Bugs on My WindowPane

Q: How many Windows programmers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: 472.
One to write WinGetLightBulbHandle...
One to write WinQueryStatusLightBulb...
One to write WinGetLightSwitchHandle...

About a year ago, I learned that the term "Trojan Horse" in the 21st Century wasn't necessarily referring to my beloved Traveler, faithful mascot at USC, my alma mater. It came as a bit of a shock.

Oh yeah, I had heard about spyware, malware, and adware. I thought "adware" had something to do with software in the advertising business. "Spyware" obviously had something to do with bad guys getting into my files, probably teenagers living in the basement of their family homes with career goals of "hacker." Who lived to hack. Who engaged in hacking. Oh yeah, I could conjugate "to hack" and use it correctly as a noun in a sentence, too. Hacks!!

"Malware" was -- well, I didn't know what that was. I quickly learned.

It all began when I couldn't log on to Internet Explorer. Or, if I slipped into it, the system crashed. That wouldn't have been so terrible with my other available options like Mozilla Firefox. But, our small business interface with our corporation wouldn't run (and doesn't run now) on anything except Internet Explorer. So, we had to do everything necessary to get Internet Explorer to run again.

My husband is usually capable of diagnosing such problems and magically making them disappear. Of course, it comes with the usual grousing about all things Microsoft. Internet Explorer, Bill Gates, Windows, Microsoft, greed, the end of the world, criminal prosecution. Stuff like that. But, I tolerated the monologues for the sake of computer recovery.

He tried everything. We ran endless cycles of anti-spyware, anti-malware, and anti-adware, which was conveniently name "AdAware." Days went by. Nothing worked. He finally declared that I must save anything I wanted from the hard drive, and he was going to scrub it. Hopefully, it would be usable again.

I don't recall how many hours I spent copying pictures, documents, e-mails, and other sundry stuff onto CD's. It could have been worse -- I had only been on the system for about a year, so I had not even had the time to amass what I would normally store. Meanwhile, Mark continued his research about other possible remedies, and the Microsoft-related grousing continued along with it. He called the Windows "Help" desk multiple times with multiple questions, and no one encouraged us NOT to scrub the hard drive. So, we thought that was the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, we decided that I would trade printers with him because I needed a different color capability for the work I was doing. I finished up all the CDs, and he went upstairs to install the new printer.

Suddenly, I heard him yell, "you have GOT to be kidding!" I wondered what new Microsoft atrocity had been meted upon him. I ran up the stairs.

Sure enough, the simple act of switching printers had identified the Trojan Horse that was causing all the problems. Importantly, once unmasked, the system had "captured" it and asked if we wanted to kill it.

Yes, we really wanted to kill it.

So, we killed it, and everything went back to normal.

Well, except for the fact that I didn't have any files, photos or documents to access directly. But, after almost a week of no progress on the matter, we were appropriately grateful.

After so many days of frustration, it's no wonder we were grateful for a solution. We celebrated like we had found the Holy Grail. It was over!!!

Yes, the problem was solved. But, I celebrated quietly to myself about the best part of the remedy for me.

No more patient head-nodding and tsk-tsking to the sermonette about that evil Bill Gates.

I saw him in person for the first time during the inaugural Softcon in New Orleans at the Louisiana Superdome. It was a few weeks after the national launch of the Apple Macintosh in a :60 spot airing one time on the Superbowl. February, 1984. He was wearing an ill-fitting khaki cotton seersucker suit with dark brown oxfords and a blue tie. His pants hit him just above the ankles, revealing his white crew socks. He was a skinny mess with a haircut that looked like he had done it himself and eyeglasses from the 1970's. He was walking with an equally nerdy-looking fellow who dressed almost the same.

That guy's suit was all-white cotton, with a blue shirt and a navy tie. His pants hit him just above the ankle, too. They looked like a couple of dweebs who had just come out of their high school science club fair, and their goofy smiles suggested they had taken first place.

To be sure. Gates didn't have any social skills, and a lot of people who passed him didn't recognize him. But, they knew his friend.

Steve Jobs was set to make some sort of speech -- not the keynote, but close -- and, they were headed to the event together. They were uneasy colleagues, temporarily bound together by the Macintosh. Jobs trying to assert a different operating system, and Gates throwing himself into the early software as a development partner because he didn't want to miss something big. It wasn't the last time they strode the halls of an electronics show together, but it was close to the last time.

I had a great room in the French Quarter and the opportunity to eat at Paul Prudhomme's K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen and the very famous Commander's Palace. On the last night, I ate somewhere in the French Quarter, and the name of the restaurant escapes me now. I was encouraged to get the house specialty, which was an entire platter of whole shrimp coated in cajun spice.

It went down easy in the Big Easy. And, it almost came up again the next morning when my flight to San Francisco had to descend into Houston for a connection. I remember four things about that trip: the floor of the Superdome, the navy blue pumps that I wore all day, every day, without hurting my feet (youth???); the sight of Gates and Jobs, and the green color of my face on the trip home.

So, it's really hard for me to picture the evil Bill Gates in the context of today and the reality of what happened after that. No matter how many pictures I see of him now, the overview of his incredible property in Washington, or the reports of his personal wealth and foundation exploits, I just can't get that picture of him in New Orleans out of my mind.

He may control my computing life now. But, he sure went a long way, Baby, to get where he got to today.

The archives of TIME still house their story about the first ever national software trade show. The link is not trustworthy. But, if you're interested, search for "The Stepchild Comes of Age" dated March 5, 1984.