Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found the five-year-old e-mail while preparing a major series of articles about Gates' departure from day-to-day life at Microsoft.

"It shows that even the Microsoft co-founder -- who champions the 'magic of software' -- isn't immune to the frustrations of everyday computer users," said Bishop.

The e-mail details Gates' difficulties in downloading a copy of Windows Movie Maker, a simple video editing program aimed at consumers.

Things started to go wrong when Gates had difficulty connecting to the download site.

"This site is so slow it is unusable," he wrote in the e-mail.

His problems multiplied when the complex nature of the Windows operating system turned what should be a simple operation into something more arcane.

"In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve," Gates wrote.

"It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations."

"This struck me as completely odd."

Gates attempted to continue installation of the software, but the process ended up damaging the 'Add/Remove Programs' control panel that should make installing software easy.

"Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?" he wrote.

"What an absolute mess."

It is clear from the e-mail that Gates was intensely displeased by his failure to complete what should be a simple task.

"So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package," wrote Gates.

"The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind."

When asked about the e-mail by Bishop, Gates was blase about the e-mail and the tone of its content.

"There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail...like that piece of e-mail," he said with a smile.

"That's my job."