Behind the Windows Start Menu - Insider Secrets

They added ads to the start menu. Look how they massacred the wonderfully efficient start menu

It's so rare to get behind-the-scenes firsthand accounts from the actual people involved... thank you for making these!

"Software is like a sausage, maybe you just don't wanna know how it's made" Gold

I personally like the behind the scenes stories about product development that Dave Produces

Blue...Folders...are...compressed. after nearly 20 years, I finally have the answer. It was a question from my childhood that was never truly answered. Thank you. I can now rest easy

It was possible to change "START" to "STOP" or any other string 5 characters or less. The string is stored in explorer.exe which could be modified using a hex editor for instance. You had to copy explorer, rename it, edit it, delete the original and save the modified copy as explorer.exe. Upon reboot i was the coolest kid in 7th grade!

For those that are curious about the green window: the windows behind me are powered by nightdriverled.com/ and for some reason the green window kept losing WiFi and I couldn't tell until edited because it was all behind me... so I added the "No WiFi" logo when the window quits :-)

Dave, man, this stuff is fascinating! The origins, the war stories, the history. And you deliver it all so entertainingly.

Being a teenager around the 95/NT era, I remember looking at NT3 and NT4 with excitement and awe. I would read magazines and articles about these powerful operating systems, imagining running them on my computer and using their tools. Operating Systems were exciting in a way they seldom are (if not entirely aren't) anymore.

As a kid in 1999, I had two things; a computer and a broken leg. That time stuck inside lead me to peruse a career in computers/software engineering. These videos are terrific at peeling back all the layers of things I used as a kid, but had no idea about. And the fact it’s from YOU Dave, it feels like I’m getting real inside baseball. Thank you for making these.

I'm an engineer and I really admire people who create daily use things. It was great to see how one of them has been developed. Most people are unaware how much technical knowledge and effort is underneath all those solutions. Thanks for sharing this great story!

Thanks for the trip down memory lane Dave. I worked in building 17 for three years, having been transferred from Charlotte, NC to Seattle to work on the AnswerWizard(clippy). I was there from '94--98. I had forgotten about SLM until you mentioned it. I still remember going through one of the buildings and seeing all the versions of alternatives to Clippy that the animators had made for all the other languages of MS Office. The dolphin and secretary from the Japanese version always come to mind. And the different easter eggs for the Word and Excel versions were fun. I remembered the teams always tried to outdo each other to make the best ones with the least memory.

Dave, thank you for my childhood. Thank you for my adulthood watching these videos. Your legacy lives on and your hard work is truly appreciated. Thank you for everything.

Literally all the components that you have created are really important.. Start menu, Task bar, the "run" dialog. Thank you, I am the child of the 90s and been raised with the computers in some small city in the southern Russia :) Traveled the world a lot since then, but your memories make me feel like that curious kid from the 90s once again :)

I'm so very glad I discovered your channel. It's refreshing to hear from senior developers involved in architecture we depend on. I'm autistic myself. I often hear that we make natural programmers. Unfortunately, I'm struggling. Take good care.

12:08 “I’m never quite sure how my humor is received by some folks, so…” Too real Dave 😆

I have so much respect for developers like yourself. I can't code to save my life but I've had a love for computers all my life. It's just crazy how much discipline and mental energy it takes to write programs like yourself. Love your content!

You Sir, are history; in the nicest possible way. What a wonderful story told so humbly. Also, love the binary shirt! All the best to you and yours.👍👍👍

Brilliant. I was a young help desk tech helping people through their computing experience.

Everything you make is extremely historically significant. Thank you so much for making these.