Happy 30th Birthday to Windows Task Manager. Thanks to Dave Plummer for this little program. Please no one call the man.

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BlueGoliath@reddit

Did you know Dave Plummer made Task Manager?

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ReallySuperName@reddit

Dave Plumber Facts:

He wrote Task Manager and Pinball, didn't you know?
He once claimed the Linux kernel ships with a special binary blob put there specifically by Linus himself and no one has the source to it: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/rb2xzk/dave_plummer_aka_daves_garage_former_microsoft/
Was once sued for tricking users into installing fake software/malware with scary fake warnings: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/rb2xzk/dave_plummer_aka_daves_garage_former_microsoft/hnmggno/ (there is also a YouTube video on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GeF9AjlqP8)
Has tried to falsely copyright strike the above video multiple times and in this process someone found another scam company he setup following the previous one being sued (https://x.com/miklos_akos/status/1817329524054335641) that has the same scam software
Has made numerous bogus claims about involvement in the FAT and NTFS file systems and the Format Disk dialog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39812561

Each of those links leads to a dozen more if someone wants to rabbit hole.

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gcampos@reddit

He sounds like a boomer version of PirateSoftware

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Blood-PawWerewolf@reddit

He is! He claimed once that he wrote a lot of code in WIndows NT 4.0 that “we use everyday”, which i knew was BS since that code was most likely changed when they went from NT4 to NT6!

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loiveli@reddit

I think you forgot to mention he wrote Task Manager.

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chucker23n@reddit

He once claimed the Linux kernel ships with a special binary blob put there specifically by Linus himself and no one has the source to it:

Heh, this one was new to me.

Has made numerous bogus claims about involvement in the FAT and NTFS file systems and the Format Disk dialog

That post mentions the Zip integration in Explorer, and I'm curious what actually happened there:

He's got people believing that he wrote the Zip folder code that Microsoft literally licensed from Info-Zip because he had to touch it to get it integrated.

Perhaps there are versions of Windows whose Zip integration uses VisualZip instead of Info-Zip? (And perhaps VisualZip itself actually just wraps Info-Zip, of course.)

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reallokiscarlet@reddit

Good reminder for why I have a meme of him saying he's been trying to reach you about your car's warranty. Completely forgot why I made that. Thanks for the reminder.

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reallokiscarlet@reddit

https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/media_attachments/files/112/846/320/095/835/339/original/f2d513888e7d801e.png

Since I just realized I can't attach images here... I went and dug the image up, on the only place I made it public. And surely enough, it came with a rant about him being a scammer.

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tigole@reddit

He wrote [..] Pinball, didn't you know?

Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer was responsible for converting existing x86 portions, such as the sound engine, to C/C++, to make the game compatible with the Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC versions of NT 4.0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Tilt!_Pinball

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dream_metrics@reddit

You’re doing the lords work. Fuck this grifter

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MrFrode@reddit (OP)

Actually I didn't know any of this. This has gone from Plummer to bummer.

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CareerHour4671@reddit

What? Why the fuck doesnt he mention it? It's a massive deal. A task manager. Holy shit.

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hobbykitjr@reddit

Buuuut what about David Bradley???

Bradley is credited for implementing the "Control-Alt-Delete" (Ctrl-Alt-Del) key combination that was used to reboot the computer.

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theschizopost@reddit

Wow he should really advertise that, it makes his content sound appealing

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reallokiscarlet@reddit

Used to love that channel. But now all he talks about is how he wrote Task Manager.

Like, that's nice dude, but you literally wrote the worst task killer on the planet.

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Blood-PawWerewolf@reddit

He’s gone the PirateSoftware route in the last year

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Specific-Goose4285@reddit

I've enjoyed the Dave Cutler interview. I also love his PDP and Vax NetBSD videos.

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DVXC@reddit

He's also an absolute piece of shit person as well, as evidenced by his social media replies.

Full of hatred and holier-than-thou-ism, it's genuinely sad.

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ClassicPart@reddit

Unlike you. You seem like a delightful individual and not at all full of hate and holier-than-thou-ism.

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reallokiscarlet@reddit

Iunno, not much to go on. They do hide their comment activity but not everyone who does that is a problem.

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reallokiscarlet@reddit

Bro's got more than the tism. He got dementia or narcissism.

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CareerHour4671@reddit

Did this guy create the Task Manager? Wow

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netherlandsftw@reddit

He also scammed people by saying their computer was infected and asking money to fix it but he doesn't like to talk about that

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CareerHour4671@reddit

Yeah but Task Master though right? That's like the moon landings?

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andynzor@reddit

Listening to his stories, I can only wonder how much one person did so much when the company had 20k to 30k employees in late nineties.

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BlueGoliath@reddit

There seems to be a trend at companies where a small amount of super star developers do a lot of heavy lifting and the rest just kinda do nothing.

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KontoOficjalneMR@reddit

and the rest just kinda do nothing

No, rest made sure small thing ego-maniacs didn't want to work on-worked.

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vincentofearth@reddit

Or more likely this guy just talks a lot about what he did and happens to have a large audience.

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caleeky@reddit

That's true in a way, but it's not the same lifer employee just totally delivering the entire time.

There can be some of those but usually it's that some people get the right opportunity to really put their head into a project but often those are fleeting opportunities. Lots of circumstances change to make it hard to repeat both on the side of the person and the business.

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danielv123@reddit

Not to mention that out of those 30k people only a few handle designing the system UI stuff.

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jaynoj@reddit

From my working life, I would agree with the sentiment that 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people.

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SeeTigerLearn@reddit

Over a decade ago I had this bizarre dream where Task Manager had become this virtual 3D interaction—themed like Qbert. Processed were dancing & bouncing to their time slice. I think there was a bowling alley when threads were stripped. And new threads would drop onto the quirky angled steps from the ceiling. If you needed to interact with a process you would get face-to-face. And somehow there were aisles that clustered same job categories together.

The details are fading with age and time. But I do remember when it happened there were weeks, maybe even months, when I would wish we actually did have a Qbert Task Manager.

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bajosiqq@reddit

who is this guy

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ReallySuperName@reddit

He is Task Manager himself. Also Mr Pinball.

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bajosiqq@reddit

what did he do

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todo_code@reddit

He was an MS employee who wrote parts of task manager and pinball. I found his video on why Windows sucks to be great, except a few parts, but having read more he seems pretty awful amd overstated his achievements

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__konrad@reddit

After a recent Windows 11 update you have to use Task Manager to close Task Manager:

When closing Task Manager, instead of closing it with the 'X' button, use End Task on the Task Manager process itself.

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OffbeatDrizzle@reddit

You were supposed to destroy the tasks... not join them!

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steviefrench@reddit

Dave is the best. I call him my tech dad.

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Hot-Employ-3399@reddit

In his recent comment he lied(what an unexpected action from scammer!) he was fined for nagging rather than scamming despite what settlement says.

Let's just say I take words from him with a truck of salt.

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ReallySuperName@reddit

Excellent link especially where he claims he never lied/didn't admit, but then the lawsuit does in fact say he admitted to it. I posted a bunch more if you're interested here https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1otvcos/happy_30th_birthday_to_windows_task_manager/no9cdv4/.

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