An hour later, they had learned the first rule of Windows development: Nothing is simple.

They started at the official OpenSSL website, only to find a labyrinth of source code and cryptic warnings. “Compile it yourself,” one forum post said. Alex laughed. They weren't a sysadmin; they were a data scientist who just wanted to call an API.

Alex stared at the error message in the terminal: “Unable to verify SSL certificate.” Their Python script, which had worked perfectly on their Linux server, was now a broken mess on their Windows laptop.

They closed the laptop. The war was over. They decided to order pizza. Tomorrow, they would tackle installing ffmpeg . But tonight, they celebrated the small, exhausting victory of a single command line tool.

“This feels like downloading a car from a stranger,” Alex whispered, clicking the EXE file.