Windows 1.0 Alpha Release PAINT.EXE found!

[Lucas Brooks]

Finally!!! Maybe what Bobby said here is real! I spent some time searching for Paint and it was included on disk 2 of Alpha Release! It was deleted and cannot be restored using any program so I manually recovered everything I can and here it is:




Download here: https://mega.nz/#!JJ8y3QRQ!ZxL-Q6nU60Lp ... vhwLdzL3j0

[AlphaBeta]

Nice find!

It was deleted and cannot be restored using any program

I restored it just fine using the UNDELETE utility from MS-DOS 6.22.

[Lucas Brooks]

I restored it just fine using the UNDELETE utility from MS-DOS 6.22.

Let me try... same result but 200 times easier . Never tried UNDELETE before .

[Overdoze]

Very nice find indeed. Pelle from Discord pointed out this internal string:

Microsoft Paint (c) 1984 Microsoft Corp. by Dan McCabe, et al

If you compare this version to some press photos, it seems this version is very close (if not identical) to the one shown in Science & Vie Micro (left), but earlier than the one in ASCII (right, which in turn is earlier than the version included in the Beta release from May).



I wonder why this was initially included on the disk but then deleted, though. Was it just too early to show Paint yet, or was it deleted by the original owner of the Alpha floppy set?

[Lucas Brooks]

I would say deleted by the original owner because the file is located in the middle of the disk and it wasn't overwritten. This suggests all files were copied onto that floppy and then PAINT.EXE was deleted. Also the .MSP extension in USER.PRO gives a clue that PAINT.EXE was originally included.

That copyright string suggests Paint was already in development in 1984, probably after DR5. Also explains the DanM signature in .MSP files.

[Overdoze]

Also the .MSP extension in USER.PRO gives a clue that PAINT.EXE was originally included.

Good point. Would be interesting to dig through INSTALL.EXE to see if it contains any references to PAINT.EXE, ie. does it try to copy it but fails (more likely someone other than MS deleted Paint), or does it ignore it completely (more likely deleted by MS).

[Lucas Brooks]

Hard to say whether it was deleted by the owner or Microsoft. There is no reason for the owner to delete PAINT.EXE but I used to format my friend's floppy when I was at school for no reason, so yeah. The installation script copies files to the TEST directory using copy a:*.exe which cannot prove whether it was meant to be there or not.

Also INSTALL.EXE in Alpha is responsible for the drivers if I recall correctly.

[Overdoze]

Ah, right. I mixed up WININST.BAT and INSTALL.BAT. Copy a:*.exe doesn't help us much, yeah.

[Lucas Brooks]

I am not sure if anybody noticed that PAINT.EXE's is the newest file on disk 2 and the second newest file in the whole release. It is the biggest file and also likely to be the last file deleted because it is the only recoverable deleted file.

This might indicate that Microsoft originally intended to include it (explains the reference in USER.PRO) and because it is so buggy or incomplete, it was worked on until the last minute (explains why it is one of the newest files) but another last minute decision was made to remove it (explains why it is the last file deleted) and they forgot to edit USER.PRO. That is just my theory and the best explanation I can come up with.

It is totally possible that the original owner just deleted the file because it is the largest file in the whole release and deleting it will free up some space. I don't think that is the case but it certainly is one of the possibilities.

I made a fix for Windows 1.00 Alpha Release by removing those strange 21s from disk 1 and having PAINT.EXE restored. Here it is: https://mega.nz/#!5FN0XC5S!sXnXB98-1ET2 ... H1NdLS366w

[Overdoze]

I am not sure if anybody noticed that PAINT.EXE's is the newest file on disk 2 and the second newest file in the whole release. It is the biggest file and also likely to be the last file deleted because it is the only recoverable deleted file.

This might indicate that Microsoft originally intended to include it (explains the reference in USER.PRO) and because it is so buggy or incomplete, it was worked on until the last minute (explains why it is one of the newest files) but another last minute decision was made to remove it (explains why it is the last file deleted) and they forgot to edit USER.PRO. That is just my theory and the best explanation I can come up with.

I'm leaning more towards this theory too, afterall, changing their mind about including Paint due to bugs makes a lot of sense. And then the USER.PRO leftover.

By the way, Tandy Trower also said here that "one of the developers had started work on a simple pixel drawing program we called Windows Paint". So it fits into the timeline too.

[johnlemon647]

Nice Found @ComputerHunter. Bobby did said Paint was in Windows 1.0 alpha. He also said it Include Paint MSP files and Paint Program in Disk 5 of Windows 1.0 Alpha.

[Lucas Brooks]

If Bobby's build is real, that means Paint was even more incomplete or buggy as there is a special disk for it with support files. It was compiled a few days earlier and does make sense that Microsoft was working on Paint until the last minute and not surprised that they later decides to delete the file.

@johnlemon647, please don't post the files I uploaded to other websites (without even re-uploading them). If you want to share good news like this, please post the URL of this topic instead. Thank you.

[Lucas Brooks]

No reason for it not to be deleted.

[Lucas Brooks]

I have extracted all icons and cursors from PAINT.EXE since they are quite interesting. I am sure Paint is the only or one of the few apps that use icons as pictures. I know icons and cursors are very easy to extract but there are 34 of them. To save your time, here they are: https://mega.nz/#!xN0GHagC!xpJxYaZmODGw ... rqKhkkqgO4

This probably won't be a good support for my theory about the reason Paint was removed but it looks like icons were not perfectly drawn (maybe due to lack of time).