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EDITORIAL

By Will Fastie • Comment about this article

Woody Leonhard, né Gregory Forrest Leonhard, passed away on Saturday, March 8, 2025.

He is survived by his wife Addie and their son Andy; son Justin and granddaughter Angel; brothers Scott, Corey, Dustin, and Brent; sisters Trudy Rosler and Lisa Chappa; numerous nephews, nieces, grandnephews, and grandnieces; and Jasper, the dog.

Woody was born Gregory Forrest Leonhard on October 20, 1951, in Downey, California, to George and Rubye Leonhard. In 1969, he graduated from East Valley High School near Moxee, Washington, and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He then went on to earn a BA in mathematics from Whitman College in Walla Walla, graduating summa cum laude and earning a Phi Beta Kappa key.

Subsequently, he attended the University of Colorado Boulder, where he earned an MS (ABD) degree in computer science. (The designation ABD stands for “all but dissertation” and means that Woody had completed all coursework for a PhD, save the dissertation.)

Woody married Linda Sharp and then went to work for Aramco in Saudi Arabia. They traveled extensively during their time there, including meeting the Dalai Lama in Nepal. They also visited Thailand, where Woody’s grandfather had lived for some time. After leaving Aramco, the couple settled in Colorado, where Woody began to write.

He wrote two spy novels, neither of which was published. Then he wrote a freeware utility for the new Microsoft Word program. His writing and coding led him to become a full-time freelance technology writer in 1985.

Shortly after the introduction of Windows 3.1, Woody wrote Windows 3.1 Programming for Mere Mortals. He wrote books on every version of Windows thereafter except Windows 11, which appeared after he retired. Many of his books are in the Dummies series, some still in print.

In 1995, AskWoody contributor Peter Deegan began a conversation with Woody, eventually culminating in the creation of three newsletters: Woody’s Office Watch in 1996, Woody’s Windows Watch in 1998 (along with Barry Simon), and Woody’s Office for Mere Mortals in 2000. In 2004, Woody’s Windows Watch merged with Brian Livingston’s Brian’s Buzz on Windows newsletter to create the Windows Secrets Newsletter (WSN), the forerunner of the newsletter you’re reading today. Woody contributed to WSN and began writing for InfoWorld and later Computerworld. (Peter has continued publishing the other two newsletters to this day.)

Woody at the Bay View Cafe, Phang Nga, Thailand, in 2021
Photo ©2021 by Andy Leonhard. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

After his marriage ended, Woody moved to Thailand in 2000, where he met his second wife, Addie. Son Andy followed in 2010. The couple ran three coffee shops and a bakery. A stalwart of the community, Woody served as president of the Rotary Club of Patong Beach for one year in 2009, all the while continuing to write books and magazine columns.

In 2004, Woody launched this site, AskWoody.com, as a blog to broadcast news and advice about Windows, Microsoft, and Office. Ten years later, the family moved to Brentwood, Tennessee, where Woody continued writing and managing the site. In 2017, he expanded AskWoody by opening the public AskWoody Lounge to allow contributions from everyone.

Starting in 2010, Windows Secrets Newsletter changed hands several times. In 2019, Woody acquired WSN, rebranded it as the AskWoody Plus Newsletter, and combined the AskWoody Lounge with the Windows Secrets Lounge to create today’s AskWoody Forums.

In late 2020 and into 2021, the family spent time in Thailand. There, he wrote his last Computerworld column on November 9, 2020, titled On a personal note …. A day earlier, he had announced his retirement in his last contribution here, A changing of the guard at AskWoody.com, in which he also announced the transfer of the AskWoody portfolio to Susan Bradley.

In June 2021, with pandemic restrictions eased, Woody and his family returned to Brentwood, where he resided until his passing.

Godspeed, Woody.

We are indebted to the Leonhard family for its assistance in preparing this eulogy.

Woody is memorialized at Dignity.

Woody’s friend in Phuket and our own At Large reporter, Chris Husted, interviewed Woody for a profile in 2021. See Woody Leonhard – A new life in paradise.

If you would like to contribute a remembrance of Woody, we have a forum for that.

Contribute your thoughts in this article’s forum!

Will Fastie is editor in chief of the AskWoody Plus Newsletter.

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston • Comment about this article

The newsletter you’re reading today is here primarily because of one man: Woody Leonhard. He passed away on March 8, 2025. May he rest in peace.

Woody’s early days in the tech business included a stint as a beta tester for Microsoft’s Word for Windows 1.1. That experience enabled him to publish his first book in 1994: The Underground Guide to Word for Windows.

Woody started his email newsletter, Woody’s Windows Watch, in 1998. He later wrote several books in the popular “for Dummies” series. In 2021, he authored his final title, Windows 10 All-In-One for Dummies, 4th Ed., with Ciprian Rusen.

Separately, I had published my first book, Windows 3 Secrets, in 1991. I immediately began a weekly column for InfoWorld, “a newspaper for the computer industry,” with a circulation of more than 300,000. The column ran for 12 years.

Unfortunately, InfoWorld started losing tons of money during the 2000–2003 dot-com crash. Many tech companies folded, drying up the publication’s advertising revenue. I saw the writing on the wall and started my own email newsletter in 2003, Brian’s Buzz on Windows. When I first mentioned this fact in InfoWorld, 20,000 people signed up that week. Three months later, when my column acknowledged that this would be InfoWorld’s final printed issue, the newsletter grew to more than 50,000 subscribers.

That was fine, but Woody’s newsletter had garnered over 100,000 devotees. Our interests were so similar that Woody and I agreed in 2004 to merge our two efforts. We chose the name Windows Secrets Newsletter for the combined publication to leverage the publicity that publishers were pumping out for my series of 11 Secrets books.

Figure 1. Woody’s Windows Watch merged with Brian’s Buzz on Windows in 2004. It was edited by me and Paul Thurrott, who also ran the SuperSite for Windows (1999–2014). Screen cap by author

After we eliminated duplicate email address, our combined newsletter was going out to more than 145,000 recipients. That block of subscribers — many of whom donated — was large enough for us to pay some of the best tech writers in the business. This attracted even more readers.

I can never express my gratitude enough for Woody believing that we could achieve our goals together. The fact that I paid the bills on time gave others confidence. We merged with Fred Langa’s LangaList Newsletter in 2006, and Gizmo Richards’s Support Alert Newsletter in 2008. In 2010, I handed the reins to others.

Since then, the publication has had five different owners. It was relabeled the AskWoody Plus Newsletter in 2019 when Susan Bradley acquired it, as you can read on the site’s About page.

Others will memorialize Woody for his technical achievements, which are many. But I will remember Woody as a friend who trusted me to share our progress together for years.

		Contribute your thoughts in this article’s forum!
		Do you know something we all should know? Send your story to Brian in confidence!

The PUBLIC DEFENDER column is Brian Livingston’s campaign to give you consumer protection from tech. If it’s irritating you, and it has an “on” switch, he’ll take the case! Brian is a successful dot-com entrepreneur, author or co-author of 11 Windows Secrets books, and author of the fintech book Muscular Portfolios.

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