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Longhorn: Fewer BSODs, More RSODs

Jan Theofel writes "Windows Loghorn will present you less BSOD. Joi Ito reports that Windows Longorn will get additional ROSD (red screen of death) for 'really bad errors.' So you will get less BSOD but some new RSOD. You can find a ROSD screenshot in a virtual machine in his weblog entry."

573 comments

  1. New Feature by guaigean · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's always nice to see Microsoft adding new "features". Now they can tout Longhorn's decreased BSOD occurrences. Although I'd think they'd wanna avoid red screens as they are angry colors.

    --
    Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
    1. Re:New Feature by kertong · · Score: 5, Funny

      They also fail to mention the 3rd kind of failiure: the purple screen of death. Happens when longhorn bsods and rsods at the same time. psod is part of microsoft's new "quantum crash" technology, which is another added feature to longhorn.

      I can't wait to upgrade!

    2. Re:New Feature by SelectionShort · · Score: 0, Troll

      You would think that instead of changing the look of what happens when you get a critical error, they would fix to stupid critical flaws that cause these errors. This is like saying to the public, "We haven't fixed any of the problems but when your computer gets fried by Longhorn you can have a different page instead of that old tired Blue Screen that we know you have seen so much."

      Willy G

    3. Re:New Feature by ebuck · · Score: 5, Funny

      After which, Blarney, the animated Dinosaur will come popping up on your screen, trying to assist you in useful, cheerful ways.

      Blarney:

      Ohhh...
      Your computer crashed...
      But don't be sad....
      Be HAPPY!

      BSOD, BSOD,
      it's like getting a typing break for free!
      With a song and a dance, it will all go away.
      But it'll be back another day.

      User: They must relax gun laws for justifiable computer shootings.

    4. Re:New Feature by orangesquid · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Before the BSOD, it was the General Protection Fault. Before the GPF, it was the Unrecoverable Application Error. Was there anything prior to the UAE, or did the system just lock up?

      Who has seen a real-live Guru Meditation Error? I'm sure we've all seen linux oopses and unix panics, just to be fair...

      --
      --TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
    5. Re:New Feature by drsmithy · · Score: 1
      You would think that instead of changing the look of what happens when you get a critical error, they would fix to stupid critical flaws that cause these errors.

      I'm sure they do - *when they know about them*.

      We haven't fixed any of the problems but when your computer gets fried by Longhorn you can have a different page instead of that old tired Blue Screen that we know you have seen so much.

      If you're seeing a BSOD with any sort of regularity or frequency, your computer is broken. You should get it fixed.

    6. Re:New Feature by dabigpaybackski · · Score: 1

      "Quantum crash?" Let me guess how that works:
      If you predict that it will crash, then it won't, and if you predict that it won't crash, then it will.

      --
      "OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
    7. Re:New Feature by drsmithy · · Score: 1
      Before the BSOD, it was the General Protection Fault. Before the GPF, it was the Unrecoverable Application Error. Was there anything prior to the UAE, or did the system just lock up?

      GPFs and UAEs are *application errors* (like when you see that "core dumped" message in Linux - ie: the OS doing its job and killing misbehaving programs). BSODs are low level *OS errors* and 9/10 times are caused by either broken hardware or poorly written drivers.

    8. Re:New Feature by jZnat · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, it'd be the "Magenta Screen of Death" (#FF00FF).

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    9. Re:New Feature by Reaperducer · · Score: 1

      Who has seen a real-live Guru Meditation Error?

      I have. And lots of them. Still my favorite error ever. It was fascinating the way it appeared -- it sliced a hole in the display raster so that everything moved down below it into the overscan area. And with that blinking red border, there was no question something had gone terribly wrong.

      I also remember the antidote -- a program called "GOMF" which stood for Get Out of My Face. It would intercept Guru Meditation Errors and give you a graceful way to save your stuff before restarting.

      --
      -- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
    10. Re:New Feature by blargh-dot-com · · Score: 1

      I remember Guru Meditations... did a lot of coding on the Amiga, you saw them a lot. :) The first one scared the hell out of me, cause I saw the power light on my then-2-day-old A500 blinking first and then the screen goes dark...

      Going through the Includes & Autodocs, specifically exec/alerts.h, you find all kinds of interesting codes that were possible for the first 4 bytes. (00000003 and 80000003, and their cousins 04 were CPU traps, with the initial 0 meaning recoverable and the initial 8 meaning not recoverable)

      I actually TRIED to get as many of these to come up as I could, and a lot were obsoleted or just weren't triggerable (the call that would seem to trigger an alert just returned an error code instead, IIRC)

      The most amusing one was 0x82011234 - emergency memory not available from graphics.library. I think the only time I saw this was when it was trying to allocate memory to draw a recoverable Guru and failed. Or some such.

      And then there was the amusing undocumented ones. Like 0x48454C50 - HELP... when you really really really confuzzled the heck out of exec.library... I got this once but forget how.

      Good times.

      Oh, and then in 2.0 (or was it 3.0? Probably 3...) you had Amber and Red instead of just Red (Amber for the recoverable alerts I mentioned earlier).

    11. Re:New Feature by Winkhorst · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You realise the blue screen isn't set in concrete. You can change it in the registry like a lot of other things in Windders. I haven't seen it in ages, but I seem to recall I set mine to purple. Makes me think of easter eggs.

      --
      "Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
    12. Re:New Feature by turbidostato · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, not exactly.

      It is a new technology specially developed for datacentres: you either predict which moment any computer gonna crash, or you can point a box and predict that one will crash, but you can't predict at the same time which computer and when.

      I think they call it "Ballmer's Uncertainty Principle", or something like that.

    13. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can FirefFox pleasure me orally? (Although I am suprised no one has implemented an extension for this and some hardware, I think the answer is a 'NO')

    14. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Score:3, tries to be funny, but fails so pathetically that it's funny, thus cancelling out the patheticness, and entering an eternal loop

    15. Re:New Feature by ilikejam · · Score: 1
      For the un-initiated:
      http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/G/guru-medita tion.html

      I prefer the Atari ST 'Bomb' errors myself...

      --
      C-x C-s C-x k
    16. Re:New Feature by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1
      I'm sure we've all seen linux oopses and unix panics, just to be fair...

      Sort of. But in 11 years of using Linux, the only occasions I've seen a panic with a stable release of the kernel were when it was my own fault.

      I can't say that for the BSOD.

    17. Re:New Feature by EEBaum · · Score: 1

      the purple screen of death. Happens when longhorn bsods and rsods at the same time

      The Purple Screen of Death also transports you back in time and allows you to become your own grandfather.

      --
      -- I prefer the term "karma escort."
    18. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no. even though it fails so badly, it's still not funny. ughh..

    19. Re:New Feature by secolactico · · Score: 1

      If you predict that it will crash, then it won't, and if you predict that it won't crash, then it will.

      And if you open the dialog box, the office assistant dies.

      --
      No sig
    20. Re:New Feature by nsasch · · Score: 1

      User: They must relax gun laws for justifiable computer shootings.

      Especially with Internet hunting being banned(see recent article).
      --
      Make your computer faster: rm -rf /mnt/windows/
    21. Re:New Feature by niteice · · Score: 3, Informative

      Only in 3.x/9x. NT kernels have white-on-blue hardcoded. (if you have the leaked source, i think it's bugcheck.c)

      --
      ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
    22. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen it for hardware failure, whose fault would that be?

      I know people who think I'm outright lying by claiming that my Linux installations have never crashed other than due to hardware failure (one was testing some dodgy memory, yep it was dodgy, the other was a hard drive failing a few months out of warranty).

    23. Re:New Feature by P0ldy · · Score: 1

      They also fail to mention the 3rd kind of failiure: the purple screen of death. Happens when longhorn bsods and rsods at the same time.

      Are you sure that isn't representative of their stance on gay issues, such as the Teletubby?

    24. Re:New Feature by dmaxwell · · Score: 1, Funny

      Can FirefFox pleasure me orally? (Although I am suprised no one has implemented an extension for this and some hardware, I think the answer is a 'NO')

      Well, it's Open Source so if you want Firefox to have oral pleasuring then develop it yourself!

    25. Re:New Feature by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 3, Funny

      Perhaps MS should get a graphic designer to design their screens of death like Apple does.

      Although a good kernel panic is rare, it's nice to know they look pretty when they come up. It's kind of like someone placing confetti inside of an airbag.

      "Ohhh Shi... hum, that nice looking... ohh, ya... shit."

      --
      "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    26. Re:New Feature by fresh27 · · Score: 1

      lol windows crash. +1 Funny, you are a true slashot hero.

      --
      http://ipod.fresh27.net/
    27. Re:New Feature by Trepalium · · Score: 1

      UAEs were application errors, but because of the lack of memory protection in Windows 3.0, they were also system errors, usually requiring a reload of Windows as best, or a reboot at worse. GPFs in Windows 3.1 were ever-so-slightly better than the UAEs in 3.0, but still far too often required a reboot to fix. It wasn't until Windows 95 that introduced some real memory protection (but sadly, still not anywhere near what the 80386 or later was capable of) where you could have a concrete separation between real system errors (fatal exceptions) and application errors (illegal operations).

      --
      I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
    28. Re:New Feature by Masami+Eiri · · Score: 1

      No, that's the CSoD (Chrome Screen of Death).. your box has to be travelling 88mph, relative to the Earth's surface though.

    29. Re:New Feature by speeDDemon+(nw) · · Score: 1

      Still my favourite linux error was
      'Kernel panic. Food Fight!'

      Made me chuckle thats for sure

    30. Re:New Feature by ThJ · · Score: 1

      Guru Meditation Error? I used to have an Amiga 500! :D I wish Microsoft would be as funny. How's about a blue screen with the heading "Haooooooooom..."? x)

    31. Re:New Feature by citog · · Score: 0

      I thought the /. response should be
      Well, it's Open Source so if you want Firefox to have oral pleasuring then do it yourself! :)

      Alternatively we could go through the list:
      In Soviet Russia you give Firefox oral pleasure
      In South Korea, only old people use Firefox for oral pleasure etc.

      Guess I'll just sit back and wait for the obligatory Micro$oft & Internet Explorer sucks/blows :)

    32. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you need a 1.21 Jigawatt power supply as well.

    33. Re:New Feature by chucks86 · · Score: 1

      In Soviet Russia, you suck/blow.

      --
      Help a poor college student. Send a couple cents via paypal to chucks86@gmail.com
    34. Re:New Feature by MighMoS · · Score: 1

      It was some ini file you had to change. I can't remember which one though. I had black w/ red letters. Impressed my friends when it crashed, it did.

    35. Re:New Feature by Chrispy1000000+the+2 · · Score: 1

      My computer BSODs about every 30 min or so... the best thing is, you just hit a button, and it recovers. Usually. It's like the BSOnotsoD. But then again, I can rattle on for about an hour about what's wrong with this thing. Gotta love the whole run it till she stops mentality.

      --
      Sig
    36. Re:New Feature by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      I can't say that for the BSOD.

      You're running Windows, so it's your fault. Ickso Fatso.

      Seriously though, I've rarely seen a BSOD since Windows 2000 that wasn't obviously caused by a hardware problem.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    37. Re:New Feature by EEBaum · · Score: 1

      I beg to differ. The combination of red and blue may well send you "hurtling through a clock-filled tunnel."

      --
      -- I prefer the term "karma escort."
    38. Re:New Feature by Maserati · · Score: 1

      After they get done with colors I wanna see the Charm Screen of Death and the Strange Screen of Death. DownspinSOD is gonna be murder though.

      --
      Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
    39. Re:New Feature by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Funny

      If the dinosaur's name is "Blarney" he ought to represent the green screen of death!

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    40. Re:New Feature by ThePromenader · · Score: 1

      I'm so tired of these blasé error colours - if you're going to have an error page, you might as well design it all the way.

      Since the user is going to be seeing it a lot anyways, why not provide a "desktop picture" custom error page?

      Viva the "Paisley Screen of Death" !

      --

      No, no sig. Really.

      ThePromenader
    41. Re:New Feature by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      Ah hah! So that's why experienced computer users' computers crash less often than newbies'!

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    42. Re:New Feature by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      It was Stainless Steel, not chrome! And to think you consider yourself geeky enough to be posting on Slashdot! Sheesh!

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    43. Re:New Feature by octal666 · · Score: 1

      Software is like sex, if it's free, you have to do it yourself.

      --
      DON'T PANIC
    44. Re:New Feature by Kent+Recal · · Score: 1

      Who has seen a real-live Guru Meditation Error?

      I have seen plenty of them.
      Here's one for those who don't know it.

      Definately more stylish than the atari bombs or the mac sorryface.

    45. Re:New Feature by ThePromenader · · Score: 1

      I can only too readily imagine MS implementing an error screen that would, Men In Black -style, blank from your memory the fact that an error ever happened. Of course, if after rebooting Windows cannot resolve its system problem and errors-out again... and again... (cue post-apocalypse cityscape scene with apartment windows intermittently fillled with flashes of light)

      --

      No, no sig. Really.

      ThePromenader
    46. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your are right. I'm a Windows Fanboi too and it's definitely not funny!

    47. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blue + Red = Magenta. You know, the really bright and annoying purple.

    48. Re:New Feature by danheskett · · Score: 1

      Huh, I admin'ed a 5500 node Windows 2000 workstation network for about 11 months. We used remote logging to record just about every event that occured on the workstations.

      After eleven months of daily use ranging from very light, to very, very heavy, I never once had to deal with a BSOD.

      Your mileage may vary, but with solid hardware and certified signed drivers (we used 100% certified drivers), you can run a very stable Windows network!

    49. Re:New Feature by hanshotfirst · · Score: 1

      And re-use for all those ActiMates toys

      --
      Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
    50. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Warning: Tubgirl link in above comment! (No, seriously, it's a 404. Got a better link?)

    51. Re:New Feature by esarjeant · · Score: 1

      Interestingly enough, with Windows 3.1 one of the advertising gimmics was the elimination of the UAE. Not surprisingly, after upgrading virtually all of the apps that use to give me UAE's would give me GPF's instead.

      I wonder if this new red-screen-of-death is the precurser to the end of the blue-screen-of-death?

      TBPH, it would be nice to have some indication when the fault is the result of something the OS did rather than an bad app. It gets tricky when you start talking about drivers though, this is where most of my trouble has been in the past.

      --

      Eric Sarjeant
      eric[@]sarjeant.com

    52. Re:New Feature by Kent+Recal · · Score: 1

      Dude, the 404 is *it*.

    53. Re:New Feature by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      Perhaps MS should get a graphic designer to design their screens of death like Apple does.

      Considering that when Windows barfs, the video driver is often the first thing to go (why do you think the BSOD uses console display?), it doesn't do much good to have a GRAPHIC designer work on it.

      Maybe they can get the Last Living ASCII Artist In Captivity to work on it... is ANSI.SYS still included with Windows?

    54. Re:New Feature by BasharTeg · · Score: 1

      If you make OS-X panic just right, it'll barf kernel panic text that looks just like BSD or Linux, right on top of your graphical desktop. Not exactly designed by an artist.

    55. Re:New Feature by David+Gould · · Score: 1


      No, the Green Screen Of Death was an innovation developed for the Xbox.

      On the other hand, I remember hearing Linus Torvalds at a LinuxWorld Expo some years back discussing features under consideration for the then-upcoming kernel (not sure if it was 2.2 or 2.4) -- he mentioned that there'd been some talk of adding a "Mauve Screen Of Death", but that they'd scrapped it because "MS has too many patents in that area."

      --
      David Gould
      main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
    56. Re:New Feature by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      So, did you feel the breeze produced as the joke sailed straight over your head?

      "Blarney" is the name of a famous stone (and castle) in Ireland, and Ireland is associated with the color green. Therefore, a dinosaur named "Blarney" ought to be green. (The purple dinosaur is named "Barney" -- without the 'l.')

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    57. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FYI... "angry" colors are dependent on cultural context. Especially when you compare a western culture's view of particular colors with how eastern cultures view that same color.

    58. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and of course, that not so famous Orange dinosaur featured on the Animaniacs, Baloney! Lets sing the Anvil Song!

    59. Re:New Feature by David+Gould · · Score: 1


      Ah, yes... and of course, once one joke has been made on a subject, nobody else is allowed to make any related jokes with different meanings.

      On a thread poking fun at Microsoft and their *SODs, I guess mentioning the Xbox's Green SOD was completely inappropriate. And Linus' joke about the Mauve SOD has no relevance at all either.

      Sorry, my bad.

      --
      David Gould
      main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
    60. Re:New Feature by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      Far be it from me to object to making fun of Microsoft, but why did you post it as a reply to me, when it was almost completely unrelated to my joke? That's all I was confused about...

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    61. Re:New Feature by chromaphobic · · Score: 1

      The whole thing reminds of the pre-OS X Mac days, when Apple talked about having eliminated the then-infamous "Type 11" error (which had something to do with memory allocation, IIRC.) In reality, they hadn't fixed the problem but just changed the error handling so there were two new (Type 3 & 8 maybe? It's been years) errors to replace the old one.

      At least that's how I remember it, but my memory handling nowadays is about as bad as System 7's, so I may very well be having a Type 11 error of my own right now. :)

    62. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know that the pre OS X macs never crashed...not once. Macs would bomb, but they never crashed.

    63. Re:New Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *SOD in 8 bit colour! Ummm ... I mean *color*.

      -rav0 goes to register ...

  2. RSOD + BSOD = WTF? by crispybit · · Score: 0

    I guess thats one way of getting rid of the BSOD

    --
    To think is to engineer, to engineer is to become God
    1. Re:RSOD + BSOD = WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, RSOD + BSOD = PSOD.

    2. Re:RSOD + BSOD = WTF? by eyegor · · Score: 1

      A crash by any name is still a crash. It's like being a little dead instead of REALLY dead.

      I'm sure that next Microsoft will be lobbying congress to force other OSs to share the pain and add a crash "feature" to their systems. Sort of a "Diana Moon Glampers" approach to computing

      --

      Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
    3. Re:RSOD + BSOD = WTF? by Skye16 · · Score: 1

      The only time I've ever gotten BSODs on Win2k or XP is when hardware has failed (RAM and the like). I would imagine that's where the RSOD would come into play. Thats when your computer is really dead. The BSOD would be for things like "important system files have become corrupted by ninjas" and the like. That's when it's just mostly dead, but you can repair it quickly and easily.

    4. Re:RSOD + BSOD = WTF? by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      However, the "important system files have been corrupted by ninjas" can be indistinguishable from "hardware's fucked up". For example, if, oh, USBSTOR.SYS is causing a BSOD, then how do you tell if it's some REALLY fucked up USB Mass Storage implementation, a fucked up USB controller (what I thought it was), or a corrupted file? (In that case, it was a corrupted file - this laptop has a TravelStar)

  3. NSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    no screen of death....

    1. Re:NSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesnt Linux BSD and OSX feature that?

    2. Re:NSOD by spitefulcrow · · Score: 1

      No, UNIX systems have crash screens too. They're just less frequent and don't come in pretty colors.

      --
      Sorry, my karma just ran over your dogma.
  4. Orange and Yellow? by sgeye · · Score: 5, Funny

    So where are the yellow and orange? Looks like MS has been taking advice from Tom Ridge.

    1. Re:Orange and Yellow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      White is next. MS is patriotic.

    2. Re:Orange and Yellow? by fermion · · Score: 3, Funny
      Rimmer: Step up to red alert!
      Kryten: Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.

      Next thing you know they will have a mauve screen of death.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    3. Re:Orange and Yellow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next thing you know they will have a mauve screen of death.

      Well mauve does have the most RAM.

  5. Look! now it's RED!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Let that be a leeson for the losers that keep claiming that Microsoft never
    innovates!

    1. Re:Look! now it's RED!! by shish · · Score: 1

      Interesting innovation in the line-break department :-|

      --
      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
  6. Wow... That was quick... by Scaz7 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Wow that was quick... Already /.ed...

    And there's no posts yet... ouch... i bet ya the box has already been bsoded...

  7. BSOD by Dante+Shamest · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've not seen one of those in a long, long time.

    1. Re:BSOD by Chess_the_cat · · Score: 1

      Over three years since I got my XP box and I've yet to see one.

      --
      Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
    2. Re:BSOD by Quirk · · Score: 1

      The BSOD, download the screensaver from sysinternals it'll bring back that sick to the pit of your stomach feeling.

      --
      "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
      Cohen
    3. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Start by pushing the "POWER ON" button on your box.

    4. Re:BSOD by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      Me neither, KDE doesn't display them.

    5. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the last time I saw a BSOD was over a year ago, and even then it was because I was trying to overclock my processor.

      If you see BSODs on a regular basis, it's probably your damn hardware. Either that or you have a crap load of spyware installed on your machine because you're stupid enough to click on shit you shouldn't be clicking on.

    6. Re:BSOD by Artega+VH · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can actually set it so that when your computer BSOD's it will simply reset. Discovered this when my graphics card was continually causing the kernel (with the graphics card driver) to memory dump.

      Perhaps someone can help out with the setting..

      --
      groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
    7. Re:BSOD by game+kid · · Score: 1

      I've yet to see more than one in Windows XP, that one being a few years ago. That OS has been good to me especially relative to NT4, ME, et al.

      If Microsoft wants to stay in the market, Longhorn better not regress. Linux already has the server side, and we already know Windows for the BSOD (and the jellybean start button and the monopoly and the 0xC0000005 and all of that) so if 'horn becomes famous for RSODs, misaligned Recycle Bin shadows, or another one of those "Messenger pop-up"-type things, MS will become fragile.

      Which, for a lot of you I guess, would be a happy day.

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
    8. Re:BSOD by Gibberx · · Score: 0

      BSOD... now that's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time...

    9. Re:BSOD by Geek+of+Tech · · Score: 5, Funny
      Don't worry sir, I expect you'll finally get your computer plugged in any day now.

      In all seriousness though, XP isn't nearly as prone to BSODs ( or any other color :P ) , as 9x was. I'd still prefer my Debian or Gentoo though.

      --
      Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
    10. Re:BSOD by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 1
      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    11. Re:BSOD by NetNifty · · Score: 2, Informative

      To change "reset instead of BSOD", right-click "My Computer", hit properties, advanced tab, startup and recovery, and set automatically restart.

    12. Re:BSOD by myowntrueself · · Score: 5, Funny

      I remember reading about the press conference where the Xbox was being hyped up.

      The MS guy said "There will be no blue screen of death on the xbox"

      I wish I'd been there, I'd have stuck my hand up and asked "What color will it be instead?"

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    13. Re:BSOD by melikamp · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up! I think it is the default setting in XP.

    14. Re:BSOD by NanoGator · · Score: 0

      "I've not seen one of those in a long, long time."

      Yeah but since a lot of users here switched to Linux long ago, they're not aware of this, so they still giggle giggle snort snort over the BSOD jokes. You'd think with all the fun we've been having with IE' security, some fresh material would come in.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    15. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Over three years since I got my XP box and I've yet to see one.

      The probably because XP defaults to rebooting instead of showing the BSOD.

    16. Re:BSOD by utlemming · · Score: 1

      Wow...that is interesting. Using a BSOD as a screensaver is scary. It might keep people from using your computer, but the fear it might envoke while working on a paper might not be good. But it might be a good one to install on a co-workers computer. That could be a good laugh.

      --
      The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
    17. Re:BSOD by Sparr0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is green. Everyone with an xbox knows that.

    18. Re:BSOD by stephenisu · · Score: 1, Insightful

      WinXP hides most of its BSOD's. It just restarts explorer. There is an option to make it show when it happens. Most people think I am kidding, but it is true. We had some hardware issues at work that took way longer than it should have to diagnose before our "sysadmin" figured this one out.

      --
      Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
    19. Re:BSOD by Zakabog · · Score: 1

      I see them every time I have to deal with a computer where the motherboard died. Stick in a new one, it gets a nice BSOD (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE), the only way to fix it is to buy the exact same motherboard that was in before. Which is usually impossible since the motherboards are usually old. You'd think Microsoft would realize this is a huge issue, their solution, have the same exact hardware in your backup computers. Well that's a little hard for a home user. Even for a small business user.

      This always leads to me having to re-install windows, make sure not to overwrite ANYTHING (especially when dealing with a small business' computer, since every file on the computer is usually very important), copy over the old documents and all that, re-install any software that needs to be re-installed (since it's no longer in the registry.) It takes a long time and I don't want to charge the person for 2 or 3 hours of work when swapping a motherboard just takes 15 minutes, just because Microsoft f-ed up and couldn't make it easier to load a driver for a new disk controller from outside of windows (like in the recovery console, which is mostly useless.)

    20. Re:BSOD by SirTalon42 · · Score: 2, Funny

      MS guy: "There will be no blue screen of death on the xbox"

      myowntrueself: "What color will it be instead"

      *MS Security advances on myowntrueself*

      *fight between myowntrueself and ms security*

      *ms security tasers myowntrueself and procedes to beat him till the audience forgets the question*

      MS guy: "Any other questions?"

    21. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Even better, the Sysinternals BSOD screensaver doesn't respond to the mouse like most do, giving you an extra second or two of panic before you remember to try hitting buttons on the keyboard. It's dead-on realistic too, since it grabs data about the actual drivers on your computer to fabricate its bluescreens.

      You can install it on some random computer, then when it activates tell your co-worker "oh, did you know if you hit Ctrl-Alt-Shift-PageUp it fixes the blue screen?" Then proceed to demonstrate, leaving their mouth hanging open. "All these years I never knew you could do that, it would have saved me so much pain! You're a computer genius!" they'll say. Muahahaha.

    22. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously you're not a capable admin then. The trick is to remove the custom IDE drivers from Device Manager and let Windows install generic ones. Granted, this may be difficult if the motherboard has died outright, but there are utilities like ERD Commander that will allow you to make such changes to Windows' configuration while not in Windows.

    23. Re:BSOD by peragrin · · Score: 1

      >>You'd think with all the fun we've been having with IE' security, some fresh material would come in

      Sorry BSOD's are classic.

      and I can make XP BSOD or restart almost on demand. my roommate won't let me touch his computers because of it. It's not hardware as he doesn't have problems normally.

      XP is better , and i am hoping Longhorn finally catches up to the rest of the World's OS's for stability. MSFT does have smart people working for them, who else pulled out the duck tape and Superglue that held the 9x series together.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    24. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I keep hearing this but I keep reloading XP machines because the NTFS file structure is hosed!

      No, it isn't a bad hard disk and it isn't bad motherboards! It certainly looks like NTFS in WinXP has a (at least one) severe problem! Keep talking like this, tho; it proves how much time M$ is willing to invest in astroturfing rather than fixing problems!

    25. Re:BSOD by solive1 · · Score: 1

      Only time I've seen one recently is on a friend's box after he installed some faulty RAM. Of course, he still had the box set to automatically reset at first, so he never saw it until i told him to disable it. Other than that, I may have seen one BSOD since I got XP.

    26. Re:BSOD by neil.orourke · · Score: 1

      That's why you do a repair install.

      When I replaced my Dell laptop with my Acer, I swapped over the HD because I've so much stuff installed it would take far too long. Power-on the Acer; BSOD.

      Boot from the WinXP cd, select the Repair option, and WinXP is re-installed (sans security patches) from the ground up. Apply the Acer drivers and the machine is now totally set up as if the HD came straight from Acer.

    27. Re:BSOD by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      That's cool. I really missed this screensaver when changed to KDE.

    28. Re:BSOD by dmaxwell · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's nice in theory but it doesn't always work. You also get this problem if the replacement mobo has a different "acpi personality" than the old one. I've made sysprep images with the generic IDE controllers and still came to tears over that issue.

    29. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How come others of us who are in charge of hundreds of XP machines don't see this? I think it's a hardware/driver issue on your end. I deal with a LOT of large installation sites and never run into NTFS file structure 'hosing' and requiring a reghosting.

    30. Re:BSOD by Myen · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, it restarts the machine.

      (If it could just restart explorer, that means it's recoverable and in user-space. I.e., not a BSoD, which happens in kernel-space. After all, explorer is just a shell.)

      And yes the restarting is a pain, since then you have no idea what just happened. Even worse is when it happens on boot - yay restart loop. AFAICT, checking the event log does not give all the information available in the BSoD.

    31. Re:BSOD by Myen · · Score: 1
      Even worse is when you forget it's the screensaver and hit the hardware reset button. (Had W2k with a problem with symevent (Norton) at the time, so I saw BSoDs frequently at the time.)

      /me did that once.

    32. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, at least on Debian and Gentoo you can have your kernel panic any color you want.

    33. Re:BSOD by tadheckaman · · Score: 1

      2 things you can do, one, if the motherboard is still in bootable state, change the ide drivers to microsoft generic drivers (whatever they are called). Thats will almost always boot up. Second, you can do a reinstall of XP that will keep all programs and profiles installed. Just go through a normal install, and where it asks would you like to repair, just press R. I have done this many times and rarely have it fail on me. YMMV

      --
      My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction.
    34. Re:BSOD by yem · · Score: 1

      Plug a usb-storage compliant USB thumbdrive into this Thinkpad R50e w/ XP Home SP2 (all windowsupdate updates applied). Instant blue screen followed a split second later by system shutdown. :/

      Blaming shoddy hardware and/or drivers is a cop out IMO.

      --
      No, I did not read the f***ing article!
    35. Re:BSOD by NanoGator · · Score: 0

      "and I can make XP BSOD or restart almost on demand."

      That's funny because of all the computers I've had running 2K or XP (with one exception), I've only managed to do it 2 or 3 times. That's going back over 5 years and different hardware setups.

      On the other hand, there was one machine that was horribly defective. I could make it BSOD with XP. Then I replaced the mobo and suddenly, blammo, no BSODs. Go fig.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    36. Re:BSOD by suss · · Score: 1

      I've not seen one of those in a long, long time.

      That's probably because the default is now to immediately reboot windows XP (without warning) instead of giving you a bluescreen... yeah, that's progress.

    37. Re:BSOD by Johnno74 · · Score: 1

      XP and 9x are about as similar as XP and linux. Actually, XP and linux are a lot more similar, as they are both 32bit pre-emptive multitasking OS's.

      9x is a pile of dirty hacks running on top of ms-dos its quite surprising it runs as well as it does.

    38. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because obviously, what's truly an example of a real-world crash on all systems is using a single instance on a single machine.

    39. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK. I demand it. Post the steps please.

    40. Re:BSOD by MighMoS · · Score: 1

      I got a BSOD the very day I installed WindowsXP. Still running their default drivers for video card before anyone says "bad drivers". I tried to change the screen saver. BSOD. I knew at that point we'd never get along, and 6 months later linux was installed. Only problem was when I overclocked that very card. And then the effect was much more pretty.

    41. Re:BSOD by Chrispy1000000+the+2 · · Score: 1

      You don't wan ta know what I've ha to do to keep 'er running cap'in. You don't wan ta know. The best part is, it's all original hardware.

      Win 98. It's like shooting yourself in the foot, cleaning the barrel, and expecting less painful results.

      --
      Sig
    42. Re:BSOD by irq255 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What if you've seen blue screens in Windows on a machine that previously was able to run Linux for weeks or even months at a time without ever locking up? If the hardware were really the culprit, wouldn't linux also be affected and crash just like Windows does?

    43. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No less so than the parent post. Take it for what it is.

    44. Re:BSOD by Fourmica · · Score: 2, Informative

      How to disable restarting after a BSOD, which is turned on by default in Windows XP:

      My Computer - > Properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery -> Settings

      In the "System Failure" section, uncheck "Automatically Restart".

      --
      *** formica has quit IRC (connection reset by phear)
    45. Re:BSOD by assassinator42 · · Score: 1

      It's black, the background at least. I forget what color the text is in, I think white. It says "You're xbox requires service" in a bunch of different languages, and an error number on top. It's very unlikely you'll get one of these without trying to mod your xbox though. When it crashes normally, it just freezes, sometimes accompanied by a buzzing sounds (at least for EA games).

    46. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Isn't it:

      Win XP. It's like shooting yourself in the foot, cleaning the barrel, and expecting less painful results.

    47. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And in SP2 you can disable the auto reboot in the F8 startup menu (no more bartpe reg editing).

    48. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I installed a basic promise ide controller when I setup new installs. Install the drivers (if needed) but then remove the card. If I have to replace the motherboard I just put the card back and connect the drive to it.

    49. Re:BSOD by eclectro · · Score: 1

      Neither have I. What I do see a lot of is Windows XP machines filled with spyware, trojans, viruses, and hijacks to the point that they operate like a 486, if that.

      It's so bad that I no longer mention that I work with computers to aquaintances for fear they will hit me up for a removal job.

      --
      Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    50. Re:BSOD by Stelminator · · Score: 1

      Easiest way to get one without modding: unplug the ide cable from the dvd drive. (Though you do need to open the box to do that.)

      The background is black, yes, but the text is green.

    51. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the Xbox does SOD, and naturally, it's green.

    52. Re:BSOD by OwlWhacker · · Score: 1

      You're probably using Windows XP.

      XP doesn't crash, it just responds less.

      : )

    53. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAICT, checking the event log does not give all the information available in the BSoD.

      Wow, so you're the guy who can tell what those things mean. I always wondered who it was that information was useful to. Nice to finally put a /. account to the name.

    54. Re:BSOD by rco3 · · Score: 1

      No, because Lunix isn't as advanced as Windows and doesn't really use all the hardware you paid for. Windows actually knows how all of that stuff works, and it uses everything, and that's why it crashes more on your computer because it's one of those special things that Windows knows about and Lunix doesn't that's actually broken on your computer. So, like, you need to get a new computer and stuff. Plus that's why the Windows is slower, see, 'cause it's using all that extra stuff and that takes more time to make sure that it's using everything your computer can do so that it's doing stuff the best... see?

      Oh, and cause your computer is so f-ed up and stuff, you need to go ahead and get a new, fast computer that can run Longhorn, cause that's gonna be really awesome, and then you can just throw that old computer away. You don't want to keep trying to run Lunix on it, because it's not going to use all the stuff and your Lunix won't work as good as the Windows.

      -- note to mods: yes, the above was intended as sarcasm. I used to work as a PC salesman, back when there were computer stores that just sold computers. I'd hear the other guys tell customers crap like that (except for the Longhorn part) all the time. And yet, they had better sales numbers than I. Go figure.

      --

      Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
    55. Re:BSOD by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

      Ironically, this exact same thing happens to me if I plug my mp3 player into my FreeBSD system - the last time I tried it, I lost my /usr partition. So I just blamed the problem on dodgy hardware (although it works fine under Windows... hmmm). If dodgy hardware ios no excuse, I guess I'll have to blame the operating system now. Oh well.

    56. Re:BSOD by AndyCadley · · Score: 1

      "If the hardware were really the culprit, wouldn't linux also be affected and crash just like Windows does?" Does your Linux install use the Windows device drivers? No? Doesn't prove a thing then.

    57. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I presume that every Linux user here understands that BSODs are usually caused by driver bugs, rather than OS bugs? The reason 2K and XP have fewer BSODs is largely due to the Windows Driver validation that Microsoft do now. You can still make any PC BSOD just by finding all the bugs in the nVidia or ATi drivers, though :)

      The RSOD looks like a boot manager error, given that it says "Windows Boot Error". So it's not a "more serious" BSOD, it's a boot failure, where a BSOD would not be appropriate.

    58. Re:BSOD by noamsml · · Score: 1

      did your computer ever restart sopntaneously? there's a new "feature" in WinXP causing that your computer will restart before you can see the BSOD.

    59. Re:BSOD by noamsml · · Score: 1

      I have one on my linux machine, and it can display kernel panics as well. the kernel may have not panicked whe the screensaver appeared, but I certainly did!

    60. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "checking the event log does not give all the information available in the BSoD"

      That is what the "mini crash dump" is for which is produced along side the event log entry

    61. Re:BSOD by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1
      I presume that every Linux user here understands that BSODs are usually caused by driver bugs, rather than OS bugs? The reason 2K and XP have fewer BSODs is largely due to the Windows Driver validation that Microsoft do now. You can still make any PC BSOD just by finding all the bugs in the nVidia or ATi drivers, though :)

      Horseshit. Unless that hardware also includes "memory" which win9X wasn't good at "protecting," for instance.

    62. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I haven't seen a Blue Screen of Death on Windows Server 2003 to date.

      I have been running it since the tail end of 2003 when I received it in MSDN packages.

      I think that finally @ this point in time that software & operating systems (and drivers as well) have reached a state of stability over the long term. I cannot remember the last time I had to reboot either.

      (I installed all of my softwares and update patches months ago and the system just keeps running.)

      I know that the majority of Slashdot seems to be VERY "pro-linux" but at times? Too much so.

      All the "F.U.D." that attempts to get spread here?? Ineffectual really.

      I know better, first hand.

    63. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never crash with BSOD's here using Windows Server 2003 - I think the Linux camp should accept 1 fact:

      Windows IS where it is at. The business world uses it, it is not going away, and it is stable. Windows runs more software and hardware than Linux by far as well.

      All Linux does? Is play continual 'catch up ball', facts are facts.

    64. Re:BSOD by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      sort of. i had a dodgy motherboard, linux was crashy (apps and occasionally the kernel but i was new to linux at the time and was using mandrake which is known for its crashyness).

      anyway, linux was crashy, windows wouldn't install.

    65. Re:BSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      One thing worth mentioning here that the Mac zealots might huff and puff about. Microsoft manages to create a pretty stable environment when the hardware is a constant. People who mod their Xbox of course sometimes have some issues, but that's not surprising. Mac heads always talk about how MS couldn't write software that doesn't crash and Apple software is superior, but Apple has the advantage of only writing software for their own hardware which is much easier to do.

    66. Re:BSOD by flosofl · · Score: 1

      The BSOD, download the screensaver from sysinternals it'll bring back that sick to the pit of your stomach feeling.

      Man, I love that screensaver! I have it on my workstation here at work. It's freaked the hell out of some of the help-desk people, and it always gets a double-take when people walk by :)

      It does seem to disable the power-save on my monitor, however. If I log on as another user (or the machine is sitting at the logon screen), power-save works fine.

      --
      "This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
    67. Re:BSOD by revscat · · Score: 1

      Man, I wish that thing were available for OS X. That WOULD confuse the inmates.

    68. Re:BSOD by IceAgeComing · · Score: 1


      Of course that's what you do. Only a moron wouldn't know to do that.

    69. Re:BSOD by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      I call partial horseshit on you. NT runs the drivers in kernel space, where there is no memory protection between things running in that space (IIRC). If a driver is buggy, it could GPF with the kernel, causing a BSOD.

    70. Re:BSOD by Myen · · Score: 1

      No, all I know to do is to look for the name of the driver at which point I can try to figure out what's wrong.

      The guy below mentioning the crash dumps is the guy you're looking for. I don't even know what might open a crash dump - windbg perhaps?

  8. Spelling by imemyself · · Score: 1, Informative

    An error occurred transferring exectuion. I guess M$ isn't even using developers who know English?

    --
    Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
    1. Re:Spelling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Yoda speak, you insensitive clod!

    2. Re:Spelling by Neitokun · · Score: 1

      do we really need to critisize the spelling in something thats not on official release?

    3. Re:Spelling by strider44 · · Score: 1

      that would be "aren't even using developers who know English".

    4. Re:Spelling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on the country. American English refers to companies in the singular, while British (possibly Canadian as well?) English refers to them in the plural.

    5. Re:Spelling by blincoln · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      that would be "aren't even using developers who know English".

      It depends on if you're using American or British Commonwealth grammar.

      American grammar treats corporate entities as a single being ("Microsoft is changing the color of the screen"), Commonwealth countries treat them as a group of people ("Microsoft are changing the colour of the screen").

      --
      "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
    6. Re:Spelling by strider44 · · Score: 1

      I seem to be standing corrected. I am, of course, an Australian who is using actual British English.

    7. Re:Spelling by TERdON · · Score: 1

      Of course not. The development is being outsourced...

      --
      I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
    8. Re:Spelling by damiam · · Score: 1

      Um, no, it wouldn't. Microsoft is singular, so "MS isn't" is correct.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    9. Re:Spelling by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, it's spelled correctly. ROSD is how "Red Screen Of Death" is spelled on Little-Endian systems.

    10. Re:Spelling by JW+Troll · · Score: 0

      no, the real problem is that they're using open source spell-checkers.

      --
      just like the humble blood clot... turboporsche@telus.net
  9. Spelling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does ROSD=RSOD or is it some twisted lack of spellchecking?

  10. in other news by Coneasfast · · Score: 2, Funny

    Parents all over America are concerned that these new 'Red' screens of death are very stressful for their children and are pushing for microsoft to change this color immediately.

    Microsoft was unavailable for comment at this time.

    --
    Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
  11. This is good news. Why doesn't Linux have this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Why doesn't Linux have a 'user friendly' blue screen of death, instead of the cryptic messages about '/etc/resolv.conf' being corrupt or 'incorrect number of inodes in the ipchains demon' garbage that currently passes for a crash screen.


    They could use green, or yellow, and avoid IP lawsuits. (So long as they don't use the RGB value D7D7D7 (which is patented by a well known controversial website) they should be OK.

    1. Re:This is good news. Why doesn't Linux have this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I'm sure a Shade of gray is patented.

    2. Re:This is good news. Why doesn't Linux have this? by HermanAB · · Score: 1

      ...not to mention the cryptic Morse code flashed on the keyboard lights when there is a kernel panic... ;-)

      --
      Oh well, what the hell...
  12. Page already Slashdotted... by Ninwa · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Re:Page already Slashdotted... by dotpavan · · Score: 3, Informative

      and there is mirrordot and it doesnt have that many ads as n/w mirror and looks a lot better than n/w mirror

    2. Re:Page already Slashdotted... by mnmn · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'll bet he's experiencing the RSOD right now.

      --
      "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    3. Re:Page already Slashdotted... by Seumas · · Score: 1

      We all know what a BSOD is... do we really need a photo to imagine what an RSOD is like?

      Sheesh...

  13. Longorn? Loghorn? by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one not getting the joke?

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    1. Re:Longorn? Loghorn? by Arngautr · · Score: 1

      ROSD??? Loghorn???

      Submitter is German?... but as for the editors...

    2. Re:Longorn? Loghorn? by KillShill · · Score: 1

      a deity capable of deceiving you is not a deity.

      perhaps you ought to do more than just espousing hate for religion because of it's supposed followers.

      it's always been about power/money/control. using religion to achieve those ends has been the norm not the exception.

      don't blame god for what seems like shortcomings in your life... unless you really want to. :)

      --
      Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
    3. Re:Longorn? Loghorn? by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1
      a deity capable of deceiving you is not a deity.
      Is that something you can demonstrate? Or would it be by definition? If the latter then I'll have to change my sig to "Anything capable of creating a universe is obviously capable of deceiving you", though only after you convince me your definition is standard usage.

      perhaps you ought to do more than just espousing hate for religion
      Why not reply in a more pertinent manner rather than making vague generalizations, presuppositions and exhortations?
      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    4. Re:Longorn? Loghorn? by KillShill · · Score: 1

      definition and demonstrable.

      let me ask you then, what did YOU mean by your sig?

      --
      Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
  14. Thank goodness. by ebuck · · Score: 3, Funny

    I guess they've FINALLY fixed the last issue that casues a blue screen of death with Longhorn. :)

    1. Re:Thank goodness. by russellh · · Score: 1

      Now they should extend the "recycle" theme from Death to Reincarnation.

      --
      must... stay... awake...
  15. wtf is a really bad error? by aendeuryu · · Score: 5, Funny

    What exactly is a really bad error? I mean, a bad error versus a really bad error? That warrants a color change, anyways?

    Frankly, I think customers ought to get rsod's for actually buying the damn product. That seems like a really bad error to me.

    1. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by strider44 · · Score: 1

      I would think that anything that corrupts data or is indicative of a hardware fault would be a "really bad error", a simple crash would be a "bad error".

    2. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by Spoing · · Score: 4, Interesting
      What exactly is a really bad error?

      Well, if they follow IEEE, US Military, SEI CMM, and other related standards 'really bad' is a 'critical'/'show stopper' roughly defined as 'System can not perform a necessary function or data loss occurs'. One step below that is 'high' meaning basically 'problem can be avoided, though it's a PITA'.

      Critical errors can be categorized from 'system or application crashes before it can be used completely but no data loss occurs' (bad) to 'system silently corrupts data' (nasty).

      If you want better definitions, check the specs for any of the above and look for a rating system called "Severity levels". (Note: not the same as priority levels.) Typically there are 4 levels of severity.

      --
      A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
    3. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by NetNifty · · Score: 1

      Maybe the motherboards of the future will have smoke detectors and a really bad error is your computer is on fire? Seriously though, I'm thinking it would probably be a hardware error when running a diagnostic ("I just chucked 111 in RAM location x and it came back as 222, wtf?") or maybe the filesystem is corrupt or something along those lines.

    4. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 2, Funny

      Sure, but how is that different from a BSOD? They're both fatal errors. If you were working on something at that time, it's gone.

      Frankly the only times I'd expect to see a RSOD would be for about 2 seconds before the smell of charred components reached my nose and the screen snow crashed.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    5. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by gmby · · Score: 1

      I think this would qualify....
      http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/ 03/1735254&tid=109&tid=126&tid=137

      Is this the reason for the color change?

      --
      I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
    6. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by jZnat · · Score: 1

      In that case, the BSOD should've been a RSOD since you can't "Hit Enter to continue" anymore. When your RAM wants to do the Hammertime, it will STOP without the option to intervene.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    7. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by Spoing · · Score: 1
      I wasn't saying what Microsoft would designate to be a BSOD or an RSOD. Who knows what rules if any they follow. The standard definitions outside of the Redmond Distortion Field are well known, though, so I stated what 'really bad' basically means to anyone who takes problem categorization seriously (aka "Severity levels").

      If this were a contract, the definitions would be a bit more complete and legally binding. :p

      --
      A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
    8. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by EEBaum · · Score: 1

      A BSOD crashes your machine and perhaps the files you were working on. An RSOD takes the little bombs from the old Macintoshes and detonates them.

      --
      -- I prefer the term "karma escort."
    9. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      a bad error versus a really bad error?

      I find it disturbing that you should think of such things. It sounds like you're driving towards being spanked by a dominatrix. "You have been really, really bad!"

    10. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, that's a good point. Anytime the error screen is labelled as "OF DEATH", the error was presumably bad in a way that would be considered 'a show stopper'.

      The difference between a red fatality and a blue fatality?
      He went out with class?
      Died with his boots on?

    11. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by Detritus · · Score: 1

      My favorite is "trap while in trap handler". That means that a trap occurred while executing system code to handle or recover from a trap. Which usually means that everything has turned to shit and the fire engine has caught on fire.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    12. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So essentially, they're taking any BSOD's that are already happening and divide them into two categories?

      I like this idea. It would be nice to tell at a glance if my goddamn video card has frozen the computer again or if it's actually something serious.

      --
      I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
    13. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by sharkey · · Score: 1
      What exactly is a really bad error?

      Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    14. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by Fishstick · · Score: 1

      I thought you said crossing the streams was bad!?

      Well, there's definitely a slight chance that we might survuve!

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

    15. Re:wtf is a really bad error? by pVoid · · Score: 1
      The difference between a red fatality and a blue fatality?

      -The system has been halted. Please reboot. (NTFS being transactional, you probably won't even need chkdsk to run)

      or any of:

      -Your MFT is corrupt beyond recognition, hope you had backups

      -Your root partition is not in existence anymore, please re-install

      -Your boot drive is not functional, please buy new hardware

      -Your CPU has melted, I shouldn't even be able to tell you this...

  16. Great by Spetiam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now people will have heart attacks instead of just saying, "What the heck?" and getting frustrated.

    Blues (and greens) are generally more soothing/comforting (which is why blue or green are most frequently favorite colors), whereas reds are more jarring (which is why it's used for stop signs, warning labels, etc.).

    1. Re:Great by Spetiam · · Score: 1

      Please note, this is hyperbole.

    2. Re:Great by fyoder · · Score: 1
      Now people will have heart attacks instead of just saying, "What the heck?" and getting frustrated.

      Yes, especially with the red alert sound effect that accompanies it. It should be, as you suggest, a soothing colour, and the sound effect should be a slowly fading "Daisy,... Dai...sy,... give ... me... yourr..r.... ansrr..r.r......"

      --
      Loose lips lose spit.
    3. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blues (and greens) are generally more soothing/comforting (which is why blue or green are most frequently favorite colors)

      You've obviously never used GEM :).

    4. Re:Great by Spetiam · · Score: 1

      Heh. Point taken. However, the key word here is "generally." ;)

    5. Re:Great by debiansid · · Score: 1

      1) Grandma sees the RSOD
      2) Grandma has a stroke
      3) Grandma switches to Mac

      Hell now Microsoft can't use the "Even your Grandma can use it" tagline can it.

      But seriously, what could make Microsoft introduce a new error level? Does this mean that Longhorn may just as well fsck up your data if it wishes to?

      Maybe Bill has finally realized his dream of selecting users at random and replacin all their data files with copies of his modelling photos http://nagi.twoday.net/topics/Aaaaaargh+!/

    6. Re:Great by quigonn · · Score: 1

      In fact, there has been a major study in the early 1980s, where they found out that blue is the color that makes people most comfortable (the target group were people working on a desk, with the whole room painted in the tested color).

      And, well, they redid this study in the late 1990s, and the results for all colors basically stayed the same, _except_ for blue, which is now a color that (statistically) makes people more aggressive. The researchers presume this to have a connection with the BSOD...

      --
      A monkey is doing the real work for me.
  17. Cosmic Man... by Robotron23 · · Score: 0

    Rainbow Screen of Death?

    Wow man. :)

  18. so the news here is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...that Microsoft changed the color of the crash screen, ie: they became communists

  19. Yeah, right. by dotslashconfig · · Score: 2, Funny

    You can find a ROSD screenshot in a virtual machine in his weblog entry.

    Not anymore, heheheh....

    1. Re:Yeah, right. by redheaded_stepchild · · Score: 1

      I wonder if his server got a BSOD?

      --
      Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
  20. Interesting by thisnow1 · · Score: 1

    Funny how this is a "feature" Long-time reader, first time poster. YEAH!

  21. Alternate View by guaigean · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, here's a link to the pic... til I get slashdotted... http://209.193.18.52/RedScreen.jpg

    --
    Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
    1. Re:Alternate View by Spetiam · · Score: 1

      And a Coral Cache link of same.

    2. Re:Alternate View by rzebram · · Score: 1

      Backup on that, just in case... http://winslow.jamroll.co.uk/RedScreen.jpg .

    3. Re:Alternate View by johnw · · Score: 1

      You have been /.ed

      Thank you for playing.

    4. Re:Alternate View by guaigean · · Score: 1

      Nah, actually we had a power outtage :) Can't blame /. for this one.

      --
      Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
  22. Yes yes. Microsoft sucks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Also more information is always bad.

    Honestly, a little more information clearly rendered for my decision making would be nice when Linux craps out unexpectedly. It's not that I don't like the occasional puzzle, it's that I don't want to be surprised with one that I have to solve before I can move on with my work.

  23. Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

    If Microsoft is really smart (*cough* did I say somthing bad *cough*), they would allow admins to change the color of the Screen Of Death anyway they like. Personally, I like amber text on a black background. It reminds of the days when I had an amber monochrome monitor for my Commodore 64 when I was a little lad.

    1. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by 01000011011101000111 · · Score: 1

      That's been possible since Win95 - you just need a hex editor and a *lot* of patience (plus the magic offset - google for it...)
      Personally, I always like pink screens of death myself...

      --
      Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
    2. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by eggz128 · · Score: 2, Informative

      If Microsoft is really smart [...], they would allow admins to change the color of the Screen Of Death anyway they like.


      You can to a degree.
    3. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by MrFlannel · · Score: 1

      You currently can. The color is just in a config file. Some people actually have made it so it's a different color each time.

      --
      Clones are people two.
    4. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by Bob+535604 · · Score: 1

      I haven't tried this, but apparently you can. Try this page or google for some others. Now I just need a way of inducing a BSOD so I can test it.

    5. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

      You actually could in Windows 9x, you could set the text and background to any of the 16 standard colours. However the file in which you set it in isn't used in NT OSes so I don't know if you can or how you would do it these days.

    6. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by 01000011011101000111 · · Score: 1

      Ahh ty... I *was* running from hazy memories from my childhood (having managed to pretty much escape windows since 2000 - both the year and the version ;) ) so I *think* I got it a bit confused with one or two other programs I was hacking at the time...

      --
      Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
    7. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by soniCron88 · · Score: 1

      Now I just need a way of inducing a BSOD so I can test it.

      ...[boots computer] ... Yep. It works.

    8. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by ebuck · · Score: 1

      There's something eerie about this.

      Imagine the control panel dialog that allows you to configure the color of your screen of death. Sounds just like the kind of option that would eventually be worked into Windows, no? I mean, it would just be another tab on the Display adjustment utility.

    9. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by rez_rat · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Bright white"??

      I say it again, "Bright white"??

      What does it do? Burn your eyeballs?

      S-

    10. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, someone might get clever and put in a new option: How would you like to die today?

      Or better yet (for the Star Trek fans): Is today a good day to die?

    11. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by Cecil · · Score: 1

      It's the standard (but insane) ANSI color naming system. "White" is actually light grey, and "Yellow" is actually brown, for example.

      The colors were simply named by hue. All made sense and everyone was happy. Later, a 'bright' bit was provided to allow you to signal the system as to whether you wanted dark or bright versions of those colors. This sounded like a fine idea as well, except that programmers started naming the colors based on whether the 'bright' bit was set or not, and hence you get that wacky naming scheme.

    12. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by GQuon · · Score: 1

      Other commenters told about how you can change the color of the SOD. Personally, I remember using peek and poke commands to change the color values of the text and background registers on the Commodore 64. :-)

      --
      Irene KHAAAAAAN!
    13. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by rbarreira · · Score: 1

      Try googling for CrashOnCtrlScroll... But be careful in order not to fuck your file system, registry or something when doing it, which means - close all applications and maybe even services before you do this...

      --

      The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
    14. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by Kirkoff · · Score: 1

      That reminds me of Soylent Green - when people would "Go Home" they would go to a special place to die. They got to choose their favorite color which was projected on the wall where they didn't see the wilderness images.

      If they include it in Windows, it'll be official - WINDOWS IS MADE OF PEOPLE!!!

      --
      There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
    15. Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! by ps_inkling · · Score: 1
      It all goes back to the IBM CGA colors. Lovely explanation and table available here.

      Early arcade games used resistor ladders to change the level of red, green, or blue signal to the monitor per pixel. CGA only understood "on" and "off" (and "on brighter").

  24. And I'm Not Using Linux by Dante+Shamest · · Score: 1

    In case some smart aleck replies "Oh, you must be using Linux."

    1. Re:And I'm Not Using Linux by datafr0g · · Score: 3, Funny

      A mac then? :P

      --
      "Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
    2. Re:And I'm Not Using Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OS/2

    3. Re:And I'm Not Using Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I haven't seen one on NT4 in years, seriously.
      Maybe I am one of the lucky few?

  25. RSOD or ROSD by fohat · · Score: 1

    Who edits these things? I'm glad I don't pay to read this site, the editing is horrible. Slightly more on topic, I never see the BSOD anymore unless it's a hardware problem. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough...

    --
    Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
    1. Re:RSOD or ROSD by ebuck · · Score: 1

      That's probably because the default behavior of the desktop shell, explorer, now restarts instead of dumping core.

      Which means that although I don't get BSODs very often either, I do get two to three "blank-outs" on a bad day. It's arguably better for the end users, but usually fuels the disgust from programmers who appreciate the cheesyness of this solution when they see it.

    2. Re:RSOD or ROSD by Chris+Snook · · Score: 1

      I used to get explorer crashes a lot, back when I had to use Windows (2000?) to support it. This being a work machine, there was about as little as possible installed on it. More often than not, it would properly restart, but every now and then I had to re-invoke Explorer from Mozilla. Yes. I associated the bitmap file type with Windows Explorer in Mozilla, and bookmarked one on my local hard drive, so that as long as I had Mozilla open when it died, I could get the rest of the GUI back.

      --
      There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
    3. Re:RSOD or ROSD by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful
      That's probably because the default behavior of the desktop shell, explorer, now restarts instead of dumping core.

      A BSOD is a *low level OS error*. It's Windows' equivalent of a kernel panic. It doesn't matter a whit what the shell does because the whole machine will be locked up hard *anyway*.

      Which means that although I don't get BSODs very often either, I do get two to three "blank-outs" on a bad day.

      I don't know what you're talking about, based on the above, but they don't sound like BSODs. If they really *are* BSODs, and your machine is resetting itself _several times a day_, you have seriously broken hardware and/or drivers. You should get it fixed.

    4. Re:RSOD or ROSD by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Also, regarding

      "the default behavior of the desktop shell, explorer, now restarts instead of dumping core."

      BSOD's dump the core by default when they happen. By default it's 64K "minidumps" to %SystemRoot%\Minidump\, but this can be changed or disabled in the settings, like the autorestart thing.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  26. Red-shifting by coma_bug · · Score: 5, Funny

    Longhorn is red-shifting... the release date must be receeding!

    1. Re:Red-shifting by dj245 · · Score: 5, Funny
      After the launch of Longhorn, Microsoft will announce their new color coding system of screens of death, including:

      Red: For extreme specific errors. An error has in fact already happened.
      Orange: For nonspecific systemwide errors, signifying imminent error.
      Yellow: An elevated error status, it is suspected that an error could occurr at any time
      Blue: The standard error message for vague and undescriptive errors of no substance
      Green: No error at this time, but remain on watch for errors.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    2. Re:Red-shifting by HermanAB · · Score: 1

      At last, a really witty, funny comment. Not many of these on Sloshdat.

      --
      Oh well, what the hell...
    3. Re:Red-shifting by CptnSbaitso · · Score: 5, Funny

      (continued from previous post) Microsoft officials expressed great satisfaction regarding their recent work on the new coloring system. "We believe that this system will help keep all users aware of the errorist threat."

    4. Re:Red-shifting by Redwin · · Score: 1

      "Green: No error at this time, but remain on watch for errors."

      Shouldn't that read:

      "Telly-tubby style wallpaper: No error at this time, but remain on watch for errors"

      --
      Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
    5. Re:Red-shifting by dascandy · · Score: 1

      In other news, the US military will replace their Defcon system with a Longhorn box attached to the internet.

  27. Not difficult to recreate... by Qwell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Since last night, I get this gem.
    My own RSOD

    --
    As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
    1. Re:Not difficult to recreate... by Qwell · · Score: 1

      oh yeah, if anybody knows how to fix this...

      --
      As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
    2. Re:Not difficult to recreate... by jomas1 · · Score: 1

      Okay the work execution is spelled exectuion in your screenshot. Is this a joke?

    3. Re:Not difficult to recreate... by Qwell · · Score: 1

      haha, I didn't even notice that.
      No, if you look at one of the mirrored copies of the one in the article, you'll see the same typo. Good catch.

      --
      As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
    4. Re:Not difficult to recreate... by Fussen · · Score: 1

      lol, good call on actually trying to figure it out :D

    5. Re:Not difficult to recreate... by drsmithy · · Score: 1
      Is it reproduceable ?

      Have you filed a bug report ?

    6. Re:Not difficult to recreate... by Qwell · · Score: 1
      Yes, all I have to do is boot.

      Of course not.

      --
      As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
  28. Just heard this guy speak... by Goonie · · Score: 1
    I went to a panel featuring Joi Ito, Larry Lessig, and an Australian poet Martin Harrison talking about the future of the arts. Ito was tapping away at his laptop before the presentation - probably submitting this story to Slashdot...

    Ito and Lessig basically gave their stump speeches (Lessig about the need to reform copyright laws for balance, Ito about the fact that there's plenty of opportunity for artists and businessmen to make money out of a less-punitive IP landscape), but they're such great stump speeches you hardly mind. They're definitely worth hearing, and they got a pretty enthusiastic response from the crowd there (and I don't think this was entirely from preaching to the converted).

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  29. Past repeats itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gates once proclaimed that Windows 3.1 fixed the UAEs that plagued Windows 3.0 once and for all. It simply renamed them GPFs.

  30. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by BigDish · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you are seeing BSODs almost daily, you either have faulty hardware or some seriously buggy drivers. Honestly folks, XP, and even 2000, BSOD very rarely.

  31. My last BSOD... by Gollum2001 · · Score: 1

    ...fucked the MFT (master file table) of my windows partition and I lost everything. I can't imagine what a 'really bad errors' RSOD will make.

    I can imagine it, instead printing really useless data about the error, it will say:

    Owned!

    --
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein.
    1. Re:My last BSOD... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are 2 MFTs on NTFS, you where using NTFS right? It can recover from errors much easier than FAT :D

      there are 2 $MFT's for a reason. You must have done something major tao fuck em up.

    2. Re:My last BSOD... by Gollum2001 · · Score: 1

      Well, booting from the windows cd and using the admin tools didn't help. Also another supposedly "powerful" third party tools couldn't. So yes, I think something really fucked up the partition. I knew about another copy of the MFT, but was in the same useless state as the first (or so the programs said), go figure. Nothing happened with the hard disk, I'm using it right now.

      Fortunately I had a backup of the important data and a lot of patience to reinstall everything.

      I don't care if it's blue or red, I don't want to see another one in my entire life.

      --
      "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein.
    3. Re:My last BSOD... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most likely a hardware problem; any obscure Windows filesystem bugs that lead to massive corruption would probably have been reported by now.

  32. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by mrm677 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I see Linux crash on our cluster of 100 Sun Opteron boxes daily.

    The hardware is rock solid because it originally shipped with Solaris. The Sun reps said that we are one of their few customers running 64-bit Linux because it isn't stable enough.

  33. Microsoft's new RSOD with Clippy... by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 4, Funny
    Shouldn't Microsoft be working on a way to reduce the number of BSOD/RSOD through better kernel-land code and better handling of userland errors, instead of trying to create a more informative BSOD process? Darn... Wait a while, and Clippy the talking paperclip will show up during the BSOD to explain what all the gibberish in hexadecimal means, and why "Windows is busy waiting" or whatever the BSOD says nowadays.

    Speaking of reliability, I was just thinking how Microsoft could reduce the complexity of the next version of Windows, Longtooth, due in 2009.

    Longtooth will include a tremendous amount of new features implemented in completely new code. Many, but not all, existing features would be reimplemented in VisualBasic.NET just for the heck of it, even if mature versions are already implemented in C or C++. Programmers making the new VisualBasic.NET code would not be allowed to look at the code that already exists, so that new ideas might be better implemented. The features will be chosen by random for reimplementation.

    All Microsoft code would assume that any Microsoft code (the OS and any Microsoft applications) is secure. This code will always execute with no checks to make it run faster. All other code will be subject to Longtooth's new security system, dubbed Microsoft Longtooth Security Center 2003. This feature will give users more control over processes that execute in their computers. I will explain some of its features here:

    To maximize security, Microsoft Longtooth Security Center 2003 will make certain assumptions about the user. For example, users who use Microsoft products are assumed to know what they are doing. However, users of 3rd party applications not made by Microsoft are always assumed to be complete idiots. Therefore, all user interface events occurring outside of Microsoft applications will trigger a safety mechanism.

    For example, each time the user moves the mouse in an area not controlled by a Microsoft application, the user will see crosshairs moving across the screen to indicate where the mouse will be located. When the user stops moving the mouse, an authentication window will appear and state: "The user has requested that the mouse be moved to the location on the screen indicated by the crosshairs. This area of the screen is controlled by untrusted code that may cause damage to your computer, your documents, or your network. Do you wish to allow the mouse to move to this location?" Buttons for "yes", "no", "details", and "help" will be displayed.

    Selecting "no" will cause the mouse cursor to remain at its previous location. Selecting "yes" will bring up another window, requesting the user's password to authenticate the movement of the mouse. If the user enters the correct password, the mouse cursor movement will be authenticated to that user and the cursor will be placed at the new location. Selecting "details" will display the X and Y coordinates of the new position, followed by warnings against using untrusted rogue code such as Linux.

    For additional protection, clicks, keys pressed on the keyboard, items selected in a menu, or other input events will trigger similar security mechanisms. Since Microsoft code is considered secure, these checks will not occur in windows owned by Microsoft code. Also, the mouse may be used to click on the above buttons and fields during mouse movement authentication. If any such movement of the mouse takes place during the authentication process, the mouse will still be moved to the location indicated by the crosshairs, but a bug in Windows will cause the cursor to immediately "bounce" back to the location where it was last used during authentication. Microsoft will refuse to fix the bug unless Linux is outlawed in all countries, even those countries that have no computers.

    Many other authentication checks will be made by Windows. I'll return to this topic in a moment. First, let me mention that Clippy, the talking paperclip, along with other Microsoft characters, will appear during this proces

    1. Re:Microsoft's new RSOD with Clippy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you guys implement something like that to linux i would never use linux ever, i mean linux is confusing as it is right now but what you just described would annoy the hell out of anyone

    2. Re:Microsoft's new RSOD with Clippy... by Porter+Doran · · Score: 1

      Great satire! Keep it up man.

    3. Re:Microsoft's new RSOD with Clippy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man, go for patenting these innovative ideas, before Microsotf's R&D department steal 'em.

      Protect your creativity!

    4. Re:Microsoft's new RSOD with Clippy... by Kevertje · · Score: 1

      Argh, don't give them any ideas... I'm willing to bet money that the Microsoft Longtooth Password Accelerator 2003 will be in the same price range as Windows itself...

    5. Re:Microsoft's new RSOD with Clippy... by Strolls · · Score: 1
      Darn... Wait a while, and Clippy the talking paperclip will show up during the BSOD to explain what all the gibberish in hexadecimal means...
      That's Kernel Clippy to you, trooper!
  34. Too much to hope for by ebuck · · Score: 1

    Well, now that I see that it's not a BSOD replacement, I appreciate some variety of *SOD colors.

    How long until the Green Screen of Death, the Orange Screen of Death, and the fearsome Black Screen of Death?

    Seriously, if it turns out to be a good debugging tool, then I'm happy; however, far, far too many products ship from MS with the debugging tools tightly integrated into the product. Ctrl-Alt-Delete, BSOD, regedit, etc. And now some of that behavior is required for correct product operation (see the history of Ctrl-Alt-Delete).

    1. Re:Too much to hope for by strider44 · · Score: 1

      don't you think it'd be a bit of an anti-climax to get a pink screen of death though?

    2. Re:Too much to hope for by TERdON · · Score: 1
      Black Screen of Death

      Already happened.

      --
      I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
    3. Re:Too much to hope for by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      It's just Microsoft ripping someone else off, only this time they waited awhile. The original RSOD was the Amiga GURU meditation screen that gave you a code you could actually look up and have a chance of figuring out.

      Apparently BlinkOS does it as well.

  35. ~terror level by dotpavan · · Score: 1
    inspired by homeland security, the color tells about the gravity of error:

    green: its the common errors you used to get before

    orange: beware, it might be a big one (read Windows can deal with it.. but its a tuff one

    Red: OMG, we forgot to fix that error, watch out for the next SP #45585

    black: Longhorn died, dont sob.. it was expected

  36. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1, Insightful
    I see BSODs a lot, almost daily, on Windows XP.

    Well, yeah. Evidently, some people lack the knowledge/skill to set up an XP box correctly.

  37. Product??? by hlopez · · Score: 0

    "Windows -Loghorn- will present you less BSOD. Joi Ito reports that Windows -Longorn- will"

    Will this feature be available in both products?

  38. Guru Meditation by argent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Red screen reminds me of the infamous Amiga "Guru Meditation" error. I always said the Amiga was ahead of its time.

    1. Re:Guru Meditation by Ziviyr · · Score: 1

      It didn't red screen on a guru, I think it meant ROM checksum failed.

      Thats for before the guru handler was even loaded.

      --

      Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
    2. Re:Guru Meditation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Black background with red writing. I'm pretty sure it used to flash as well.

      Oh and Guru Meditation messages were just software failures of some kind, not (specifically) ROM checksum issues.

    3. Re:Guru Meditation by argent · · Score: 1

      It didn't red screen on a guru, I think it meant ROM checksum failed.

      Did you know that you can't actually fit four elephants in a VW beetle?

    4. Re:Guru Meditation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on the camera lense used...

    5. Re:Guru Meditation by Ziviyr · · Score: 1

      The only case a guru might be caused by a ROM checksum failure would be if a program tested it and misbehaved based on those results, AFAIK.

      Unusual enough to consider it negligible probability.

      --

      Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
    6. Re:Guru Meditation by zr-rifle · · Score: 1

      here's what he's referring too

      Guru meditations were more fun to look at though. The though of Zen and Mystical China made fatal errors much more soothing to the mind.

      --
      Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
  39. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My drives and iRiver h10 are NEW and operating fine. I checked them.

    Its NTFS.sys, HTTP.sys and the TCPIP stack thats bolloxed big time in XP wheras 2000 was fine. Rock solid, XP has is way more unstable than 2000 but we all know that.

  40. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  41. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by aslate · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Very true, i was getting annoyed by frequent BSODs. They were random, seemed to pop up without warning and always at the wrong moment.

    They've all gone away after my PSU blew and i replaced it with a decent one that didn't come with the case and weigh less than an empty cardboard box.

  42. The next thing they need to do by FunkyRat · · Score: 5, Funny

    is add a Green Screen of Death. Then they'll be able to add together death colors to get much needed functionality for TrueColor Screens of Death.

    1. Re:The next thing they need to do by nukem1999 · · Score: 1

      I have seen a GSOD on a Win2k system before. A system at work uses a piece of software that sits in the Windows HAL that lets you run very close to real-time on a Windows system. When we were getting it working, I saw a few GSODs, and *I think* I saw a RSOD once. This was most certainly without doing that hack that changes the colors on the standard BSOD.

  43. And... by DeathByDuke · · Score: 0

    now the links give a SSOD (Slashdotted screen of death)

  44. Image Mirror by goodgoing · · Score: 1

    Large image of the red screen mirrored:

    http://www.goodgoing.org/slashmirror/redscreen.jpg

  45. Windows crashing always makes me see red by syousef · · Score: 1

    ...so this is absolutely nothing new! :-)

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:Windows crashing always makes me see red by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 1

      Windows crashing always makes me see red

      So presumably, when you see a BSOD, it's all black, right?

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  46. SSOD by blueadept1 · · Score: 0

    Looks like that site has gotten a SSOD. Slashdot Screen of Death.

    1. Re:SSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SHIT YOU'RE FUNNY!!!!

      Stupid 8xx.xxx Slashbots...

  47. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by blincoln · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you are seeing BSODs almost daily, you either have faulty hardware or some seriously buggy drivers. Honestly folks, XP, and even 2000, BSOD very rarely.

    Exactly. I have never seen my XP machine at home BSOD, even when the video card was failing to the point that it was adding random horizontal lines across the display.

    At work, I saw 2000 BSOD on several servers when we applied an MS hotfix that conflicted with some sort of secret kernel patch they'd given us a few years previously for those same machines.

    I saw 2k bluescreen one other time, when a workstation had a zip drive and the user installed drivers for it from 1997 or so.

    Other than that, the only time I've seen it happen is if I make an OS image on one machine and then try and use it on another with different hardware. That's still stupid, but at least I know how to avoid it.

    This is in an environment with close to 1000 Windows servers and about 25,000 Windows workstations.

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  48. ROSD? ROSD? or RSOD? by Private.Tucker · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm dyslexic, but I count not one, but 2 errors. Is this the kind of panic we can expect from a Red Error screen? Spelling errors? We already have an internet full of kids who can't type LOLZ h4X0rz ROTFLMAO!!!!1111oneoneone I can forsee Microsoft patenting the RSOD and fighting Red Hat for the right to use the word "red".

    1. Re:ROSD? ROSD? or RSOD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      heh... UPS already has "The Color Brown" either copyrighted or trademarked... I forget which.

  49. One has to wonder by xor.pt · · Score: 1

    One has to wonder how stable Longhorn is going to be when they decide they need a new color for their screw ups.

  50. Color Wheel by Tweak232 · · Score: 1

    Always good to see M$ broadaning it's horizions. This time it took art class, and is successfully making it's way through the color wheel. Way to pass 2nd grade M$!!

  51. FreeBSD's good these days by leonbrooks · · Score: 1

    Even drives laptops quite nicely.

    I think what the OP means is that he did that tweak to change the SOD colour, perhaps to a pleasant, relaxing green?

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  52. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by holiggan · · Score: 1

    Here, here! The (rare) times I got a BSOD in XP, I could pinpoint them back to some stupid tweak I did (normaly on the BIOS)...

    --
    "A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
  53. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I see BSODs a lot, almost daily, on Windows XP.

    Well, yeah. Evidently, some people lack the knowledge/skill to set up an XP box correctly.

    And evidently some people can't grasp that it isn't supposed to require significant knowledge or skill to set it up correctly.

  54. jpg, jpg, jpg. by TheKarateMaster · · Score: 1

    nice to know gifs have finally benn outlawed.

  55. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Valacosa · · Score: 1

    "Honestly folks, XP, and even 2000, BSOD very rarely."

    That's exactly why I think this is strange. My Win2K installation has BSOD'd maybe three times in two years. So doesn't that mean any Screen of Death indicates a serious/exceptional error? Or are they planning on introducing more errors into Longhorn?

    --
    "Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
  56. They should put a chequebook price on the screen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is Error number GHD61771008GA88FE
    To fix this error we will need to remove $238.05 from your current account balance

    To proceed with transaction to remedy this error please press "Y"
    Thank you for shopping with Microsoft(TM) the choice of a new generation
  57. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Datasage · · Score: 1

    I second that. I rarely have blue screens if ever unless there is a problem with drivers or hardware.

    I used an A8N-SLI motherboard and was getting a blue screen with, but I traced the problem to a bios update that conflicted with one of my hard drives. The orginial bios (1001) is fine and runs stable.

    Outside of that issue, which was not the fualt of windows, I've hardly ever had a blue screen of death on XP or 2k for that matter.

    --
    In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
  58. ...Interesting, sort of? by Ninwa · · Score: 1

    I really wonder if there was no other story that could've been published than the fact that the Windows error screen has changed its background color. Seriously.

  59. Looks like BSOD by rez_rat · · Score: 0

    Looks like his webserver just BSOD'd.

    S-

  60. RSOD, the onomatopoeic error by ettlz · · Score: 1

    At last, Microsoft come up with a panic screen that accurately reflects what many British users say when it pops up: "Argh, sod!"

  61. Re:They should put a chequebook price on the scree by Tweak232 · · Score: 1

    this is more like linspire(lindows) "the imitator linux".

  62. Patent #7,554,674 by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Funny
    Multiple SOD colours.

    That's innovation for you!

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by Golias · · Score: 4, Funny

      So, I guess this means red is the new blue.

      They will be thrilled to hear the news in Milan and Paris.

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    2. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by Lord+Prox · · Score: 1

      Screens Of Death Oh My -> SODomy

    3. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      -1, Vile Pun.

    4. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by Kinky+Bass+Junk · · Score: 1

      Great... Now I have two colours to fear :(

      --
      Anonymous Coward
    5. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Patent #7,554,675

      Patterned SOD. For not-so-bad errors, the screen is pink with little red hearts pattern. For bad errors, the screen is polka dot. For very bad errors, the screen is covered with tiny pictures of Britney Spears.

    6. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by chrish · · Score: 2, Funny

      Next up, skinnable *SOD screens.

      --
      - chrish
    7. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by jaavaaguru · · Score: 1

      Actually you have four colors to fear: blue, red, green and yellow arranged to look vaguely like a flag blowing in the wind.

    8. Re:Patent #7,554,674 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Roses are red
      Violets are blue
      In Microsoft's Russia
      They innovate you!

  63. Re:You have failed physics. Turn in your slashdot by The+Illegal+Pirates · · Score: 3, Funny

    You brain dead moron. Microsoft takes advantage of the next generation directx 9 3d acceleration hardware available in all longhorn-supporting computers to blend the blue and red into a dark, rich purple using sophisticated algorithms, lighting effects, and large textures.

  64. I know what happened! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they ran outta blue...

  65. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    bullshit, last time I checked it was very easy to get 2000 to BSD simply by running certain java programs (freenet comes to mind, dont remember which version it was though). it's not hardware either, i've done it on multiple boxes.

  66. Change colors? by RoadkillBunny · · Score: 1

    Who chose those colors? They should make it possible for the user to change them.

    --
    Cheers,
    RoadkillBunny
    1. Re:Change colors? by StonedRat · · Score: 1

      for win9x there was a tool around that let you select the colours used by the BSOD, not so sure if one exists for NT though.

      --
      "Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
  67. Re:You have failed physics. Turn in your slashdot by The+Illegal+Pirates · · Score: 3, Funny

    In case you were wondering, we know this because we stole a prerelease copy of Longhorn at musketpoint.

  68. RSOD? by purple_cobra · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is it related to this:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/rsod/

    1. Re:RSOD? by ettlz · · Score: 1

      So the Welsh translation of Longhorn's going to have a GACU?

    2. Re:RSOD? by sam5550 · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, that's what USERS do when an unrecoverable error occurs.

  69. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by lakeland · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the geek community blue screens are assumed to be hardware faults but in the general community I don't think this is the case. I'm wondering if the introduction of the RSOD is designed to blame hardware rather than MS.

  70. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by suitepotato · · Score: 1

    I usually see XP BSOD if Linux does something to an NTFS file that it doesn't like or if I change the partition it sits on and on reboot from the BSOD, it runs chkdsk and then goes back to normal. Other than that, rarely.

    --
    If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
  71. Mod parent INSIGHTFUL ! by lazy_arabica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Red screens are just too agressive. An error message already is very irritating, why the hell do we need it to be red ? I'd almost hate the Sarge installer because of that...

    1. Re:Mod parent INSIGHTFUL ! by TIMxPx · · Score: 0

      Right! I suggest the Rainbow Screen of Tolerance. It's quite soothing, actually. Maybe making it red is the point, though. I mean, if it's irritating enough, something may actually be done about it.

      --
      There are 10 kinds of people in the world: That averages about 660,000,000 of each kind.
    2. Re:Mod parent INSIGHTFUL ! by DigiShaman · · Score: 2, Funny

      While they're at it, why not make it a *flashing* RSOD :P

      OMG, da machine is fuxored!!!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    3. Re:Mod parent INSIGHTFUL ! by Husgaard · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Yes, I think Microsoft is making a big mistake doing this. You do not want to present an error in red - even if it is really bad - to a user as an explanation of why he just lost a few hours of work.

      The basic psychology of colors tells you why. The user is going to get more angry and is more likely to do something radical - like changing to another operating system. A more soothing color like blue or green would be better.

      But then, this is just another Micro$oft mistake that is going to help us Linux (or OSX) zealots ;-)

  72. Good lord man. by Dante+Shamest · · Score: 1
    O_O Did you spend hours writing this, then waiting for several more hours for a Windows/Longhorn /. article to post this?

    Good read though. =)

    1. Re:Good lord man. by RGTAsheron · · Score: 0

      true dat!

    2. Re:Good lord man. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      werd tard!

  73. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There! There!

    Sorry, it looks like you are the dope this time. ;)

  74. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It takes a special kind of person to have a WinXP box that bluescreens 'almost daily'.

  75. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Frogbert · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Thats because your computer by default automatically resets when it gets one.

    However I must say the only time I've ever had one on XP was with some faulty ram. And even more impressive the knowledge base artical about the error message was correct in telling me I had bad ram.

  76. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a webcam that will crash XP every time I try to use it. Every single time. Doesn't work on Linux either. But Linux gives me a message which I can ignore, it doesn't crash!

  77. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Coryoth · · Score: 1

    At work, I saw 2000 BSOD on several servers when we applied an MS hotfix that conflicted with some sort of secret kernel patch they'd given us a few years previously for those same machines.

    I saw 2k bluescreen one other time, when a workstation had a zip drive and the user installed drivers for it from 1997 or so.


    For a while I had Win2k reproducibly bluescreening whenever I cared to. It was a laptop with a manufacturer install on Win2k, so we can presume drivers are not likely to be an issue, and the nature of it didn't imply any hardware issues.

    In general Win2k was very solid for the time I was using it but I have had issues with it at times. I expect the problem I had got cleared up with the next service pack, but I wasn't using Win2k by then, so it wasn't of concern to me.

    I have personally witnessed far more Win2k and XP Blue Screens than I have Linux or Solaris kernel panics (and I have seen all of the above at various times, and yes, hardware was the issue for at least some in each category).

    Jedidiah.

    Jedidiah.

  78. More shell games from Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure they'll be promoting the "fewer BSODs!" thing in a big way, conveniently not mentioning the color change for some errors.

    It's gonna be just like when they "reduced boot time" in XP; they just made the desktop and icons appear sooner than usual in the process, so it *looks* like it has booted faster. Meanwhile, the disk continues to thrash as more shit loads in the background, and the computer completely ignores user input until it's god damned good and ready to accept it. This is on a home-built Athlon XP 2600. While I'm ranting, I'd like to touch on the miserable perceived GUI responsiveness on Windows. The Athlon XP machine was thoroughly embarassed by my G4/733 in that department, and looks even more ridiculous in comparison to my dual G5/2.5.

    1. Re:More shell games from Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My linux desktops are far more responsive, that's mostly because I'm not forced to run a bunch of bullshit services that I don't need.

  79. worked for UAE's by wardk · · Score: 1

    this reminds of when Windows UAE's were finally addressed once and for all.

  80. RSOD by noyzman · · Score: 1

    I wonder how long til I can get my RSOD t-shirt from ErrorWear I already got my "Bad Command or File name" shirt.

  81. RSOD on server by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, BSODs and RSODs...one thing's for certain, the server admin is probably seeing one of these right about now!

  82. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by grolschie · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ah.... I see that you are familiar with ATI's Catalyst drivers* then. Either that, or VIA's Hyperion drivers*. :-)

    * Disclaimer: I use the term "drivers" very loosely.

  83. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bullshit. I do tech support for your shitty operating system and it blue screens quite regularly. Stop the god damn astroturfing on Slashdot you Microsoft stooges.

  84. Rabbit hole by MisterSquid · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue screen?

    --
    blog
  85. Miss BSODs? Try our Do-It-Yourself BSOD! by mpontes · · Score: 1
    You're not trying hard enough. I started to become nostalgic after switching to XP. I miss the 9x days, you could make bets on what VxD would cause a BSOD while Windows was booting. Good thing Microsoft thought about us, the nostalgic people when adding "features" to their OSes. Just add a DWORD with the name CrashOnCtrlScroll and the value set to 1 in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\i8042prt\Parameters , reboot and then hit Ctrl + Scroll Lock + Scroll Lock. You'll get a nice MANUALLY_INITIATED_CRASH.

    But it's good to see Microsoft puts so much effort in their errors. If we have to look at them all the time, they might as well be colored.

    --
    Bored? Browse Slashdot with a +6 modifier for Troll comme
  86. Awesome! by MichaelPenne · · Score: 1

    that is all I can say.

    I guess this will firmly put to rest the claims that MS is not a source of cutting edge innovation.

    An RSOD, that is the kind of forward thinking genius that makes America great!

    I sure hope they patented it and will fight tooth and nail the sure to come attempts by lesser european, californian, etc. OSs to copy this great leap forward in interface design.

  87. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't forget that the default behavoir in XP is to automatically restart instead of showing the BSOD. My Computer Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery Setting, under system failure automatically restart is checked by default. So that's the main reason you don't see them as often. Although I have only ever seen one when I had some faulty RAM installed in my system.

  88. Oblig. Red Dwarf Quote by bobbis.u · · Score: 2, Funny

    Rimmer: Step up to red alert! Kryten: Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.

    1. Re:Oblig. Red Dwarf Quote by One+Childish+N00b · · Score: 1

      All joking aside, they could institute an alert in between - a purple alert, if you will - it's sort of worse than a blue alert but not quite as bad as a red alert. Could be a mauve alert...

      /inevitable.

      --
      Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
  89. Business as Usual by KCRWreck · · Score: 1

    I see that Microsoft remains reluctant to provide any information on their error screens that might help an average user understand what went wrong. Color me unimpressed.

  90. Oh, I see what you mean... by leonbrooks · · Score: 1

    Since Joe Sixpack can't set it up reliably, XP is not ready for the desktop. Simple! Thanks for that insight!

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  91. Good point by leonbrooks · · Score: 1

    We should be criticising the spelling in your post instead. Oh, and if you're a Yank, that's "criticizing".

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  92. You mean... by leonbrooks · · Score: 1

    ...that Asian languages and RTL suppoort will work properly for the first time in Shorthorn Office?

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
    1. Re:You mean... by TERdON · · Score: 1

      No, they're probably only outsorcing Windows. Not Office. :)

      --
      I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
  93. I just don't get it.... by flawedgeek · · Score: 1

    Why would you spend so much time changing the color of an error screen that, if your computer is config'd properly, will never appear?

    --
    My other Sig is .40 caliber.
  94. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by blincoln · · Score: 1

    That would make sense, except I don't see XP reboot like that either.

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  95. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean restart AFTER showing it. It's still clearly visible, if only for a few seconds.

  96. tons of BSODs! Microsoft is downplaying problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been testing Longhorn on two different PCs for about a week by now and on both I am getting in average one BSOD every other hour which is really annoying and at least 3-4 RSODs a day!

    I get the feeling that Microsoft is again trying to downplay some severe problems they are having with their code base. In terms of overall impression I am very disappointed with Longhorn to say the least, especially with the issue of stability.

  97. green screen of death by monkeyboy87 · · Score: 1

    xbox has a green screen of death already....

  98. From Microsoft's perspective... by leonbrooks · · Score: 1

    ...anything that causes you to install Linux on the machine.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  99. Communist Propaganda Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Indoctrinate the children.

    2. Warn parents of danger of children being indoctrinated.

    3. Offer beta anti-indoctrination software as free download.
    ...

    4. Profit!

  100. Red Flag Of Death by Dr.Syshalt · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Are they just trying to make Longhorn more appealing to Chinese officials?

  101. Different decade, same smokescreen. by Yaztromo · · Score: 1

    Anyone else remember how Microsoft claimed that Windows 3.1 was better than Windows 3.0 because it did away with the dreaded "Unexpected Application Error" (UAE)? All the same errors typically occured -- it was just that Microsoft had renamed the error from "Unexpected Application Error" to "General Protection Fault" (GPF).

    Unfortunately, now just as then PHB's fall for it.

    Yaz.

  102. Knowing Microsoft by dtfinch · · Score: 0

    I wonder if they'll patent it?

  103. Server Meltdown by StikyPad · · Score: 1

    You can find a ROSD screenshot in a virtual machine in his weblog entry.

    (If you happened to see this story within the first 5 seconds of being posted).

  104. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    uh, ok. maybe if you are running pre-sp1 windows xp.

  105. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah, like Dell.

  106. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stop using broken hardware and unpatched software.

  107. I've seen a RSOD before... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft are reverse engineering AI from the future!

  108. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

    Yea, I agree with others that the BSODs don't happen near as much as they did on 2K which had them much less than NT, never used 95-ME at home.

    That said, XP is way crashier than 10.3-10.4 are.

  109. Without warning? by rebug · · Score: 4, Funny

    How the hell do you expect to get a warning before your kernel crashes?

    "WARNING: Your kernel will crash in ten seconds. Owing to the very nature of the event, there is nothing you can do about it."

    --

    there's more than one way to do me.
    1. Re:Without warning? by lpp · · Score: 1

      When I see someone indicate "the kernel crashed without warning", I take it to mean the system seemed to be working fine, with no aberrant or suspicious behavior up until the moment of the crash. I suspect that if sudden and constant hard disk access were noted, or sluggishness of the system, or perhaps seeing odd information appearing in a file listing or somesuch, followed by a kernel panic or somesuch, that would be considered "with warning".

      Sort of.

    2. Re:Without warning? by aslate · · Score: 1

      Yea, see the above reply.

      However, i had a similar thing to that at school. Clippy popped up and gave me one of those "It's time to save your work" messages. Angered that it even appeared i clicked No. A few seconds later, owing to bad wiring, the PC powered off as the power cord fell out.

    3. Re:Without warning? by triso · · Score: 1

      Gotta watch out for that Clippy dude: He da man!

  110. How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by Artifakt · · Score: 4, Informative

    Edit your system.ini file as follows:

    Under the [386Enh] header, add these two lines:

    MessageTextColor=B
    MessageBackColor=3

    That will give you a bright cyan text on dark cyan background screen of death. Feel free to substitute other colors 0-F as desired. This works in 95, 98, and Me, at least. Red's in there somewhere - don't remember exactly where - just try a pair of values, wait the usual 15 minutes for a SOD, and see if you like the combination. I can honestly say I haven't seen a BSOD on my screen in months.

    --
    Who is John Cabal?
    1. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by iammaxus · · Score: 1

      If you weren't still using 95/98/ME, you probably wouldn't be getting many BSODs at all...

    2. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by PetoskeyGuy · · Score: 2, Informative
      Windows 95/98 is still a DOS base, so it uses the basic VGA color codes...
      0 black
      1 blue
      2 green
      3 cyan
      4 red
      5 magenta
      6 brown
      7 light gray
      8 dark gray
      9 light blue
      A light green
      B light cyan
      C light red
      D light magenta
      E yellow
      F white
      Go nuts customizing your 10 year old OS!! :P
    3. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by FidelCatsro · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      "I can honestly say I haven't seen a BSOD on my screen in months"

      So your monitors busted eh?

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    4. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK, so you read a post about changing the blue in the blue screen of death, and then pick a line that reads "I can honestly say I haven't seen a BSOD on my screen in months", but ignore the bolded B, and bring all your wits to bear and quip "So your monitors busted eh?".

      You really are the best example of the type of person who should be shot on sight.

    5. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Troll me all barrel Troll me ol barrel , Sometimes a joke is just a joke and not an insult . You'r an example of why some of mankind is little more than a chattering apes who get kicks off of insulting others .
      Sad really .

    6. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you an asshole because you have a small manhood or do you have others reason ?

    7. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well i do apoligise for making a mistake , Its one of those things us humans do . Unlike your godly self i am but a man and prone to it at times.
      You sir an example of why Neo-Nazis are still around today.
      Your just trolling its true , but i wonder . well off you trot to your Klan meetings .

    8. Re:How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 by LoneTech · · Score: 1

      Not that it's tied to DOS or anything.. that's the extended color scheme CGA uses in text mode, which it really shares with every other system using a digital RGB monitor. You'd need an EGA board to get it in graphics mode, though, since CGA boards can't use more than two bits per pixel in graphics mode. In short, it's way older than VGA.

  111. Now with new icons! by PhYrE2k2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow! I'm going to change my applications to have the question icon on yes/no boxes to exclaimation and repackage it- I'll make millions :)

    First off, why is this news? Why is this worthy of Slashdot? Microsoft creates new error message screen *gasp*. Microsoft changes colour of text-only screen *gasp*. Who cares!

    So a list of error codes now has a new colour- yippie.

    -M

    --

    when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
  112. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by tono · · Score: 1

    I've used the Catalyst drivers with every new version since christ.. 03 and not had a single BSOD. More than likely it's the Hyperion drivers

    --
    cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
  113. Just an educated guess... by pVoid · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Triggering a BSOD from kernel mode is quite easy actually. The most common BSOD I personally have seen is the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL one. This is actually akin to an assertion failure, because if you call a function which requires IRQL_PASSIVE at anything but the passive level IRQ level, you will get a BSOD, even if the call would not have resulted in a page fault or anything.

    So there's actually a lot of BSODs that are 'preventative' in nature. That is, the kernel says "uh oh, that call should never have been made, the system *might* become unstable, shut it *all* down before any real damage is done".

    Then there's "Boot disk not found", or "Boot disk failure", which are in fact real serious, because it's the end of the line for the machine.

    Maybe they've broken down errors that are likely Kernel driver programming mistakes, and errors that indicate the system is severely damaged.

  114. Future projections by rivj0r · · Score: 1

    As a server administrator I'm now looking forward to the days when we get delivered the Rainbow Screen Of Death which will give the double effect of; - Letting you know that absolutely positively NOTHING went right. - Showing you a pretty image that may, if just for a second, distract you from how horrible your life is about to become.

  115. RSOD Vs. BSOD by H01M35 · · Score: 2
    Sounds like a new Halo mod.

    Red vs. Blue

    Longhorn: Vaporware which now contains fewer instances of the Blue Screen of Death.

  116. It's good to see ... by SilicaiMan · · Score: 1
    ... Microsoft's "innovation" machine at work as usual. Way to go Microsoft!

    Did they file for a patent yet?

  117. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by dreemernj · · Score: 1

    I have seen Windows XP BSOD for friends using video editors like Adobe Premiere. I still run the copy of Win2K I got back around the week it first came out. I have had 3 BSODs on it, from when I was trying to install a combo Video Input/Motion JPEG Encoder/SCSI port PCI card using outdated drivers. Other then that, it has had no problems despite how much I have abused it. Honestly, the only people I know that still talk about BSOD are Mac users that haven't touched a PC since Win95.

    --
    1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
  118. XP Doesn't really bluescreen... by Anti-Trend · · Score: 1
    ...so much as just reboot at random. It's one of XP's 'improvements' over NT5. I guess they figured it'd be easier to blame it on the hardware that way. In a way, I prefer that method, because you get a lot less calls at 2:00 am, "Are you my system administrator?" On the other hand, it sometimes makes it a lot harder to troubleshoot real hardware problems when they occur.

    -AT

    --
    Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
  119. Plaid OSD by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

    For those ludacris errors

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  120. colour blindness and cultural factors? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Red has been now more or less been programmed into us to mean "something bad", which is probably the reason for the red screen.

    My comment is that a good portion of the population (especially males) is colour blind and can't tell colours properly (or at the very least shades of many colours).

    Did the UI designers take this into account or did they simply choose it because in Western culture it means "stop" or "status bad"? It should be noted that some cultures (e.g. Chinese) view red differently. Anyone know if any of these factors played a role in the decision of the colour?

    P.S. I'm Canadian so that's why I spell it with a 'u'. :)

    1. Re:colour blindness and cultural factors? by [cx] · · Score: 1

      I would be sickened by any company that weighed the cultural impact of choosing certain colours to represent their product.

      The Chinese steal the product anyways, so it's not like they have room to complain about color choices.

      They will probably release longhorn for the super famicom later this year anyways( pirate cart).

      [cx]

  121. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It takes a special kind of person to have a WinXP box that bluescreens 'almost daily'.

    No, it doesn't. I've watched XP BSoD first boot after express install, and first boot after the application of SP2 right after that, on a brand new PC owned and operated by a local computer store owner. He then tried a custom install with the same results. He is an MCSE, CCIE and Compaq Master ASE. It took him two days on the phone with Microsoft and assorted manufacturer support techs to get it sorted out. You don't have to do anything wrong or special to experience the same, just have the misfortune of discovering a problematic combination of drivers. And no, there is NO OS for PCs that doesn't bring with it the chance to experience something similar.

  122. Novell Longhorn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder how long it'll be before Miguel de Icaza decides that this new RSOD is a True Microsoft Innovation (tm) and that Linux *must* have something like this in order to be competitive?

  123. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by LurkerXXX · · Score: 1
    Some of us leave our machines always logged on, or 'locked'. I'd know real fast if it automatically rebooted and I was at a fresh login screen. It doesn't happen to me.

    If your drivers are good, and your hardware is good, you shouldn't be getting bluescreens.

  124. Who even gets a BSOD anymore? by generalleoff · · Score: 1

    Really I have got less then 10 in the past 4 years of using XP. Do the rest of you readers still get them all the time or is the BSOD just some old issue people refuse to let go even tohugh it's all but dead?

  125. Wonderful. by D14BL0 · · Score: 1

    So now, instead of seeing the blue screen, representing a slight hope of recovering anything I was working on, I'm going to see a red one, which means that I'm now completely out of luck.

  126. Weird by St.+Arbirix · · Score: 1

    "Windows Loghorn will present you less BSOD. Joi Ito reports that Windows Longorn will get additional ROSD (red screen of death) for 'really bad errors.' So you will get less BSOD but some new RSOD. You can find a ROSD screenshot in a virtual machine in his weblog entry."

    Am I the only one bothered by the weird acronymming going on in the post? That's just weird.

    --
    Direct away from face when opening.
  127. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by kesuki · · Score: 0, Redundant

    They're called a "Comp Lusa" costomer ;)
    Seriously though those cheap $500 systems from worst buy, comp lusa, circuit shitty etc.. will BSOD daily if you re-enable blue screens. the ram, or the psu, or the dvd-burner will cause most of them, usually when the dvd-burner can't draw enough power from the 230 watt psu they've got in there it'll cause a nice solid blue screen. sometimes it'll go away, but hey... you only paid $500 for the pos craputer... and it came with monitor printer, etc etc..

    But it's not restricted to complusa users, sadly I have a board from asus thats total crap, and will kernel panic linux in about 4 hours (less if you run gimp filters the whole time) and bsods windows if you try to game on it... *sigh* buying a computer without researching it is just plain stupid. I read 2 stupid review sites that take bribes and call that 'research enough' and get suckered into the crappiest motherboard purchase ever ;) ah well.. the board Does overclock pretty good ;) well as good as it runs non-overclocked anyways...

  128. Prior art? by barzok · · Score: 1

    Lotus Notes has been giving a red pop-up box on killer errors since 4.x (1999 or earlier), maybe longer.

  129. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by mibus · · Score: 1

    Other than that, the only time I've seen it happen is if I make an OS image on one machine and then try and use it on another with different hardware. That's still stupid, but at least I know how to avoid it.

    I don't really consider that "stupid". I've moved my Linux install through several motherboards, the most I've had to do was occasionally install a new kernel or driver. (Like when I moved to ATA/100).

    Yet Windows has had problems moving between motherboards for years now... it seems like it's just an accepted thing that you have to fully re-install for it.

    It's a motherboard, not a bloody processor architecture!

    I dunno, I guess I got too sick of reinstalls (both at home, and supporting ~250 machines with 8 different images :-)

  130. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've seen XP go and BSOD on several people. The common culprit is either a failing harddrive, or crappy RAM. Not much other than those hardware problems, and some spyware/virus infections.

  131. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1
    Does it happen? Sure. Once in a great while, with some weird combination of hardware/software.

    Having it happen daily? That's a whole different thing. You'd think that the user would try to track it down and fix it, rather than having it bluescreen 'almost daily'.

  132. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by future+assassin · · Score: 1
    I run two computers with Win 2000 Server and in the time since I started using the OS (two years) I have not seen one BSOD. One is a web server running apache/mysql/php and it runs for months with out reboots. I also use to run a shoutcast server off for a year.

    Now I had win XP running on them and did see a BSOD once. Before that Win 98 Id get once every few months.

    I will say though Windows ME is a piece of shit that everyoen should return to MS for a refund. How anyone could sell shuch a shitty product and get away with it is beyond me.

    http://www.anologger.com/PS2 DESIGN RIP OFF _ LONG LIVE ATARI

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  133. Changing Error Messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I remember when Windows 3.0 crashed, you would get a 'UAE', which I think stood for Unrecoverable Application Error. Then it changed to GPF (General Protetion Fault) in Windows 3.1. Windows 95 started the BSOD ("A fatal exception xx has occurred at ..."), and now we're getting RSODs.

    On another note, Windows 2000 and XP are fairly stable. I don't remember the last time I had a BSOD on my home machine. You're really unlikely to see one unless you get a bad driver or bad hardware.

    I sometimes see the windows UI "reboot" itself if it has problems. Still a sign that there are problems, but at least I can continue working. And sometimes an application locks up and I can't exit it or get back to windows. Pushing the power button does nothing, so I have to hold it down until I get a reboot (or hit reset).

    Linux seems to have roughly the same stability as Windows now. I've had X lock up on me, and that would have forced a reboot if I couldn't SSH in to kill it. But the base operating system almost never crashes (it has happend a couple of times, but very rare).

    Operating system stability is very good now. My major concern now is security, and also application stability.

  134. Get rid of the blue screen of death forever!!! by rock_climbing_guy · · Score: 1
    --
    Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
    1. Re:Get rid of the blue screen of death forever!!! by sh0gun · · Score: 1

      Wow what a helpful tool for all Slashdot readers still using Windows 95, 98 or ME. Thanks so much for the link!

    2. Re:Get rid of the blue screen of death forever!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, they'll be the main ones who need it. :)

  135. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by labratuk · · Score: 1

    The Sun reps said that we are one of their few customers running 64-bit Linux because it isn't stable enough.

    The vendor amd64 distros aren't great yet, which I guess you're using, however very good results are being had with debian (alioth) and gentoo amd64.

    This doesn't mean amd64 linux is 'unstable'.

    --
    Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
  136. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see BSODs a lot, almost daily, on Windows XP.

    Why was this modded redundant? Seriously. Back in 2003 I was working on my thesis. I developed a small simulation program, based on a previous student's work, in Linux and FreeBSD and used mingw32 cross-compile to tools to make windows binaries from within Linux. However, as part of my data collection, I needed to performance test in Windows.

    I went to the software support folks at school and checked out the following CDs: Windows XP, Office XP (needed to test the earlier version of the simulation from before I ported it), and Visual Studio.NET 2003.

    Here is what I did:

    • Create 5 GB partition for Windows.
    • Install Windows XP (note, I never connected this machine to the net when I had Windows running)
    • Install Office XP
    • Install VS.NET 2003 (all the CDs).
    • Copy my source code over from disk (it was a standard autotools project)
    • Fire up visual studio.
    • File->Open main.cpp from my project.
    • Watch Visual Studio fold like a house of cards and start to bring up the dialog to send an error report.
    • As soon as the error report dialog finished drawing, Windows would show the happy BSOD.

    To answer the questions that will surely come:

    • No there were no hardware problems.
    • The machine ran fine with only Linux for about 6 months before this little problem.
    • I memtested it just to be sure, no joy.
    • No hardware problems have manifested themselves on this box (which has happily run only Linux once I finished my thesis) until about 3 weeks ago when the PSU started failing.
    • The scenario was completely reproducible. I.e., wipe the partition clean, repeat the steps I outline above and it would happen again.

    I could never figure why it did that. I eventually used VS.NET on a lab machine to turn my code into a VS project and brought that over to my machine. For some reason, VS didn't choke if I opened the files from within the project.

  137. Microsoft expands the product line... by GumphMaster · · Score: 1

    Today Microsoft is pleased to announce the addition of two new products to our Windows stable:

    Windows Loghorn [sic], with patented new Reduced BSOD features. Increase your total return per BSOD with Windows Loghorn today.

    Windows Longorn [sic] sports additional ROSD [sic] (red screen of death) Transposition Engines (pat. pending.) With the expansion of auto-correct functionality to system critical events the TCO is even lower. Upgrade your Windows today.

    Seriously though guys. How hard is it to spend 30 seconds reading your own typing?!

    --
    Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
  138. Button to dismiss the BSOD or RSOD by Old+Wolf · · Score: 1

    Microsoft should add a new button to the extended keyboard. This button would dismiss any Screen Of Death that occurs.

    I propose that this be named the "SOD Off" button.

  139. Whose Blog Is It Anyway? by ticklish2day · · Score: 1

    Joi Ito's blog clearly mentions that Microsoft's Michael Kaplan posted the information first. So, why does the post say "Joi Ito reports..."?

    1. Re:Whose Blog Is It Anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How evil of ticklish2day, for trying to bring a bit of jourrnalistic integrity to /.

      No wonder his post scored so low. Accuracy here is a violation.

  140. Blue pill or red by Mr+Bubble · · Score: 1

    take the blue pill!

    --
    "The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
    1. Re:Blue pill or red by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I always rather liked reds. Bluebands weren't bad either though.

  141. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by saleenS281 · · Score: 1

    you can have an E for effort. Unfortunately for you, XP still shows the bluescreen BEFORE it reboots. So unless you aren't at the computer when it BSOD's, you'll still see it. Next.

  142. OSS by UlfGabe · · Score: 1

    And M$ says OSS is communist, what a bunch of hippocrites!

    --
    Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
  143. I've had one, and it was cyan by Max_Wells_SH · · Score: 1

    Another replier here suggested green, so maybe the colour on my TV is off. I had the Splinter Cell Chaos Theory demo on an OXM disc, and sometimes it would crash during a quicksave: the screen would flicker, then finally just show solid cyan and I would have to reboot. Take that as an anecdote or a joke--in any case, the MS guy was right, from a certain point of view.

    --
    I read Slashdot for the articles.
  144. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by TheRealSlimShady · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It was a laptop with a manufacturer install on Win2k, so we can presume drivers are not likely to be an issue

    Actually, you can't even presume that. Some manufacturers are especially good at writing drivers that suck, so it's entirely possible that they could ship a laptop with dodgy drivers. The other problem is that a lot of the drivers they ship with aren't written by them - I'm working on an HP laptop with an HP build (stupid) that has Intel, Synaptics & Realtek drivers...

  145. color code it like the threat level by p51d007 · · Score: 2, Funny

    If MS wants to REALLY spice things up, they need a color scheme for "BSOD". Red=really really bad Yellow=really bad Blue=bad etc...

  146. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by lnjasdpppun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually a friend of mine who knows so much about doing weird things with Windows it's scary, has moved his WinXP install across multiple motherboards with different chipsets (via, sis, nForce and Intel). He wrote a small tutorial with lots of pictures on how to do it and it's not exactly hard - I don't know the link off-hand.

    It's all in the preparation, if you don't install Generic IDE/Chipset drivers (Windows is smart enough to use the correct drivers without requiring the generic ones when it installs) Windows can't read from the HDD and obviously fails to boot. Just like if you removed Generic IDE chipset support from your Kernel and tried to boot it on another system it would most likely fail.

  147. Been there... by n.e.watson · · Score: 1, Funny

    Way ahead of you, Microsoft. Change The BSoD color If your error crashes my computer, I'm not going to care if it was a "red" level of severity or a "blue" level of severity. I already know it was severe enough to crash my computer.

  148. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Gary+Destruction · · Score: 1

    Or you have malware such as a trojan horse or virus that is crashing your system.

  149. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by irq255 · · Score: 1

    I am curious... Did that same computer also freeze or cause kernel panics when Linux was run on it?

  150. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clearly he's using SPARC, unless he has 100 brand new machines, in which case he probably would have mentioned the amd64 architecture.

  151. This is hardly an improvement by Gary+Destruction · · Score: 1

    Microsoft isn't helping the user out any. It still doesn't mean anything to them. People have asked me what the BSOD means to the average person. Instead of intimidating the user, Microsoft could at least try to give the user a sense of confidence and hope.

  152. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by MighMoS · · Score: 1

    How do you not set it up correctly? You hit the install button! Then accept the agreement, giving your firstborn to MS.

  153. What this really means by raider_red · · Score: 1

    //Changed screen color from 0x0000ff to 0xff0000

    int screen_color = 0xff0000

    --
    It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
  154. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Buggy drivers? Windows? Two great tastes that go great together!

  155. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, what, you don't sleep? You're in front of your system 24/7/365?

  156. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by grolschie · · Score: 1

    I've used the Catalyst drivers with every new version since christ.. 03 and not had a single BSOD. More than likely it's the Hyperion drivers

    Hmmm.... methinks maybe you should read rage3d.com or alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati sometime.

  157. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Him:
    I see Linux crash on our cluster of 100 Sun Opteron boxes daily.

    You:
    Clearly he's using SPARC

    You fail it. YHL. HAND.

  158. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by blincoln · · Score: 1

    I have apps running on my machine that don't start automatically. If the system reboots, they won't be running.

    Also, I don't have my machine set to automatically log on, so I would be looking at a logon prompt if it had bounced.

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  159. This also works on windows 3.x by myBotPiko · · Score: 1

    This also works on windows 3.x

  160. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by blincoln · · Score: 1

    I was saying that it's stupid that *Windows* can't handle being moved across different hardware =P.

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  161. BSOD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have been running Linux for over two years now and I didn't remember what a BSOD was.

    Then I remembered that if I got to that place in a Linux box I could allways ssh over to it and fix it like that, unlike Windows.

    MS Windows is crap.

  162. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by kurzweilfreak · · Score: 1

    What an odd question from someone on /. to ask...

    --

    kurzweil_freak

    5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student

    Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.

  163. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by splorp! · · Score: 1

    I got BSODs daily for months. They started when I tried Win2k and then continued when I got WinXP Pro. I got them so often I considered going back to Win98 SE. Then, I changed my RAM from the cheap stuff (PNY) to the good stuff (Kingston) based on the error message I was receiving. The BSODs stopped immediately. I haven't seen a BSOD in over a year.

    --
    Please don't humanize the morons around me. It makes me very uncomfortable.
  164. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by tono · · Score: 1

    me thinks a lot of their problems are due to other hardware and illconcieved game code. I know for the longest time until it was patched far cry would lock up after 2 hours of playing and it wasn't the video cards fault

    --
    cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
  165. Where are the Other Colors? by Michael_Burton · · Score: 1

    When Apple offered iMacs in five different color choices way back in 1999, some said that Microsoft, as usual, would copy the Macintosh and offer the Blue Screen of Death in five different shades.

    Honestly, no kidding, I thought it was a joke. This arrives years later, and the feature set originally envisioned has been substantially scaled back, so I know this story is true.

    --
    When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
  166. Hoax by xsspd2004 · · Score: 1
    Anyone notice that his is a fake? Just wondering. For all their faults Microsoft has always seemed to be able to spell the word execution, even if the execution of proper programming skill has completely befuddled them.

    Note to the artist, it would have been better to take a real BSOD screenshot, change it to indexed color and edit your palette to replace blue with red. You wouldn't have had to spell anything. :-)

    --
    This is not an illusion, a rip-off, or a ninja technique!
  167. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

    Hey,I've got xp sp2 and it goes tits up a LOT more often than Win2k.XP-Twice a week,2K-once in four years.I've even tried running the programs on both machines.2K=great xp=very pretty fall down and go BOOM!If i could find a stupid usb 2.0 driver for my game toater I'd dump xp in a heartbeat,But unfortunatly my MOBO only has the drivers for Win98 and xp.Talk about your lousy choices.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  168. It'll be good for chinese new year by fakedupe · · Score: 1

    goong hay fat choy, or shing nian quia le, or chuc mun nam moi! 365 days a year!

    You think MS marketing is tying this in with the xbox 360 launch?

    1. Re:It'll be good for chinese new year by fakedupe · · Score: 1

      Longhorn, crashing only 360 days year!

  169. Exectuion??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did anyone else notice that the reason for this Red Screen of Death is "An error occurred transferring exectuion"??
    'Exectuion' must be a new feature in Longhorn, hence it's instability.

  170. "sliced a hole" by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1

    That's because the low-level graphics libraries that display text blindly "slide" the contents of the framebuffer down to simulate text scrolling.

    Probably use the same techniques Sun does... there is no "text mode" like on a PC. The BIOS just simulates a console on top of your framebuffer.

    You'll get the same thing on a Sun if you do STOP+A or ctrl-break while X is running... you get the "console" text pushing up the GUI with a ok> prompt...

    Bleh I'm babbling... sorry.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  171. Changing the Color by freakmn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, it isn't in the registry, it's in system.ini. I haven't been able to verify whether this works, as the computer I'm on hasn't had a BSOD since I got it. I take good care of it.

    --
    warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
    1. Re:Changing the Color by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It does. I used to get Black Screens Of Death all the time.

    2. Re:Changing the Color by Winkhorst · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected.

      --
      "Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
  172. Fast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does the the red make it crash faster, as we all no red is the fastest colour

  173. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A good effort, but you'll need to change your username to something a bit more subtle (ie not "JW Troll". Change your homepage as well, and you have a bright future of snaring zealots ahead of you.

  174. RHEL or SuSE? by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1

    I was really not liking SLES. Lots of weird problems.
    RHEL was much nicer...

    (I'm bringing this up because I'm thinking of getting some V4xzs but I wanted to know about people's experiences with them)

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  175. They think you're kidding cuz you're wrong. by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1

    What you're thinking about is that option under system properties that makes the machine automatically reboot if it blue screens (they only way you can tell it happened is if you check the system log)

    Restarting explorer is a seperate thing altogether. This has been possible in all the NTs.

    It happens when explorer gets messed up for whatever reason (usually due to some kind of built-in behavior and removable media... unavailable network shares, etc.)

    Since explorer drives most of the interface, it is designed to start if no existing copy is running. In Windows 95 and 98, it was also possible, BUT, generally speaking explorer dying was just a side-effect of a larger problem that would ultimately take down the whole system. In 95/98, a user-space issue could easily become a system issue.

    But that is not the same thing as a BSOD. In Windows NT, a BSOD is strictly a system-level issue, explorer dying is a just a problem with explorer.
    They are almost always not connected.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
    1. Re:They think you're kidding cuz you're wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your a fanboy and your ghey

  176. uh by jnf · · Score: 1

    wouldnt that actually be RSOD and not ROSD?

  177. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That sounds like a really bad webcam. :-)

    If it crashes XP with a BSOD, that's because it use a device driver requesting hardware access on Windows.

  178. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by NanoGator · · Score: 1

    "Some of us leave our machines always logged on, or 'locked'. I'd know real fast if it automatically rebooted and I was at a fresh login screen."

    Heh.

    "Welp, I'm done for the next 30 minutes. I'd better close all my windows and get it back to the 'freshly loaded' state so it's nice and clean when I come back after lunch!"

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  179. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by grolschie · · Score: 1

    Nah. I have been through two Radeons (one a made-by-ATI and the other a powered-by-ATI), and although the hardware was excellent, the drivers do indeed suck. Lets not even mention the Linux drivers, alright? The Windows TV Tuner drivers for my made-by-ATI 8500DV and the MMC have been shocking. Finding a working combination is like trying to guess the secret handshake or something. Actually, the first time I installed the drivers from the CD that came with the card, it completely killed my OS requiring a complete reinstall of Windows98SE. Couldn't even boot into Safe mode. Upon the first boot attempt explorer.exe couldn't even load due to .dll issues. Couldn't repair manually by extracting original .dll files from the Windows cab files. Things were truly screwed. A reinstall and installation of newer drivers sorted that.

    The current Catalyst release (5.4) is being avoided by many due to numerous introduced bugs. Many are using much older drivers for stability and frame-rates. I upgraded to XP hoping that the driver quality would be better, but it is not. The latest XP drivers actually killed the TV tuner on my card. Had to revert to an earlier driver combo to restore TV function. This is the last time I will buy an ATI card. I never had such problems with NVidia Detonators. My whole ATI experience has left a nasty taste in my mouth.

  180. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by jack_csk · · Score: 0

    Last time I saw BSOD on my WinXP, it was an optical mouse driver that works with every version but Service Pack 2. It was quite funny because the driver that crashed WinXP2 was obtained through Windows Update. The generic one that came with WinXP by default was fine, as I found out.

    I used to think that SP2 suppose to be more stable and would disable that faulty driver instead of BSOD.

  181. Does this apply to states? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Red state = really bad state? I always knew Alabama sucked.

  182. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by jack_csk · · Score: 0

    Also, the driver can be either unsigned (means the driver hasn't been tested by Microsoft) or a customized version (since laptop manufacturers tweak the hardware and driver to fit their laptops' designs).

  183. Threat levels by Aggrav8d · · Score: 1

    So if I follow the logic if a BSOD is a 'guarded' error and a RSOD is a 'severe' error then a green SOD is a 'low' error, a yellow SOD is an 'elevated' error, and an orange SOD is a 'high' error.

    http://www.epic.org/graphics/threat_levels.gif

    Oh hell, I can't remember if we're talking about windows errors or terrorist threats. Though, TBH, there are probably times when they are one and the same.

    1. Re:Threat levels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's SOB. On high.

  184. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by jack_csk · · Score: 0

    Personally, I've seen Windows (NT & 9x family) BSOD, Linux kernel panic, Mac OS 9 and X system crash (at a point that the mouse cursor does not even response) on several machines for each. I have, however, yet to see a single Sun UltraSparc that runs Solaris 2 crashes. Even though Sun manufactures UltraSparc themselves, it is still amazing that it has a stability that not even the Apple machines can compare to.

  185. Re:You have failed physics. Turn in your slashdot by pAnkRat · · Score: 1, Funny

    Microsoft cannot use magenta in this product, because the german Telecom (T-online, T-mobile, T-whatever) has trademarket, copyrighted and likely patented the use of magenta in the Information Technology sector.

    (This is true in Germany, but I think they pushed this thing world wide)

    --
    we need an "-1 Plain wrong" moderation option!
  186. Let me hazard a guess. by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1

    Red screens of death will be what in the *nix world are called "panics". These are the kinds of errors that the system was not expecting and that there is no way of possbily recovering from.
    * Bad memory/parity/bus error in a kernel page
    * NULL pointer access in file system or security-related code
    * Hard disk/controller dies during paging
    * Double faults

    Blue screens of death are the ones where the system is still "up" but it can't continue safely (either you decided with a setting, a driver made a choice, or the OS decided for you). These are more like "oops" in the linux kernel.
    * Audit logs / disks full
    * watchdog timers
    * Bad memory in user space
    * System/boot drive died
    * Other faults unhandled by drivers or an application

    Blue errors are errors of circumstances that you could probably fix and reboot. Red errors are the ones you can't do much about. Red errors are probably microsoft's job to fix... or due to an unrecoverable hardware error. Maybe a reboot and it goes away...

    Or it could be something simple like "Red" means it was an "unhandled exception" (interrupt context/unhandled exception from userspace) and "Blue" means it was called explictly by the kernel itself.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  187. I'd need a stroke too to want to use a Mac... by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1
    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  188. Red screens indicate(d) ACPI errors by danshapiro · · Score: 2, Informative
    Red screens were introduced in '98 to indicate ACPI errors:

    http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/acpi.htm

    I believe the redscreen code is turned off in release builds, meaning you are not likely to see one.

    --
    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
    1. Re:Red screens indicate(d) ACPI errors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      9x is not NT. And clearly this is not an ACPI error.

  189. Longhorn, now with wings! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps tampon and maxi pad companies should follow suit with Microsoft. I would expect to see commercials where someone pours red liquid onto a maxi pad now to show severe...discharge.

    I'll leave that to the imagination before I vomit.

  190. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Teddy+Beartuzzi · · Score: 1
    STA $C030

    You're hitting that twice, which caused the speaker to go in then back out again. Best results with LDA, only hits it once.

    'Lessin you were trying for some poly-symphonic thing. :)

  191. It's a cunning plot by Julian+Morrison · · Score: 1

    If you misspell the error messages differently in each possible error source, then grep will find your bug instantly :-)

  192. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by ashSlash · · Score: 1

    I was also seeing not BSODs but spontaneous reboots with XP - one moment you're using it and the next you're looking at the POST screen and the memory is counting up... no warning whatsoever!

    Admittedly I picked up the PC off some guys who were putting it out for the trash (when I got it home it was BSOD on boot), but since changing to Linux I've not had any instability issues whatsoever (it's my webserver and guest Internet terminal, running a full desktop Ubuntu with Gnome, in fact).

    I put the Windows probs down to some minor mainboard fault or a Win32 driver issue (Windows 2000 did the same thing).

  193. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

    In order to be flexible across multiple architectures NT (and thus XP) has what is called a HAL (hardware abstraction layer). It loads a different HAL for different processor types.
    So if you swap out the hardware underneath it you will need to do a repair install to get it to load the proper HAL.

  194. red is better than bule by dillee1 · · Score: 1

    you turn red when angry;
    you are dead when you turn blue.

  195. exectuion ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is this a fake or are the longhorn kernel developers unable to spell ??? whoaa man. microsoft engineers really are shit... news at 11.

  196. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe he skipped the firstborn part.

  197. How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've been seeing a lot less BSOD's in general since using 2K and XP.

    In Windows 98, I would run the comptuer for a few days, and for no reason it would just start being slow and throwing random BSOD's at me.

    Since using 2K and XP, I've seen a few recently, but they're all realated to a piece of faulty hardware that I've been too lazy to replace. Other than that, I can't reacall seeing a single BSOD in years on a computer of my own.

    I'm honestly asking people. Have you run into BSOD's that really truely was 2000's/XP's fault instead of being some sort of hardware fuckup?

    --
    I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
    1. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by smellystudent · · Score: 2, Informative

      All the BSOD's I've seen recently have been traced back to bad RAM.

      --
      Predictive text is shiv!
    2. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by stud9920 · · Score: 0

      I've seen few, but I still have to reboot my computer when I install a screensaver

    3. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. Happened in the first 5 minutues of using XP for the first time. And I wasn't even trying to crash it or anything. :/

      (Though I was tempted to, because MS was claiming that it was virtually uncrashable. Heh.)

    4. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by MerlinTheWizard · · Score: 1

      Few indeed, and in my case, all due to a bad device driver in one case, and a faulty PSU in the other case. Then again, I never leave any workstation on for more than a day, maybe two at times. I'm willing to bet that fuckups would occur if I gave Windows more time to screw up. ;-)

    5. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 2, Informative

      When I ran Win95, it would BSOD 5+ times a day. Once, it went down 15 times! I counted them! When we switched to NT4, it went down several times a week, instead of several times a day. So far, I haven't seen a BSOD on XP.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    6. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by bigwang · · Score: 1

      I don't think I have had one all year. The last one I remember was when I was doing some intensive testing of my new CD-RW drive.

    7. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by drew · · Score: 1

      both my wife and one of my business partners were getting them on a regular basis for a long time- at least three times a week, sometimes multiple times per day. the two of them both had the same laptop and same driver versions as me, and i never had any problems with mine. the error message always said something about a driver error, but they must have spent a year upgrading to every new driver that was released without ever fixing the problem. finally, after sp1 came and went without fixing the problem, i conviced my wife to use the 'classic' look instead the 'xp' look (the only difference i could ever figure out between my laptop and theirs) and the problem went away. my busines partner, on the other had, refused to believe that was what was causing the errors, although i think he did eventually switch.

      --
      If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
    8. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by ^_^x · · Score: 1

      I had a few BSODs with Windows 2003 Server (I'm using it as my desktop OS and it's great :D). They were caused by a bad stick of RAM, and once it was replaced, everything ran smoothly. I don't think I've seen one since then in the last couple years.

      Of course, even if MS kept improving quality at this rate and made the perfect OS years later, there would still be a ton of trolls on here that mock it for BSODs simply because they don't use Windows anymore and had a bad experience with 3.11 :p

    9. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by gd2shoe · · Score: 1

      Did 3.11 have BSODs? I thought they were introduced with Win95.

      Good point, but I doubt there will ever be a perfect Microsoft Windows. Furthermore, there will always be someone here to tell the naysayers how perfect Windows has become.

      (Granted, Microsoft has made great strides in stability since Win9x.)

      --
      I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
    10. Re:How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 1

      I don't remember BSOD's in Windows earlier than 95, but I DO remember General Protection Faults happening a lot more often.

      --
      I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
  198. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, Win2k destroyed your RAM?

  199. You make me sick by The+Angry+Artist · · Score: 1

    Maybe next Microsoft will introduce the Phlegm SOD for the users who screw up Windows badly.

    --
    If you're reading this, stop it.
  200. pffffffftt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what bullshit. its more about the Activation failing.. and that is a FEATURE .. remember. so lemme get this right XP keeps about 1.5 gig of system restore crap and cab files for every driver etc.. but you have to DO have to do a reinstall to get it to boot on another mobo.. windows is SHIT. figure it out.

  201. Filled color screens by GQuon · · Score: 2, Informative

    What Ziviyr (95582) is referring to, are errors even worse than the Guru Meditation (software failure).

    Certain hardware errors would turn the screen into one single color like red, yellow and green.

    Red : ROM Error - Reseat or replace
    Green : CHIP RAM error (reset AGNUS and re-test)
    Blue : Custom Chip(s) Error
    Yellow : 68000 detected error before software trapped it (GURU)
    Black : No CPU

    Amiga System Startup Colours

    Personally, I've seen a lot of red screens on an Amiga 600 that I sent in for replacement. I've seen the yellow screen a couple of times, and I think I might have seen the green one. I've never seen an Amiga blue-screen or black-screen.

    I did see the Guru Meditation (later renamed Software Failure) many times, and its less serious brother, the "Recoverable Alert" -- a Guru Meditation with yellow text and frame on black background that you could just click away to let the program continue.

    In the new Amiga OS4, the crash handler is called the "Grim Reaper" and comes with several functions for debugging, as well as choices to kill the offending application, contiue running, or rebooting the system.

    --
    Irene KHAAAAAAN!
    1. Re:Filled color screens by NetNifty · · Score: 1

      On my Amiga 1200, it can also come up red if the expansion card is loose.

  202. Choose the Blue Screen! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You look at the blue screen - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You look at the red screen - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the system-error goes.

  203. Microsoft To Allow Changing Of Blue Screen Of Deat by Sara+Chan · · Score: 1
    (Redmond, Wash.) In a surprise announcement today, Microsoft President Steve Ballmer revealed that the Redmond-based company will allow computer resellers and end-users to customize the appearance of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), the screen that displays when the Windows operating system crashes. The move comes as the result of numerous focus groups and customer surveys done by Microsoft. Thousands of Microsoft customers were asked, "What do you spend the most time doing on your computer?" A surprising number of respondents said, "Staring at a Blue Screen of Death." At 54 percent, it was the top answer, beating the second place answer "Downloading XXXScans" by an easy 12 points.

    "We immediately recognized this as a great opportunity for ourselves, our channel partners, and especially our customers," explained the excited Ballmer to a room full of reporters. Immense video displays were used to show images of the new customizable BSOD screen side-by-side with the older static version. Users can select from a collection of "BSOD Themes," allowing them to instead have a Mauve Screen of Death or even a Paisley Screen of Death. Graphics and multimedia content can now be incorporated into the screen, making the BSOD the perfect conduit for delivering product information and entertainment to Windows users.

    The BSOD is by far the most recognized feature of the Windows operating system, and as a result, Microsoft has historically insisted on total control over its look and feel. This recent departure from that policy reflects Microsoft's recognition of the Windows desktop itself as the "ultimate information portal." By default, the new BSOD will be configured to show a random selection of Microsoft product information whenever the system crashes. Microsoft channel partners can negotiate with Microsoft for the right to customize the BSOD on systems they ship. Major computer resellers such as Compaq, Gateway, and Dell are already lining up for premier placement on the new and improved BSOD.

    Ballmer concluded by getting a dig in against the Open Source community. "This just goes to show that Microsoft continues to innovate at a much faster pace than open source. I have yet to see any evidence that Linux even has a BSOD, let alone a customizable one."



    (Copied from here.

  204. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by akadruid · · Score: 1

    Buggy drivers is a lovely one, cos on windows, that usually means new hardware. I had this for a long time, a Win XP box that was doing NAT at my house used to BSOD on a daily basis because of faulty ADSL modem drivers - and the manufacturer refused to release new ones. In the end, I gave up, and put the machine on FC2, with the drivers made by the great guys over at http://www.eciadsl.flashtux.org/. Since then it has been online for (checks) 142 days.

    --
    "Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
  205. RSOD Typo! by HogynCymraeg · · Score: 1

    EXECTUION?!?!?

    1. Re:RSOD Typo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't you see the link to it? It reads "ROSD".
      Ramblings Of Sick Dyslectic.

  206. Re:Red-shifting - like distant galaxies :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anybody need better proof that astronomy does matter in our everyday lives? :-))

    Regards,

    W.

  207. i look forward to it by hector_uk · · Score: 1

    now i can look forward to staring at a red screen of death on my way to college on the bus (they have adverts playing on screens) about half of all the buses have BSOD on there screens not even 9x ones they run on 2k.

  208. Nothing new..? by wulfhound · · Score: 1

    I've heard it said that the original BSOD, in the early days of Windows, was in fact red - however, the marketing people asked that it be toned down so as not to alarm people "unnecessarily". Can anyone substantiate this?

  209. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by AndyCadley · · Score: 1

    You installed a buggy device driver somewhere along the way. Simple as that.

    I run a network of aseveral hundred Windows boxes (a mix of 2k and XP) and I see maybe 2 or 3 bugchecks a year. Every one is failing hardware or device driver related.

    They just don't happen daily unless you really have no clue.

  210. BSOD, GSOD, PSOD, OSOD by Timberwolf0122 · · Score: 1

    I don't know if anyone else used this, but there was a hack that would let you change the colour of the BSOD to any colour you wanted.

    Pop Quiz: how many lines of code do you recon M$ took to add the RSOD?
    a) upto 5 lines
    b) upto 50,000 lines
    c) upto 500,000 lines
    or
    d) one reeeeeaaaaaaaaallllllyyyyyy long line.

    --
    In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
    1. Re:BSOD, GSOD, PSOD, OSOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I vote e) sex with a mare.

  211. Finally, the Phenomal Protection Fault by D4C5CE · · Score: 1
    So with the usual tiny little decade of delay, they'll finally deliver something scheduled for Win95 already:
    'The GPF has been replaced by two significantly improved errors:
    • "Specific Protection Fault" - used to corrupt an individual 16-bit process.
    • "Global Protection Fault" - this powerful memory management facility will allow a corrupt process not only to corrupt all other running processes, but corrupt processes on all other machines within a five-mile radius.
    Even now we are developing "pre-emptive" memory management, which will be able to corrupt processes which are not yet running. Threaded Multi-Tasking: The cooperative multi-tasking found in Winodws 3.1 has now been replaced with the far more powerful "uncooperative multi-tasking". This enhancement will allow several processes to crash simultaneously. Our new crash protection facility greatly enhances the multi-tasking environment. Should one process fail, the CPF will prevent this process from being disturbed by other cleanly running processes.'
    BTW as a tribute of course this should not be called R/MSOD but... Guru Meditation!
    If that one's still trademarked, call it Extremely Evil Exception Error.
    1. Re:Finally, the Phenomal Protection Fault by Pope · · Score: 1

      Will Linux have the GNU/Meditation screen?

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  212. BSOD by zaguar · · Score: 1

    Yeah, thats /.

    --
    "Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
  213. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    SP2 . 2k is rock solid, xp is bolloxed on NTFS, TCPIP stack and HTTP

  214. can no one fscking spell anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    or even abbreviate? how is a "ROSD" a red screen of death?

    yesterday we had a "summery" for god's sake. so much for the us tech industry; i'm glad i live in a civilised and cultured (read: european) country.

  215. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Kent+Recal · · Score: 1

    Oh, you can actually do that with windows nowadays, leave it always on?

    Last time I checked it would gradually slow down to a crawl (can admittedly take a week or two) and eventually behave really funny - like certain folders just won't open anymore or networking stops working.

  216. At last! by JayJay.br · · Score: 1

    I think this is a good step for MS. I mean, for ten years I've been wondering why is that the worst error possible is featured in a screen that has the company's colors! Now they simply go red and no harm done.

    However, I would've done it brown, since:

    1) Doesn't change the BSOD acronym;
    2) Brown's a color that reflects so much what I'm thinking about when the error screens happen.

    Course, I don't use Windows anymore. But my customers do.

  217. Get your RSOD for Win9x here by Mixel · · Score: 1

    The BSOD color on '9x is just a matter of tweaking a couple of ini entries. Heck, I wrote a program to do it.. years ago!

  218. I said it before and Ill say it again. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    Windows Longhorn Getting one step closer to offering what they promised us in Windows 95.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  219. Guru Meditation? by awfar · · Score: 1

    Did it take 15 years to get it back!?

  220. rainbow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the heck? i thought bill wasnt for gay rights? why is he putting the rainbow symbol in his work then?

  221. How do you get fewer than zero? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've yet to get a BSOD on XP Pro at work or at home.

  222. Brand Management by supertopaz90 · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised that Brand Management (or whatever marketing folks handle that for them) are letting them get rid of such a well-known icon of Windows. ;-)

  223. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by LurkerXXX · · Score: 1

    Maybe you should have tried it since the windows 9x series.

  224. *SOD is still a *SOD by WoodieR · · Score: 1

    no matter what pretty colour it is a screen of death is exactly that ... it's dead or it's deader ? red is for serious dead ?

    --
    Question Authority before IT questions You ...
  225. What the future holds by base_chakra · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I guess after his we can expect a pitch black screen with a loud WAV file of a beating heart. Or maybe the "X" mechanical fart sound from the Family Feud.

  226. BSOD screen saver. by Poromenos1 · · Score: 1

    So, I downloaded the Sysinternals BSOD screen saver (emulates a BSOD). I remember thinking that it didn't work, because I had tried it before and some error I don't remember occurred. I tried it again, and, sure enough. My PC BSOD'ed. I was like, wtf, how can a screensaver BSOD, it's not like it needs access to low-level hardware or anything. I sigh and reset the PC. While it was rebooting, a peculiar thought started forming in my mind. My... BSOD... screen saver... BSOD'ed... I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier. Next time I ran it I just pressed a key and it went back to windows :P

    --
    Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
  227. Longhorn bleeds! by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

    Windows Longorn will get additional ROSD ... You can find a ROSD screenshot in a virtual machine in his weblog entry."

    What is Red of Screen Death, blood?

    --
    Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  228. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

    i wouldn't be discouraged by that if i was you, try another distro that doesn't suck balls. (k)ubuntu is quite a nice distro, just install webmin (apt-get install webmin) and youve got a replacement for mandrakes *drake tools (diskdrake, etc)

  229. Oy by jalefkowit · · Score: 1

    Windows "Loghorn"?

    C'mon editors, this is just getting ridiculous...

  230. Nothing to worry about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Either this is a hoax or Microsoft outsources all of its error-message programming to South Asia. Not only is "exectuion" misspelled, but there is an inappropriate comma after the word "please" at the end of the last line. It looks hoaxy.

  231. BSOD reboot bug from Hades! by gd2shoe · · Score: 1

    I refuse to believe that such a malevolent thing as giving a BSOD followed by immediately rebooting to be a feature. Something so maniacal could only be a bug of the worst kind.

    Does this setting really affect the BSOD->reboot problem? Does anybody know where in the registry this is hiding? On the computers I work on, I don't really have a good chance to turn that off before the problem occurs (but I have found an off-line registry editor). There is little worse than getting a machine that boots->BSOD->restart->boot->BSOD-restart->boot->BS OD->restart->ad infinitum, all without user intervention!

    --
    I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
  232. In my 2 years of using XP... by gosand · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'm honestly asking people. Have you run into BSOD's that really truely was 2000's/XP's fault instead of being some sort of hardware fuckup?

    I have used XP for 2 years now (job, not at home) and I have only seen a couple BSODs on it. HOWEVER, I don't think that the OS is that much more stable than 2k. I still get lockups, massive slow-downs, and unresponsiveness. In fact, I think I get them more in XP than in 2k. XP does weirder things. Does it matter that there is not a BSOD if I have to reset the machine and lose my work anyway? That happens. In my opinion, XP is not more stable than 2k. Microsoft are a bunch of dopes. Windows 2000 was widely regarded as "pretty darn good" even by the Linux crowd. So instead of improving on it by making it more secure and stable, they come out with XP. I don't get it. It's like putting a new gaudy paint job on a reasonably well-running car, and all of a sudden it starts misfiring and stalling.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

    1. Re:In my 2 years of using XP... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen more BSOD's (BLACK SOD aka Kernel Panic) on Linux than on our windows machines in the last few years.

      And in all cases it boils down to bad hardware/drivers.

      The driver state on Linux these days still seems to be far worse than on Windows. :(

    2. Re:In my 2 years of using XP... by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 1

      Heh, all I ever noticed was the gaudy paint job. (though a hacked uxtheme.dll fixed that real quick) I didn't really notice XP being all that less responsive than 2000. But then again, a friend of mine has XP installed on a system that was almost identical to one I used to have, and he has major unreponsiveness, especially when first turning the computer on. I think it had to do with Asus Probe acting weird, but I never used it enough to figure it out. Still, I wish that XP had the linux equivilent of a quickly accessable console, so I didn't have to wait for the ctrl+alt+del menu to come up so I can select Task Manager and kill the process. When something Xwindows related screwed up (fairly often for me when I used Linux, for some reason), I could just Ctrl+Alt+F2, login, ps -A | less, killall evilprogram, or just hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace and kill X entirely. XP has nothing like this, so if some program is taking up a vast amount of system resouces, I just have to hope it doesnt slow the rest of my computer to a crawl. Granted, I don't use Linux anymore because I do play a whole lot of games that are just a pain in the ass to use in Cedega, but there are a few things I miss from my time using it.

      --
      I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
  233. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When you are the admin of 1000 servers and 25,000 desktops, how often are you "at the computer"?

  234. continue by drew · · Score: 1

    i like the "SPACE=CONTINUE" message on the bottom of the screen. What would the point of continuing be at this point? in that screenshoot, it looks like the bootloader failed. So I'm guessing that continue really means reboot, because from that point, there's not really anything else you can do.

    talk about cryptic. this must be from the same guy who brought us "keyboard missing. hit f1 to continue." i hate to tell you guys, but it's not the 1980's anymore. you can be a little more descriptive with your error messages.

    --
    If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
  235. Credit for MS by 4of12 · · Score: 1

    The jarring nature of a RSOD means customers will be more upset and more unhappy if one happens.

    MS is gambling that there will be fewer such events because of more careful combing through the code.

    I have to give them credit for doing something which they almost never do anymore - putting their neck on the block and sticking up for their product's quality in a meaningful way.

    Making the developers man the 1-800 lines the first month after release would be another incentive...

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  236. Read this. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    He said motherboard. Not CPU type. Not architecture. Motherboard. It has jack to do with the HAL.

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
    1. Re:Read this. by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

      Typically when I upgrade my motherboard I also upgrade the CPU. Often it is of a different family. I assume he does the same but who knows.

  237. Linux needs to catch up, again by Fishstick · · Score: 1

    The BSOD is by far the most recognized feature of the Windows operating system, and as a result, Microsoft has historically insisted on total control over its look and feel. This recent departure from that policy reflects Microsoft's recognition of the Windows desktop itself as the "ultimate information portal." By default, the new BSOD will be configured to show a random selection of Microsoft product information whenever the system crashes. Microsoft channel partners can negotiate with Microsoft for the right to customize the BSOD on systems they ship.

    Major computer resellers such as Compaq, Gateway, and Dell are already lining up for premier placement on the new and improved BSOD. Ballmer concluded by getting a dig in against the Open Source community. "This just goes to show that Microsoft continues to innovate at a much faster pace than open source. I have yet to see any evidence that Linux even has a BSOD, let alone a customizable one."


    http://teach.fcps.net/tips/March/NetworkDown.htm

    --

    There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
    Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

  238. Yeah, but what? by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    I get a BSOD every week or two on my Win2k box, (that IRQL one mentioned somewhere around here), and I don't know what piece of hardware is causing it. I've run a number of diagnostics off Hiren's bootCD, memtest86 gives the all-okay signal, nothing is running excessively hot. So what's the problem?

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
    1. Re:Yeah, but what? by BigDish · · Score: 1

      Just because something is beyond your troubleshooting abilities does not mean it is Window's fault.
      My gut feeling is your motherboard has a buggy ACPI implementation. Any chance your motherboard is from a little/no-name company and/or uses a VIA, ALI or SIS chipset? Try reinstalling windows with ACPI disabled and see if they go away.
      Additionally, try re-arranging your PCI cards to minimize the sharing of IRQ's - granted this points to a buggy driver or ACPI BIOS if this resolves the problem but if it works around the problem that may be good enough. Your motherboard BIOS or manual should have PCI slot to IRQ mappings. Don't forget about the the PCI devices onboard the motherboard.
      Lastly, check out http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;Q314084 for information how to find what driver is causing the error.

      Is Windows Perfect? No. That said, it's been my experience that the vast majority of BSODs are not really Window's fault - they are flakey hardware or drivers.

    2. Re:Yeah, but what? by EvilJoker · · Score: 1

      VIA is not a problem anymore, I know from experience the KT266 works great, and apparently so do all the rest now. (Granted, a few years back, they were all craptacular. Not anymore).

  239. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by aslate · · Score: 1

    It seemed to manage a bit better, but as the PSU got closer to blowing (Of course, all without me knowing it), it caused Linux to freeze, refuse to boot properly and cause errors too. It also enjoyed reporting my 120GB HDD as being 9 Exabytes, and then 17 Exabytes.

  240. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 1

    In my younger and less socially-adapted days, I once went into a store that sold Apple ][ computers, and typed this:

    call -151
    300:a5 00 20 ed fd ad 30 c0 4c 00 03
    300g

    Or for those that don't read 6502 machine code:
    LDA $00
    JSR $FDED
    LDA $C030
    JMP $0300

    This fills the screen with random garbage and clicks the speaker, repeatedly. I feel kind of bad about it now :-).

    (I don't remember whether the second byte was $00 or not; it was a zero page location that was ever-changing. I don't have an Apple ][ reference manual anymore :-()

  241. 32-bit? by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    Linux is 32-bit? Crap, now I have to uninstall it from that Sparc64 server.

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
    1. Re:32-bit? by Johnno74 · · Score: 1

      Ok, you got me there :)

      windows is 64 bit now as well.

  242. Ooh, a troll! Let me count the ways! by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    Unless by 'hardware' you mean Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC, S/390, ARM, m68k, Sparc or a variety of other platforms, in which case you get some halfhearted support from NT4 for a few of those other platforms, which was dropped along the way. Or you mean large-scale multiprocessor machines. Or you mean self-reconfiguring ad-hoc supercomputing clusters.

    Unless by 'the business world' you mean a preponderance of server equipment, or the core mission-critical systems that are still running on mainframes because no desktop-based operating system will do what they do.

    Unless by 'stable' you mean that for mission-critical stability (that five-nines sort of thing), no one in their right mind uses Windows. (I doubt they use Linux, either, but they certainly don't use Windows.)

    Unless by 'catch-up ball' you mean that Linux had the ability to turn old hardware into a useful router, small-scale webserver or PBX before Windows. Hell, Windows still doesn't. Or IPv6 support. Or support for so many filesystems. Or genuine random number generation (I *think* this was a Linux innovation) instead of using pseudorandom methods. Or native user-space support for arbitrary binary formats.

    And, of course, unless by 'facts' you mean a list of suppositions, unsupported by anything but bluster.

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
  243. The source of the blame. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    My apologies if I came off as a zealot. I had one of my biweekly crashes last night, and I'm trying to remember a third of the Firefox tabs I had open at the time.

    I'll reply to this again when I get home and can give you the full rundown on my hardware. I only blame the Windows because I have a Linux machine running on slightly older hardware (and I'm nearly certain it's VIA-based) right alongside and it never kernel-panics on me.

    Thanks for the help.

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
  244. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by jp10558 · · Score: 1

    Actually, recently I was having XP SP2 blusecreen, and it didn't show anything, just went right to the loading screen. I was convinced I had a hardware problem till someone told me to turn off the auto reboot.

    Sure enough - no more sudden "power loss"/restarts, but a heck of a lot more bluescreens.

    It's since stopped doing that - and I really have no idea why. I'm just happy it seems stable again.

    --
    Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
  245. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by jp10558 · · Score: 1

    Mmmm, I'd be interested in that tutorial if you do happen to stumble upon it. What about repair installs?

    --
    Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
  246. A sad, sad day by octaene · · Score: 1

    I applaud Microsoft for giving equal time to the RSOD. However, they have a long way to go in the fight for equal rights for equal colors. The YSOD still gets no recognition while retaining the stigma that yellow is bad. When we will give our yellow error message brothers the recognition they deserve?

  247. so to sum up this story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows will now have EVEN MORE problems? and it now has a class for each error?
    Sorry, I prefer it when linux crashes with a system freeze, at least I know I'm in deep shit when that occasionally or rarely happens.

  248. Yes, I have... by gd2shoe · · Score: 1


    I've run into quite a number of BSODs on machines that I have been asked to work on. They tend to be hardware/driver related, but not all the time.

    Since we see many systems because they are virus infected, I think it has more to do with some virus's playing God with Windows than Microsoft (Microsoft may be indirectly responsible due to of the security flaw that let the infection in). A good sfc or reinstall (repair or full) is often (but not always) a fix. Microsoft is actually halfway decent at giving explanations of their BSOD's try google:

    site:microsoft.com xp "stop code: 0x12345678"
    (replace the 12345678 with the stop code)

    Registry errors can also cause BSOD's.(rare, but happens)

    --
    I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
  249. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by EvilJoker · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily, some software can do it. For a very common example, Azureus 2.2.0.0 was a FREQUENT source of BSODs. Went back to 2.1.0.4 and haven't had an issue since.

    As a side note, Although drivers are a common issue, they don't have to be seriously buggy to be a serious problem- The standard Netgear FA311 drivers work very well, except in combination with ANY BitTorrent client, which result in freezes and requiring reboots. The nForce3 250 IDE drivers work well, but cause conflicts (e.g. BSOD when combined with ZoneAlarm).

  250. I collect BSODs by chuck.kahn · · Score: 1

    and put them on flickr

  251. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by EvilJoker · · Score: 1

    I haven't tried this on XP, but is it always that hard? I've just recently dealt with 98SE, and the only hard thing is getting the 98 CD on the HD (because, for some reason, the IDE drivers in safe mode are good enough to get to the HD, but not to the CD. Stupid MS). If the 98 CD is on the HD (knoppix can be a life saver here), then there is no trouble. Oh yeah, it wasn't a small change, either- Asus A7V to Asus K8N- and no real problems.

    Granted, I've since tried A7V266 to K8N on XP, and it went BSOD instantly, no negotiating. That made for an unexpected reinstall.

  252. Red Screen Of Longhorn by ThinkOfaNumber · · Score: 1

    can be a real RSOL...

  253. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by bcmm · · Score: 1

    Well, I have had XP BSOD on me whenever I tried to disable an unused network connection (IIRC, a 1394 connection). This was completely reproducable. I don't remember why I wanted to disable it, but I think it was interfering with hibernation (I.E. must stop network to hibernate).

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
  254. Product Placement Costs by cdsteinkuehler · · Score: 1

    So...how much do you think Coke had to pay Microsoft to replace some of the "Pepsi Blue" error screens with "Coke Red"?!?

  255. Re:I see BSOD's a lot. by lnjasdpppun · · Score: 1

    I asked my friend about it and heres the url http://www.users.on.net/~jvizard/myne/XPmoboUG/ its a bunch of screenshots that show you want to do and have some instructions on the pics. You might be able to repair an install with it too, probably depends on how bad the problems are.

  256. Cashing in on Homeland Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe MS will make Screens of Death based on American terrorist threat levels?

    "Today the threat of a computer crash is YELLOW..."

    [3 days after some new email virus:]

    "Today, MicroSoft has upgraded the threat of your system crashing to ORANGE..."

  257. Walky Talky Hawky by PingPongBoy · · Score: 1

    Windows Loghorn will present you less BSOD

    Motion to rename the next Windows to Windows Foghorn Leghorn.

    --
    Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.