An engineer who developed Windows' ZIP file-related functions talks about the inside story of 'almost being fired from Microsoft' and 'Windows' ZIP-related functions have remained unchanged for over 25 years and are slow to operate'



Former Microsoft employee

David Plummer is a software engineer who has worked on the development of Windows Task Manager and the format screen . He revealed that he was about to be fired from Microsoft for developing a feature that allows Windows to handle ZIP files.

How Creating ZIPFolders for Windows almost got me FIRED from Microsoft! - YouTube


The ability to compress and extract ZIP files in Windows first appeared in the Windows 98 expansion pack, Microsoft Plus! 98 , released in June 1998.



This ZIP file compression and decompression function was achieved by software called 'VisualZIP' that Plummer developed as a hobby.

Plummer joined Microsoft in 1993, but had been making profits from selling his own software even before joining Microsoft. When he joined Microsoft, Plummer negotiated to continue selling his own software, and obtained the right to continue selling his own software under the following conditions: 'Do not sell software that competes with Microsoft,' 'Get approval from a Microsoft manager before selling software,' and 'If the software you sell is related to your regular business at Microsoft, you will need approval from not only your manager but also the vice president.'



After developing VisualZIP, Plummer joined the Windows 95 shell development team, but one of the team members (who Plummer did not name) was upset that Plummer was making money from selling his own software and suggested that he be fired by Microsoft's human resources department.

The proposal to fire Plummer was passed on to his immediate supervisor by the human resources department. Plummer's supervisor desperately tried to think of a way to avoid firing him. After that, Plummer decided to get approval from the vice president by taking advantage of the condition he had when he joined Microsoft that 'if the software he was selling was related to his regular duties at Microsoft, he would need approval from the vice president as well as his manager.'

Plummer contacted either

Bill Newcomb or Brad Smith , then head of Microsoft's legal department, and was able to get the endorsement, 'I have no problem with this.' This helped Plummer avoid the threat of being fired.

As mentioned above, VisualZIP was software developed as a personal project by Plummer and was not owned by Microsoft. In such a situation, one day, Plummer received a call from a female Microsoft representative regarding the 'acquisition of VisualZIP'. Since Plummer was in favor of Microsoft purchasing VisualZIP, he replied, 'Which building (in Microsoft) should I go to? I can get there within 30 minutes.' However, the female representative replied, 'Please wait a moment. Before we actually sign the contract, we need to coordinate legal documents, travel documents, etc.' At this point, Plummer realized that 'the female representative did not realize that the developer of VisualZIP was a Microsoft employee.' After that, Plummer sold VisualZIP to Microsoft and used the proceeds to buy a Chevrolet Corvette and devoted himself to customizing it.



Although Plummer developed VisualZIP more than 20 years ago, the same code is still used in Windows ZIP-related functions at the time of writing. For this reason, Plummer points out that there are problems with Windows' ZIP compression and decompression functions, such as 'slow operation because it only runs in a single thread' and 'slow operation because a temporary copy of the file is inserted during operation.'




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