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Friday, March 10, 2006 12:31 AM PT Posted by Harry McCracken
The Return (Gasp!) of Microsoft Bob
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Until now. Last weekend, I was tidying up my home office and uncovered an original Bob CD-ROM from 1995--a preview edition, to be specific. I stared at it blankly and decided it was worth saving for posterity, and then for some reason I began to wonder whether it would run under Windows XP. So I tried. And--after a little fiddling with DLLs--it did.
(Side note: I got it runnng after doing a Google search which led me to discussions among other people who were trying to get Bob to run under XP. More proof that if knowledge exists, Google can get you to it.)
Bob, in case you don't know, is a "social interface" for Windows 3.1 (its product manager back in 1995 was Melinda French--who went on to become Mrs. Bill Gates). In this case, "social interface" can be translated as "application suite and program manager, hosted by an annoying animated dog and other characters."
You spend your time inside a virtual house with multiple rooms, with the dog--Rover by name--sitting in the corner of the screen, allegedly helping you:
Rover is sometimes patronizing:
And he sometimes hands off duties to other grating "helpers," such as in the checkbook manager, where a prissy little book offers to conduct an interview with you and then argues with you if you try to beg off:
To confuse matters, the house is full of clickable objects, many of which, when you click them, tell you that there's no particular reason to click them:
Bob comes with a bunch of little applications, including that checkbook manager and other financial tools, a calendar, an address book, a primitive word processor, and a quiz called GeoSafari. It came out in early 1995, almost exactly at the moment when America started to get on the Internet in force. But it's mostly a product of the pre-Net era, so it has no Web-related functionality. Rover does, however, offer to help you get an MCI Mail account:
But if Bob can't do something, no biggie: You can add other programs to the Bob interface...and it even helpfully converts slick modern icons into cruddy-looking 16-color, circa-1995 ones, as it does here with iTunes:
The bottom line on Bob? It manages to be a bad idea (it seems to be aimed at a six-year-old who has personal finances to manage) executed even more badly than you'd expect (even in 1995, I suspect the profusion of inexplicable "boing!"-type sound effects would have been annoying). The whole thing is kind of spellbinding, at least if you're not trying to do real work with it. (In this old TechTV video, Jim Louderback says that Bob had the additional downside of running slowly on 1995 hardware: For the record, the package screams--if that's the word I want--on a 1.7-GHz Athlon XP system with a gig of RAM and GeForce2 graphics.)
Bob came and went quickly, but its influence lingers on to this day. The animated Office Assistants in Microsoft Office--who are stil hiding out in Office 2003, though they're no longer on by default--are direct descendants of the Bob characters. And Rover himself, or a reasonable facsimile, shows up in Windows XP's search feature, in what must be the single most all-advised, pointless Microsoft user-interface fesature of all time. (When I think of the XP search dog, I think of the famous Steve Jobs quote from the PBS Triumph of the Nerds documentary: "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste.")
But Microsoft's, er...Bobosity may be fading. The search doggie seems to have been banished from Windows Vista, and the Office Assistants, as far as I can tell, are finally extinct in the next version of Office--years after a Microsoft ad campaign claimed they were goners even though they weren't.
Anyhow, I suspect that Microsoft Bob will continue to be synonymous with software flop for years to come. And now that I've finally spent some time with it, I can put it aside...and hurl invective at it, should the need arise, as an honest man.
Although come to think of it, I'm now curious whether it'll run in Windows Vista...
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I think Acer and other PC vendors also came up with their own version of such "user-friendly" shell to make Windows 3.1 (and even Win9x) machines well, friendlier. They mostly make the user look stupid or at least assume to be so.
In a sense, MS Bob has evolved into the sleeker modern Media Center edition of Windows XP. Instead of having everyday life images of a living room to bridge the gap for new pc users, MCE uses sleeker GUI that is closer to a cross between the OSD of setup boxes / TV and that of a gaming machine like X-Box.
The new announcement of UMPC ushers in yet another new thingie from MS in the form of MS Touch Pack. To me, this is again a variant of the MS Bob, except with a different look-and-feel.
Besides the complaints of Bob, I must applaud MS and other companies for their effort to make the PC more usable for users. :)
I like using rover in XP as a character in the search box, of course I turned off all the hand holding questions and rover just kinda sits at the bottom of the box. I still like rover sitting there though. I like to have rover on in Office too. Instead of dialogs he asks me if I want to save that isn't such a big deal. I hated bob but like the current rover which will be put to sleep soon :(
Heh, my mom loves rover when working in Word (which she uses a lot). She always keeps him on the bottom right corner. His idle animations bring a smile to her face every now and then, almost as if it were a real dog.
She will miss you rover. *sniff*
Being based in Seattle, I always have an odd array of Microsoft anecdotes, one of them is that I *know* one of the Bob voices! Who also happens to be an electronic publishing guru. I was working with him when he was recruited to be voice talent for dogs and paperclips.
There's a good where are they now feature on Bob:
Product Manager: Married to Bill Gates
...
You know what? I LIKED Bob. Then again, in 1995 I was 10 years old, so that may have had a hand in it. Bob made my computer fun, rather than the drab 3.1 interface. I loved the little charecters, and putting the useless furniture into the house, and such.
They should have aimed Bob at kids. It could have been succesful. I know as a kid, it was awesome.
In all honesty, i'll miss Rover in Vista. I leave him on, too. Maybe he just has a special connection to me because i'm younger, and he was there throughout my computing childhood.
Heh, I actually used Bob until I got Windows 98 (skipped 95 enitrely), which was in '99. And when I did get Windows 98, I missed Bob.
I never realized it such a huge flop. Then again, I didn't know anyone else actually used it. I didn't think any attention got paid to it at all. That was weird seeing it on here, brings back memories. Fond memories.
Microsoft Bob? I've never heard of it, back during the days of 1993-97 where we didn't have the Internet. We used the Packard Bell Navigator, which looks nice, even with 8-bit color mode. And I've never heard of Rover.
Yet I do love to try them out... :p I always love and can't live without Microsoft.
Back in my day... lol. sweet memories i can relate to ladiesman, i only used to use it when i went to my friends house when i was 12, i just used it as a game, it was awesome and then the sims came out, which started a whole new thing for me so i dont really miss bob so much.
Is there somewhere I can DL MS BOB and tinker with it for myself? Back in the day we just used Win 3.1 and Win 95... no shiny interfaces needed lol. If any of you know, share the wealth ;-)
*blush* I have to agree. Uhhh, is there a place we can download this? Or even *gasp* buy it? I just want the lavalamps on my desktop. I remembered it last week when hunting for some, and only came up with a screensaver and mouse cursors...you can keep the rest. Or if anyone knows where to get some desktoppable lava...that's ok too :)
I liked Bob too. They should improve upon it and make it like an active desktop-like thing where you can have your desktop icons be actual props in the room (Word could be a notebook or typewriter on a desk, web browser could be an image of a computer, Money could be a checkbook...you get the drift.) and the room can be customized with extra props like Bob had. I'd just like it for the nostalgia factor. It was fun.
You know....... With X10 and some scripting (using vbs script) you could retool some of the shortcuts to control your house, click the flowers and it pokes out the serial port to water your lawn. And with the advent of networked home entertainment, i think M$ will be suing someone soon over a home audio system with windows interface or maybe that's apple... i cant' remember who's turn is it to sue next.
i remember when the comercial was on tv, i was like wow cool.... then went to cmu library and hit the net looking for voice control stuff, and got into MSAgents and VBScript with clsids.
Do this day.... Verbex "listen" still recognizes my voice better than most... and Voice flux as well.
If they resurrect it, hopefully they'll make it a plugin to winxp media edition... (not a full OS)
lol
Geo-Safari, eh? I had a learning-toy as a kid that was a plastic stand up frame for which you could buy cards and learn geography, history, art... Is this related?
This living room is not the funniest thing in MS "Bob". I had seen a demo that shew a tree in the center of PC sreen and all your files were actually fruits on the tree. The dog was running around the tree and barking.
:DDD
It reminds me of Kid Desk, my first computer experience. The screensavers, the different desks, leaving voice messages for other user accounts, good times... Then we got a Packard Bell, with its navigator. Our family designated one room to the parents (the upstairs) and tone room to the kids (downstairs right). I would just keep clicking on all of the interactive stuff in that room, changing the backrounds, watching the little motorboat zoom by. Then I discovered the myst-like bottom left room and series of hallways. They sort of creeped me out with the stuff that moved like they were a puzzle but didn't appear to really do anything. I always found the office assistants amusing. First the tip clip, or "clippy," then the Einstein looking guy with his labcoat and all. I had no idea what BOB wasuntil about last year when I found out about it by accident. I hadn't realized until then how much of BOB still is in use today.
Ahh.. I remember the "Living Room" interface from Win3.1 Packard Bell computers... totally pointless - but better graphics than Bob!
Nowadays I work for HP Tech Support *Shudder*... there is a program called "HP Organise" which reminds of this. It IS user friendly, but usually sucks up resources as the computer tries to boot up with this starting automatically, and for the life of me I've never seen anyone actually USE it.....
"...all-advised, pointless Microsoft user-interface fesature of all time..."
Apparently the other office features, GRAMMER & SPELLCHECK, are hidden by default too.
This is why I stop subsribing to this magazine. That and they keep on reprinting the same articles just updated for the newer software out.
No offense, because i do sort of agree with your point, but it would be much better made if you had used spell check yourself.
It would have told you that it is "GRAMMAR" not "GRAMMER."
I lover Rover, too. My dogs don't especially like the kitty, though...
Does anyone now where to get a disc of the old microsoft bob, if it still exists?
I didn't have the chance to enjoy the Microsoft Bob (lol) but I did had Packard Bell with its Navigator. Ahh memories.
THis program actually sounds cool to me. Yeah I know I suck.
I, too, leave Rover on all the time and have Rocky on in Word. He looks so much like a dog I used to have... I will miss him because he always makes me smile -- but, hey, here's an idea: why doesn't Microsoft offer these guys as Vista options? I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I would pay maybe about $5 for a CD so I could still load Rocky in Word!
No! They didn't tell ME they were going to get rid of Rocky?! You got me whipped up now, don't dare take Rocky without my permission! How much is the ransom again?
I've been trying to get the new Rover (on Windows XP) as my Aim buddy icon. I figured out were it is, but can't open it because it does not recognize the extension. it is rover.asc (or acs) It's a Dell Ispiron E1505.
isketchman@yahoo.com
Like the people here who remember liking Bob when they were little, my kids really enjoyed Bob, also. When I upgraded computers and got Windows 98, it seems to me Bob either didn't work, or Microsoft warned against installing it in Win98. My kids were really disappointed, and asked me about it for months afterwards. So I have to agree with the poster who said they should have geared it toward kids. (They also learned to use Packard Bell Navigator when quite young - didn't that run under DOS? As such, a big improvement. Kids could launch their own "Putt Putt" adventures, for instance - rather than call for an adult to do it for them.
Before I beat you up, Thank You for coming clean. But it is just like journalist! Everyone know that 75% of what the write may be true, that that 25% that they talk out of their back side hurts those who really know what is going on. Lets look at Que Cat, when it was coming out the computer and internet industry was booming, every one had to have a computer to get on the web. Well, I used to teach a non credited class, at our local college, for those trying to learn computers and the internet. Que Cat for an elderly students was the ticket for them to get to a site without going through all the addressing. So Que Cat did market research, how many out there still do? Tons I'll bet. But the technology journalist beat up Que Cat so bad they bellied up and no one dared to revise it. The technology journalists forgot how learning something is not easy for all. Good Job messing Bob up too.