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Windows Central
Windows Central
Technology
Kevin Okemwa

Millions of Windows XP disks secretly included Microsoft's failed search assistant to keep pirates at bay — "Bob was actually more useful dead than alive"

Bill Gates holding up a copy of Windows XP operating system in New York's Times Square.

Before Windows introduced its modern GUI system, Microsoft was well-known for its iconic command-line operating system, MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

But did you know that the Redmond giant developed a user interface called "Microsoft Bob" (codenamed Utopia) to make Windows more user-friendly to those comfortable with DOS?

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