[FOUND] Mysteries of the Windows Toaster Icon (A rabbit hole)

[GlitchyZorua]

The toaster, has been toasted!

We found the lost windows 7/vista toaster icon! which means we don't need this forum thread anymore. Downloads are on the bottom of this thread!! It'll be here forever, for postery!! I will lock this forum soon, so if you have any questions about this toaster icon for whatever reason, let me know!!


Mysteries of the Windows Toaster Icon

I know, I know, this seems like a joke, but it's really deep rabbit hole that will never be solved! 


Where do I begin with this?


- We all did this scavenger hunt in Voice Chat, FYI
- and... I tried to find this stupid icon in the past, multiple times but still no luck :(

It all started out with a post on superuser named ydaetskcoR who had a really interesting question, "Why does Windows think that my wireless keyboard is a toaster?"


Source: https://superuser.com/questions/792607/why-does-windows-think-that-my-wireless-keyboard-is-a-toaster


Naturally, we thought it was joke, and even laughed at it. However, after scrolling down, we found that there were some legit questions, one that links to a documentation to a Microsoft Documentation page... which I expecting some sort of rickroll, or something... but no.


It was a sample XML for telling Windows information about the device, and lo' and behold, we found that the sample in the XML data had the words Toaster in it.

Ok, it makes sense, The toaster icon was a placeholder, but why would a graphic designer go into so much detail for a simple placeholder? Who made the icon?




But we had no idea where this icon was located at... We tried to extract the DLLs to find the Icons in hopes that we could find it, but still no luck.



We went back to the post and I saw that there were two more links on a reply on this superuser post.


This time, it was on a Microsoft forum post. it seems like someone is confused on why the icon for their keyboard shown in the Device & Printers window, shown as a toaster.



Source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/keyboard-shows-as-a-toaster-in-control-panel/6cb94719-05a0-4887-89f9-a45d52f6f089

Scrolling down, we found that the user was using a Acer 0766 which presuming that the keyboard came bundled with the computer itself.



The helper never responded to the reply for some reason, though.


The other link is dead, however its somewhat archived at archive.org

Its a snippet of a forum post, the original post seems to be dead.

However, it does give information that the keyboard is a "Fellow's wireless keyboard"

It seems that the toaster icon landed on some brands of keyboards, probably due the manufactures being lazy.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20160313231228/http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=46284655&postcount=6556

Ok, we got some answers, but where the toaster icon?

We don't know.

We also looked closer at the Toaster Icon, and found that there were some shiny text that says... "Fabrikam", keep this "company" name in mind for now.



Now for those who don't know what Fabrikam is, basically it's a fictional company by Microsoft, to be used in examples.

It's shown everywhere in the microsoft learn documentation, Especially the windows vista demos


Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/technet-wiki/1117.list-of-fictional-companies-used-in-microsoft-material

There are more fictional companies created by Microsoft, like Contoso. They are all listed here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/technet-wiki/1117.list-of-fictional-companies-used-in-microsoft-material

Moving on, We resorted to doing a reverse image search, and found that there were couple more people who has stumbled upon the Toaster icon. Still no icon though...

First one is a post from reddit on r/softwaregore that shows, yet again, a toaster icon. Except we got a higher quality version of it, luckily.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/softwaregore/comments/7nrk08/sure_thats_a_wireless_keyboard


Scrolling down, we found that a redditor posted a link to youtube video of someone playing doom, with toasters. More on that later.



Second one is from the same subreddit.


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/softwaregore/comments/860olv/at_least_its_wireless/

Last one, which not might even be their screenshot, but someone reposting "memes" from reddit.


Source: https://x.com/memeadikt/status/975808717328351234

Although this was a baby step in the right direction, We still couldn't find the icon to this... thing.

Oh, and as for the guy who was playing doom with toasters, lets talk about that.

So, if we were to skip to 1:51, we can see that it that it shows up in the device and printers window.



It may seem real at first glance, but it seems to be fake...

We can take a better look at this if we were to visit the "developers" website over here: https://web.archive.org/web/20150115120614/http://www.vexal.us/Projects/USBToaster/USBToaster.html



Scroll all the way down, and vola, here it is.



So, why is it fake you may ask?

Lets overlook the fact that there is 3 printers despite Windows saying that there is 4.

Windows by default sorts your drives or files or whatever by A-Z, however if you look closely... the "VEXAL-MACBOOK" And "Toaster" should be swapped.

Also lets mention the fact that windows says there are 4 devices, when very clearly there are 5 devices.




So this video is probably fake- Though that's up to debate whether or not if its real or not.

It is pretty funny to know something like this exists, though.

Does this mean that the icon is fake?

With all that being said, these videos doesn't mean that this toaster icon is fake. The videos shown above maybe fake, but the icons aren't. because it is confirmed that the Toaster Icon was only meant to be a placeholder for developers creating their own device to be used in Windows.

Which explains why some users stumble across a toaster icon instead of a keyboard in the device and printers window.

Anyways, some more evidence that the toaster icon **has** exist.

Remember what I said about the toaster icon having the text "Fabrikam" in it?

Well in another microsoft documentation, captured by the wayback machine, we can see that, there is some sample product info about the "toaster"!


Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120505164955/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff544993(v=vs.85).aspx

Fabrikam!!!!

And it's apparently a "Toaster Model T1000 Driver", created by Fabrikam.

Which is a Plug And Play Device of some sorts.

but still, had no toaster icon.

At this point, we've hit a full stop, since we were getting tired, we decided to temporarily stop this hunt for a gosh darn toaster icon... for now.

I'll keep you all updated if we find anything new or something.

Toast on.

Many thanks to SKCro for helping me with this search! 

[devils]

This is an interesting find, but I'm a bit confused as to why you took shots at PyToast. It might be a bit of a meme to play Doom with everything, but the original PyToast video seems legit enough. I mean, it's kinda hard to download a computer... one that's stored in a toaster, no less! Just because there's no download link doesn't mean it's inherently fake.

As for why it's a toaster...



This comes from the first link in this topic. It had a bit of a discussion going, since there really aren't many sources for older tech lingo, but basically- toaster, in tech, can refer to multiple things... it doesn't have to be a literal toaster. People in tech seem to love their puns after all.

[GlitchyZorua]

I see...

But that begs the question... where is this icon?


I couldn't find it anywhere in windows. let alone archive.org or even the microsoft website.

What happened to it?

[xixxii]

I see...

But that begs the question... where is the origin of this icon?


I couldn't find it anywhere in windows. let alone archive.org or even the microsoft website.

What happened to it?

isn't that already answered in your first post? it's part of a sample xml package that was part of the windows driver kit. so you'd need to be downloading old versions of windows driver kit and looking for the icon in there, i assume.

[GlitchyZorua]

isn't that already answered in your first post? it's part of a sample xml package that was part of the windows driver kit. so you'd need to be downloading old versions of windows driver kit and looking for the icon in there, i assume.

oh god time to shove my crap in my hard drive

[Melooon]

I was curious so I downloaded all of the windows developer reference icons from this page. It seems to include every windows icon from xp to now!

I extracted every .ico file (about 5000) and then manually skimmed through them by eye. From what I can see there is no toaster icon here  Although I did find some fun icons ~ apparently Windows Vista had male and female stripper folder icons????



Anyway; this doesn't get us any closer to finding the toaster; so maybe we need to find a library that is intended for hardware manufacturers instead of software ones, as xixxii suggests.

Another idea would be to by an Acer KG-0766 on ebay, plug it into Windows 7 and see what happens 

[GlitchyZorua]

Where did you find these icons?

either way, this is pretty cool!!! :D

as for the toaster icon, yeah, i think i may have found the kit for it, wish me luck!

[Melooon]

as for the toaster icon, yeah, i think i may have found the kit for it, wish me luck!

I found a reference to it on GitHub but apparently the icon there is blank? Maybe they removed it after window 7?

If that's the issue you run into you can install the old samples from this developer kit ~ It should have the old sample, and therefor the old toaster.ico in it. I cant install it because its not playing nice with wine on mac, but maybe you get get it going!

[GlitchyZorua]

Hmmm, i think i can look at the old forks of this repository

If that's the issue you run into you can install the old samples from this developer kit ~ It should have the old sample, and therefor the old toaster.ico in it. I cant install it because its not playing nice with wine on mac, but maybe you get get it going!

I'll run this in a vm. Wish me luck

[GlitchyZorua]

I found them!!! turns out you don't need to install it!! 

Here is how I extracted them:

Here are the downloads to get these icons: https://github.com/GlitchyZorua/GlitchyZorua.github.io/raw/main/files/toastericons.zip

it was that easy, i was quite surprised. 

[candycanearter07]

Sometimes the simplest solution is the easiest :)

It is really funny that they worked so hard to polish a placeholder that nobody would see unless something went seriously wrong, but that's MS for you sometimes.

Also, thank you so much for bringing up the fictional companies list! I love weird little placeholder things like that (like how it seems like every device in apple promos are owned by "John Appleseed")

Also also, the whole concept of an internet toaster reminds me of the april fools "Hypertext Coffee Protocol" specification found here

[GlitchyZorua]

You're welcome!!

Fabrikam is another rabbit hole to get into, which I might be able to discuss later in another post, like how http://fabrikam.com/ redirects to Microsoft, but adding "prod" in the url like this: http://prod.fabrikam.com/, you'll be taken to a normal looking website... Except something isn't right. Where are the products? The social links don't seem to work properly, etc.

But I'll stop here for now.




Until next time... :3