Thread by @dancingengie

After 22 years, one of the biggest, most bizarre pieces of Israeli lost media was found this week.

THE OFFICIAL WINDOWS XP MUSICAL.

What the fuck is this? Why was it made and how? And why is it so important. Well >🧵

Windows XP's Israeli launch event occurred on October 25, 2001. It was a 2-hour long theatrical show, complete with musical numbers, product placement, and skits.

All of this was punctuated by long demos that appear to be entirely improvised and really awkward for the hosts.

The songs themselves all revolve around praising the shit out of XP. None of this is ironic or self-aware; they're really trying to pull off Broadway spectacle.
There is an entire song about zipping files for instance, or Windows Media Player.

Also this.

October 2001 folks. Many of the event's gags wouldn't fly today, with the main ones being "ha ha my wife am i right" and "ha ha women suck at computers am i right".
Thankfully, the songs are unaffected by this.

Right, so what the hell is going on? How was this approved? A little background first:

Microsoft (MS) had been present in Israel for a while at that point, with some of XP's components reportedly developed here.

[Microsoft's R&D center, Haifa (1991)]

So obviously MS Israel had a lot of pride and investment in their new OS.

When Marketing VP Lior Tzoref (the male host) met producer Arik Schter, he says Schter really wanted to make the event into a musical. Tzoref shared his enthusiasm and gave him MS's blessing.

Schter got to work. He struck a deal with the Cinerama - one of TLV's seminal cinemas and conference centers.
He also brought in a team of about 30 dancers, including Doron Medeli (writer of Israel's Eurovision songs and prominent producer) to choreograph the whole thing.

So the event ended, and was received as... A DISASTER.

Don't get me wrong, there were many articles about *the OS* at the time. But only Haaretz reported about the event itself, calling it "the most embarrassing hi-tech event of the millennium".
haaretz.co.il/misc/2001-10-2…

So MS Israel quickly cut their loses, and tried to move on. But you can't erase things without a paper trail on the internet.
As it turns out, MS Israel had launched a special mini-site featuring the 'best songs' from the event, free to download.

The mini-site was quitely deleted after a few years, but was, of course, archived in the Wayback Machine.
In August 2016, Techwoman/shitposter @LucyBscalE found the site and edited a montage video featuring every song, one after another.

Her video was the first time the event was properly and conveniently introduced onto the internet. Two things happened:
First, It came a viral hit.
Second, many, including myself, went on a wild goose chase for information, including the whole grail - THE FOOTAGE.

Remember that mini-site? It had a download link to the show's actual, edited recording. Users were supposed to download and plug into their brand new Windows Media Player. However, not only was the file type old, the link was dead.

So close, yet so far.

And so, the only pieces of evidence we had are half-sentences and broken paragraphs.
Until we found this:
A presentation by Tzoref about the 10 things he learned during his time in MS. It had a lot of good info, but also ACTUAL FOOTAGE (19:31)

This was a clear conformation that the footage not only exists but was converted into a modern format.

Some teams tried contracting Tzoref directly and hit a bit of a dead end. The full recording was nowhere to be found, and the rumor of a Windows XP Musical was only growing.

Tuesday, December 12 I get a message from @Zipputiah. It had a link to a Xweet from his friend, @tmr232

"Don't know who needs to hear this - but apparently there's a full recording of the 'musical' (launch event) up on YouTube!"

https://twitter.com/tmr232/status/1734590012665012621

This is it.
The real deal.
The actual, MS-edited footage. The one we couldn't download, in true 240p glory with crunchy audio, befitting the internet bitrate of the time.

Bahar's friend heard about the musical, tried searching for it himself, and found this video.

How?

The footage was uploaded by XP's product manager (and female host) Anat Calo Levron to her personal YouTube channel about 6 years ago.

As it turns out, the video mysteriously flip-flopped between public and private for the past new months, and the friend caught it right on time.

Fans flocked to the video, downloading it, sharing it, and writing comments like "this is a Hannuka miracle!". Calo Levron, probably a bit stressed out by the unwanted attention to this disaster of an event, quickly switched the video to private. Can't blame her.

Fortunately, knowing a thing or two about lost media, fans reuploaded it. This is one of two reuploads currently available. I'm linking it in particular as I'm told the guys behind it are currently working on subtitling it. Accessibility ftw!

Until they wrap up that project, let me just sum it up for you: it's high school theater cringe with high budget spectacle and no political correctness. And I know calling things cringe is cringe, but that's really the best word I can give it.

Yet "Windows XP: The Musical", as we call it, was both prideful and earnest. Genuine awkwardness, genuine spectacle. And it's all official. It'll never happen again, for good and ill.

Simultaneously great and terrible. Real cult classic. A myth - finally unraveled.

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