Mark Russinovich, the Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft Azure, has released a project called DoomPaint that runs the original 1990s game Doom using Microsoft Paint as the screen. The code and instructions are available on GitHub in the repository markrussinovich/DoomPaint (Engadget, Tom's Hardware).

This is not a re-creation or a recorded video. DoomPaint runs the actual Doom game engine and loads the real shareware version of the game. It can reach up to 35 frames per second, which matches the speed the game originally ran at. Sound and music are included (Engadget).

The method is simple to describe but hard to pull off. Every frame the game produces is copied to the Windows clipboard, the same tool you use when you copy and paste text or images. That frame is then pasted into Paint's canvas as a new image. This happens again and again, up to 35 times per second. Paint is not being used as a special screen or a graphics tool. It is simply receiving copied images and showing them, one after another, fast enough to look like motion. The GitHub page includes setup instructions and a planning document (Engadget, GitHub).

The "Can It Run Doom?" trend has a long history in the technology world. People have gotten Doom running on calculators, ATMs, pregnancy tests, and many other devices that were never meant for gaming. Gizmodo covered DoomPaint under that banner on August 3 (Gizmodo). Tom's Hardware published its story on August 2 (Tom's Hardware). Engadget confirmed the details on August 4 (Engadget).

What makes DoomPaint stand out from other unusual Doom ports is who built it. Russinovich holds a senior position at Microsoft where deep knowledge of how Windows works is a core part of his job. Using the clipboard as the bridge between a game engine and a drawing program is a creative misuse of Windows features that were never designed for this purpose. Each frame has to be turned into an image, copied to the clipboard, and pasted into Paint, all within about 28 milliseconds. That the whole process holds together at the game's original speed is the genuinely impressive part.

The planning document in the repository suggests the project was built methodically, not as a quick experiment. Russinovich is well known among Windows system administrators for building tools that explore and expose how the operating system works. DoomPaint follows that same spirit, just with a deliberately silly goal.

For anyone who wants to try it, the GitHub repository at markrussinovich/DoomPaint has the full source code, the planning document, and setup instructions (GitHub).

The broader context here goes beyond the novelty. The Windows desktop, despite decades of updates and visual polish, is still highly programmable at a level most users never see. The clipboard, a feature from the early 1990s meant for copying text and images between programs, can be pushed fast enough to display a real-time game when someone writes the right code to drive it. DoomPaint is an extreme example, but it shows that the walls between programs on Windows are more open than they appear. For security professionals, the fact that a program can push images into an open Paint window 35 times per second through the clipboard is a reminder that the clipboard is a shared channel with no built-in protection, meaning any program can read from or write to it.

DoomPaint will not change how anyone uses MS Paint, and it will not reshape gaming. But it is a clear, working reminder that the connections between Windows programs are still wide open for anyone curious enough to look for them.