Dialog text Ctrl + Alt + Del was written personally by Steve Ballmer

Many people remember what the virtual machine manager window looked like in older versions of Windows. But few people know that the original text of this message was written personally by Steve Ballmer.

The story is recalled by Raymond Chen (Raymond Chen), a Microsoft developer and author of the blog The Old New Thing.

For the first time, the dialogue Ctrl + Alt + Del was implemented in the Windows 3.1 operating system on the 80386 core, which was able to work in standard and “enhanced” mode (Enhanced Mode). The latter allowed to run several parallel 16-bit applications in parallel, distributing CPU time between them.
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Another difference is a special call, with the help of which you could take the CPU time from some application.

In the end, the third difference in the advanced mode was the same “virtual machine manager” that appeared on the screen when you press Ctrl + Alt + Del. He also appeared if during the parallel operation of several applications some of them refused to respond on time.

The manager showed the name of the hung program and provided a choice of three options: to close the program, restart the computer, or exit the manager.

At that time, Steve Ballmer headed the Systems Division. Somehow he went to the Windows developers to see how they were doing. “He was shown a new feature with Ctrl + Alt + Del, Steve nodded thoughtfully and said:“ Everything is nice, but some strange text message. I think it sounds wrong. ”

“Okay, Steve, if you can do the job better, take it,” the programmers suggested to the manager. He accepted the challenge.

A few days later Ballmer sent a letter with a new option for the message.

  APPLICATION NAME

   This Windows application has stopped responding to the system.

   * Press ESC to cancel and return to Windows.
   * Press ENTER to close this application that is not responding.
      You will lose any unsaved information in this application.
   * Press CTRL + ALT + DEL again to restart your computer.  You will
      lose any unsaved information in all applications. 

The option is quite acceptable, so the text went into production without a single change, word for word.

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"Bill Gates Epic Letter About Windows Usability"
"Bill Gates: Ctrl + Alt + Del - it was a mistake"