD).
In WinNT, pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL didn't do sh|t. All apps kept running. The Task Manager was loaded from disk (when the system found the time) and run in parallel with the other apps. On a busy system, especially if it was out of memory and doing disk thrashing, or some video/media was stuck with 100% CPU on high priority, there was no chance of recovering it with the Task Manager.
Do you see any feasible way of re-fitting a modern OS with similar capability? It would likely require a lot of vertical integration between the kernel, display server, task manager, etc
Unfortunately, no.
I belive it is first a conflict of policy: the USER needs to have more privileges than SYSTEM in order to suspend execution of all (including system's) processes. WinNT is a multi-user OS. Nobody would allow the user to DDoS the system, even when that user has direct access to the reset button.
A second problem is that WinNT probably can't even open the Task Manager if some system processes are suspended (csrss?, lsass?).
It probably works in Linux console. Sysvinit has two keyboard signals (CTRL-ALT-DEL and CTRL-UP, I think), that can run any command, exec'd directly by init with root privileges, and both are configurable in inittab. It also has the SysRq.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key
I belive it is first a conflict of policy: the USER needs to have more privileges than SYSTEM in order to suspend execution of all (including system's) processes. WinNT is a multi-user OS. Nobody would allow the user to DDoS the system, even when that user has direct access to the reset button.
A second problem is that WinNT probably can't even open the Task Manager if some system processes are suspended (csrss?, lsass?).
It probably works in Linux console. Sysvinit has two keyboard signals (CTRL-ALT-DEL and CTRL-UP, I think), that can run any command, exec'd directly by init with root privileges, and both are configurable in inittab. It also has the SysRq.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key
I miss the magic SysRq key... Xorg / graphical systems blocked it decades ago, I've forgotten how to invoke it without looking it up, though I do remember REISUB.
The security perspective of the SysRq commands is: a human is on a hard-wired console. If they want they can pull the power or press buttons on the outside of the PC that aren't on the keyboard. It's probably OK to obey some small list of actions that are useful when the rest of the system might be unresponsive.
The security perspective of the SysRq commands is: a human is on a hard-wired console. If they want they can pull the power or press buttons on the outside of the PC that aren't on the keyboard. It's probably OK to obey some small list of actions that are useful when the rest of the system might be unresponsive.
Yep that's my line of thinking, if you have physical access it's game over for security anyway (evil maid etc). Whether the kernel recognizes SysRq or CAD or whatever else is a matter of a patch, X11 or Wayland can't intercept (that's the entire point of having a very very low level kernel routine for that).
The funky part would be the user space integration, the kernel would probably have to selectively resume a couple key processes or take over the display with its own/embedded one. Sounds like too brittle and/or extra bloat.
I never thought I'd consider Windows 95 technically superior in some area, but holy hell that system ran in 4mb of memory and did one (even if only one) thing right.
The funky part would be the user space integration, the kernel would probably have to selectively resume a couple key processes or take over the display with its own/embedded one. Sounds like too brittle and/or extra bloat.
I never thought I'd consider Windows 95 technically superior in some area, but holy hell that system ran in 4mb of memory and did one (even if only one) thing right.
Reboot gives you disk access. Access to the running system additionally gives you memory access. There may be something in memory you want to keep safe, like encryption keys and other credentials. Evil maid means you had to kill everything that was running, which may in itself signal that something is off.
Stealing my iPhone and replacing it with another is not the same as having access to my data on it.
Stealing my iPhone and replacing it with another is not the same as having access to my data on it.
It ran like shit in 4MB—I remember telling the IT boss that we’ll need 8MB on every W95 machine, unless we want to wait 5 seconds to open a menu or run only one app at a time. Still 8 is impressive for the functionality.
Yeah my own Win95 machine had 32MB and ran super happy. The 4MB machine was frankensteined from very random parts for a friend who fried the PSU on their 8MB - the difference between all 3 setups was crazy, I think at 4MB you had to use a 16-color palette? At 640x480x8bpp video memory alone should eat 300KB (I don't think there was double-buffering?)
I sometimes wonder, what would be the "smallest" machine you could feasibly DIY/build today, that would still allow you to be somewhat productive (e.g. write code, very basic web browsing, SSH, etc). I recently spent a week with a PowerBook G4 (2002) and it's very usable (save for the fan noise). There's probably a lot to explore with modern MCUs.
I sometimes wonder, what would be the "smallest" machine you could feasibly DIY/build today, that would still allow you to be somewhat productive (e.g. write code, very basic web browsing, SSH, etc). I recently spent a week with a PowerBook G4 (2002) and it's very usable (save for the fan noise). There's probably a lot to explore with modern MCUs.
Video memory is on the graphics card. Screen image is (was) built directly in the framebuffer. Double buffering wasn't a thing in those days. Memory was too expensive. I had a Trident 9440 PCI. It barely had BitBlt acceleration.
If I had to bet the reasons why would be that the 9x kernel was extremely frail and if you want to have any chance of Task Manager actually running it had to run from the start
That can't be the reason. If the kernel crashes (or a driver, 'cause it's all the same in Win9x), then there's an instant BSOD, so there won't be any Task Manager, even if it's already loaded in memory.
I belive that's the way thing were done in those days. In Win95 the Start Menu was also in memory, with the entire menu tree, progam names, icons, and everything. It would open instantly. In Win98 they changed that. It would read the .lnk files form disk (or cache) every time it openend. But it added drag&drop editing! And IE integration. And Active Desktop. And web content in Explorer folders.
I belive that's the way thing were done in those days. In Win95 the Start Menu was also in memory, with the entire menu tree, progam names, icons, and everything. It would open instantly. In Win98 they changed that. It would read the .lnk files form disk (or cache) every time it openend. But it added drag&drop editing! And IE integration. And Active Desktop. And web content in Explorer folders.
Chicago onwards was glorified Windows 3.0 386 enhanced mode, Cougar. The fundamental problems Win 9x has is it was buggier and didn't have the isolation assurances NT had. The main things Win 9x solved were the resource leaks of Win 3x and gradually increased relative stability. Whistler/Asteroid were the ways forward based on NT. (Pour one out for Neptune/Odyssey.)
Buggier than WinNT?! I remember WinNT4 having 7 service packs, and after the latest SP, something like 50 more patches only for the RPC, and in the end they recommended switching to Win2K because it couldn't be fixed without breaking compatibility. I'm sorry I can't give any links - they deleted everything.
You probably remember the BSODs due to buggy drivers.
One could argue that an OS for PC (Win9x) doesn't need any isolation. There's only one user (personal in "PC").
You probably remember the BSODs due to buggy drivers.
One could argue that an OS for PC (Win9x) doesn't need any isolation. There's only one user (personal in "PC").
Taskinfo was running fine on Win9x
While he gave a nod to the Windows 95 design team for the iconic interface element, he explained how he'd worked out a way of avoiding a library of localized bitmaps by figuring out how to display sideways text.
In an email to The Register, Plummer told us: "Long story short, in the production builds, I've learned they went with bitmaps rather than the programmatic version.
"My guess is that's the way the art team had always delivered them ... and so it was just easier, but I don't have any real idea. I stay away from source code leaks so don't want to investigate the technicals!"
In an email to The Register, Plummer told us: "Long story short, in the production builds, I've learned they went with bitmaps rather than the programmatic version.
"My guess is that's the way the art team had always delivered them ... and so it was just easier, but I don't have any real idea. I stay away from source code leaks so don't want to investigate the technicals!"
> "[..] I wrote the programmatic version in '94 and we ran it internally, but it appears the setup/design team made the change after the code was written, and didn't use it [..]"
I wonder if there are any leaked Win95 betas that can show the different approaches. I can imagine that a static bitmap would've been much faster and less memory intensive, something quite important when you're targeting computers with 8MB of RAM.
I wonder if there are any leaked Win95 betas that can show the different approaches. I can imagine that a static bitmap would've been much faster and less memory intensive, something quite important when you're targeting computers with 8MB of RAM.
Software rotation of test is cool but cpu heavy (at the time)
Given the lag the current wx11 start menu animations illicit in slower machines, I'm not surprised they used to value speed over complexity.
Given the lag the current wx11 start menu animations illicit in slower machines, I'm not surprised they used to value speed over complexity.
I'd think for a relatively modest use case like the menu title bar, you could rotate the necessary glyphs once and cache them.
In a photo editor and use bitmaps
Seems like a localization nightmare though. :)
then you have to deal with cache invalidation, you need to have triggers in all places that change the look of the menu, for example when you install a new program, change the OS language, etc.
This is talking about the Windows NT Workstation (or Windows 95 etc.) banner on the left of the original start menu. It doesn’t change when you add programs, and I don’t think the edition branding changes between languages (at least the French versions are still Windows NT Workstation / Server, and if the French didn’t force Microsoft to localise the edition names, I doubt any else would manage). So you could just render once on startup / first menu draw then cache the bitmap. Or just prerender the bitmap as a graphical resource and store it on disc…
the rotation would only happened once and would then have been written to the device context. once its in a DC you can manipulate it with memcpy. A device context is a pointer to the window "surface" and maps a memory area.
I write this from memory so its possible that i misremember :)
I write this from memory so its possible that i misremember :)
Windows 2000 ("NT 5") was the most usable of that era (just a bit later). It was stable, solid, and had a responsive UI.
It was the first NT to have DirectX.
It was the best of both worlds NT and 9x. Then the decline started.
WinXP was mostly a cosmetic upgrade on Win2K right? AFAIR there strictly were no technical reasons why Win2K wouldn't be able to run XP software, only stuff like version checks and what not
Some choices in software shouldn't just be delivered in hopes everyone agrees with them, and even if they do, that they'll adopt as you envisaged - design decisions like this need to be shared so people have a chance of understanding and scrutinising the patterns involved.
Otherwise depending on your processes you'll either get what davepl got, or you'll be playing whack-a-mole in code reviews trying to protect your design; neither of those situations is a good use of your time.
Otherwise depending on your processes you'll either get what davepl got, or you'll be playing whack-a-mole in code reviews trying to protect your design; neither of those situations is a good use of your time.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fr4Q6CF0E_8