[Dalewyn]

It would be nice if you can cite credentials, if possible; not everyone has/had access to Windows NT source code and Dave for his part provided his credentials.

Not that I am discounting your claim, but from a cursory glance through your comment history you're practically a nobody with a seeming vendetta against someone who credibly had a part in much of Windows NT's innards.

[bc_programming]

Fair enough. As others have noted the source code was leaked; I've got NT4, NT5, XP, XPSP1 and Server 2003 codebases to review from that, which I downloaded a good while ago. I've been a software developer primarily targeting Windows for 20 years, 10 of those professionally. I was a Microsoft MVP for half of those (2012-2016 inclusive). The reference to the date is found in the header of nt4\private\windows\shell\shelldll\unicode\format.c

The 32GB limit for FAT32 doesn't appear to be handled by the shell code or the dialog, so when I said it was handled internally to the formatting code, I couldn't actually find that. It's just somewhere loweer than the UI. What I did do howeever was boot up Windows 2000, the first version that did have FAT32, and there's no limitation in the format dialog itself. It goes through the entire process and then gives a "Volume too big" error after it has gone through the process, an error shared by not just the format dialog, but diskpart, disk management, and format, which certainly suggests that that is happening at some lower level. The dialog in question does just call into other functions to perform the actual format, but I wasn't able to find the actual source files for it.

>Dave for his part provided his credentials.

Now he understandably does leave out a bit of info about his history which you could arguably say is part of my "vendetta" that you observed. The reason for the proportion of comments is less a vendetta and more that I get kind of worked up every time stuff of his is posted and people applaud how great he is. He's no Dave Cutler but he certainly talks like he was.

Now, as to the tidbit. Dave Plummer ran a scam company that was sued by Washington State in 2006, "SoftwareOnline.com, Inc. ". He actually left Microsoft specifically to run this company. Court documents can be seen here:

https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-s...

You can find David W. Plummer listed in the court complaint.

The short of it is that it was an online software scam company that tricked people into downloading fake Anti-virus and security software using online ads, and then the software delivered additional adware and nagware onto users machines.

That is why it may appear I have a vendetta. I don't trust a word he says and especially when what he says directly contradicts other sources. Mistakes in memory are one thing, but some of them are rather beyond the sort of thing I think is reasonable. Paired with his history, I'm convinced he's actually lying intentionally because he's trying to build a "following" and "Dave's Garage" is just his latest scam. That's why he keeps "coming forward" in posts and his youtube as writing this or doing that. What bothers me is that it's working, because most people don't seem to even question it, even where there are rather severe contradictions.

[Dalewyn]

Spent the afternoon formatting a 128GB USB stick (only thing on hand >32GB) to FAT32 via the format command on one of my Windows machines to see what it'll do, and indeed it failed at the end saying the volume is "too large". So wherever the logic is, I agree it's deeper than the interface Dave wrote.

To give benefit of the doubt, though, Dave didn't say he wrote that logic into the interface. Just that he had to "decide on the cluster slack", which clearly was written by someone (which could be him, this wasn't specified) at a deeper level of the operating system. It's also worth noting that Dave's interface doesn't even give the option to format with FAT32 in the first place, at least with my 128GB USB stick.

So I find nothing wrong with his statement. He wrote the interface, a temporary one which ended up being permanent. He also played the role (or at least a role) in deciding the arbitrary 32GB FAT32 volume size limit.

As for SoftwareOnline.com, that's also mentioned on Dave's Wikipedia article so it's not something hidden away. Anyone so inclined to research his character will see it.

With regards to your vendetta against him regarding his past conduct, it is unwarranted: He settled with Washington state and paid penalties, he returned refunds as requested; the case is closed. If you're going to keep bothering him over that, it's you who is wrong.

[naikrovek]

I'm not who you're replying to, but I'm a bit torn on your response. I started by understanding your self-described vendetta, but then I read the link you posted.

The link describes the judgement against the company he was CTO of at the time. So, he's been through the justice system for this, and has been reprimanded satisfactorily. He's paid the fines and made the promises and does not appear to have reoffended.

I don't think there's anything else for him to do in order to atone for this.

So, why are you still mad? What would it take for you to let go of this vendetta that you say you have?

I don't care either way, I'm not involved. I'm just curious why people will forgive some for just about anything but hold negative attitudes toward others for their entire lives, no matter what they do.

[bc_programming]

He was CTO but also owned the company. That is why he was named directly on the complaint.

I feel he violated what I feel are very basic, elementary ethical principles with regards to software development, by specifically setting out to create software products that were not designed to give the user value but to scam and trick them out of their money.

(There's an argument to be made that he was merely ahead of his time at Microsoft but that's perhaps another discussion.)

He's retired and supposedly wealthy. Not sure what sort of stock options he might have for 7 years at Microsoft, but how much of that wealth (if it even exists) is or was from the scam company? He didn't have to pay most of the fine and the number of customers that requested refunds is hardly documented. For all we know dude is still living off money he scammed from people.

Either way when you stoop that low I don't think you can ever stand up straight again- all you can do is try to hide your slouch.

>What would it take for you to let go of this vendetta that you say you have?

Well, to take an extreme but analogous (IMO) example - what would it take to trust Bernie Madoff for financial advice? That's kind of what I feel this is like. Doesn't matter if they "went through the justice system". You never regain the trust in the field when you so readily violated it to make money.

[naikrovek]

So what would someone who has done this need to do to win you over?

Record shows he’s paid his debts, to both society and everyone directly affected, at least everyone who requested refunds. Just as importantly, as far as we know, he hasn’t re-offended.

Bernie Madoff isn’t out of the justice system yet, and Dave Plummer hasn’t started any new scam companies, at least as far as I know. So per your analogy, it’s as if Bernie Madoff got out of jail 20 years ago and has been a cashier at a grocery store ever since. I would not go to him to invest my money, and he would not ask me to.

I don’t like it when people who do something wrong are held to that activity for the rest of their life, no matter what else they do. One can’t un-commit the crime, but they can demonstrate that they are reformed over and over and over and it will never be enough for a lot of people.

I don’t understand that. I want to understand that.

[mappu]

NT 4 and Windows 2000 source code were leaked on Feb 12 2004.

The second google result is a copy that Microsoft are hosting on their own website: https://github.com/lianthony/NT4.0

[Dalewyn]

In that case, parent commenter or someone sufficiently motivated should cite file and line number to corroborate the claim.

(I'm not going to do it because I'm drunk and I probably have better things to do than illicitly look through Microsoft source code.)

[atombender]

Someone else already posted a comment with the exact file.

[ikari_pl]

I do remember there was a leak of Windows 2000 source code years ago.

I downloaded it only to search for swear words. The most offensive thing I've ever found was things like "workaround because some idiots call <API name> <description of a wrong way to do it>"