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In 1977, Bill Gates was arrested by the police. Microsoft used its photos in Windows without us knowing


You can be a computer genius, but also do some stupid things. In his youth, Bill Gates was arrested by the police, and years…

Bill Gates was arrested for driving without a license

It’s 1977, and Bill Gates is still only 22 years old. Having entered the prestigious Harvard University 4 years earlier, it has already been 2 years since he completely abandoned his studies to launch his business creation project with his classmate Paul Allen. We are not talking about just any company, but about Microcomputer Software, or more commonly, Microsoft.

Residing at the time in the city of Albuquerque in the state of New Mexico, Bill may be an enlightened little mind and shaper of the computing of the future, he was not perfect, and proved it in driving a car without a license and running through traffic lights. Neither one nor two, the police intercepts him, and takes him to the station.

In the USA, we do not laugh with this kind of offense, and the police temporarily lock him up after taking the famous mug shots. And to our delight, these photos were kept and came out on the Internet years later.

As you can see, we recognize our friend Bill, much younger, sporting a very vintage look. What stands out the most in this shot is the insolence of the young man who, with his tinted glasses, smiles cheerfully at the camera, at ease and taunting in the face of the situation.

The photo of Bill Gates is found in the Windows interface

Software companies are very fond of adding little winks to their operating systems. Only true fans find them, and this is the case for this detail hidden by Windows developers. In 2012, Microsoft is developing what will be Windows 8, the next version that will equip PCs. Not to mention the fact that this will be one of the most hated versions in history, an innocuous image in the interface stands out.

When you connect to Windows without having added a profile picture, you are entitled to the classic image vaguely representing a person. Except that in this case, the image looks a little too detailed, like it’s housing the shadow of someone real. All that detail in the hair, the collar of the chimney, it’s fishy.

It was enough for little snoopers to understand the deception. As you can see from this Twitter post, this supposed shadow is a clever cutout of Bill Gates’ arrest photo:

During the development of Windows 8 (2012), in builds 8161-8176 from late 2011/early 2012, an oddly-detailed generic user account picture was present. It was a nod to the now infamous mugshot of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, taken in 1977 for a traffic violation.

During Windows 8 (2012) development, in late 2011/early 2012 builds 8161-8176, a generic and far too detailed account image appeared. It was a nod to the famous arrest photo of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, taken in 1977 for a driving violation.

By Timothy Stewart

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