Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker

2026-09-07 | original

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Why This Matters

This 2003 internal email shows Bill Gates, then Microsoft's chairman, failing to complete a basic software download on his own company's website — a vivid illustration of how large organizations lose sight of end-user experience. It remains a widely cited artifact of how usability erodes when no one owns the whole customer journey across teams and properties.

Key Takeaways

Gates documented repeated timeouts, confusing file names, and failed searches ('moviemaker' vs 'movie maker') while trying to get Movie Maker.
The download page reportedly wasn't designed for actually downloading software; users were redirected to Windows Update instead.
The email, sent to top Windows executives, blames program management for not driving usability as a systematic priority.

Worth a Look

Logitech MX Master 3S Wireless Mouse — If Bill Gates' famous 2003 usability rant taught us anything, it's that friction in everyday computing is maddening. The MX Master 3S is built to smooth that out with quiet clicks, a fast-scrolling wheel, and customizable buttons you can map to app shortcuts. It's a simple upgrade that makes navigating Windows menus and downloads far less of a chore.

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Welcome to Internal Tech Emails: internal tech industry emails that surface in public records. 🔍 If you haven’t signed up, join 50,000+ others and get the newsletter:

From: Bill Gates

Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM

To: Jim Allchin

Cc: Chris Jones; Bharat Shah; Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta

Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download Moviemake and buy the Digital Plus pack r so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up

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Explore topics: bill gates windows movie maker microsoft.com jim allchin windows usability