Drunk Van Halen fan called Microsoft support and demanded to speak to Gates

A drunken Van Halen fan called Microsoft support, demanding to speak to Bill Gates. Raymond Chen, a Microsoft veteran, recounted the incident involving a colleague who once worked at the FrontPage support line. The customer was building a Van Halen fan site using FrontPage, but encountered difficulties with a Java applet supposed to play music.

Despite the technical issues, the customer's inebriation became increasingly apparent as the call progressed, with ice clinking in a glass and the patron becoming more intoxicated. At one point, the customer shouted, "You're not even a real f—ing fan of Van Halen!" The colleague warned that further swearing would terminate the call, but the customer's anger escalated with the response, "F— you!

I wanna talk to Gates!" Chen was unsure about the next steps, wondering if the caller was transferred to a special line reserved for customers seeking an audience with Bill Gates. The frontpage software, which had been around since 1995, finally faced its demise in 2025, as Microsoft blocked the FrontPage Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol.