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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."

88 of 573 comments (clear)

  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 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.

    3. 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
    4. 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.'
    5. 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."
    6. 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.

    7. 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
    8. 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!"
    9. 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

  2. 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 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. 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!

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

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

    1. 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.
    2. 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!
    3. 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.

    4. 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.
    5. Re:BSOD by Sparr0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is green. Everyone with an xbox knows that.

    6. 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?"

    7. 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.

    8. 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.

    9. 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?

    10. 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)
  5. Spelling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

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

  6. 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.
  7. 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
  8. 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. :)

  9. 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 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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
  10. 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.).

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

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

    Not anymore, heheheh....

  12. 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?
  13. 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 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.
    2. 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-

  14. 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 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."

  15. 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.
  16. 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.

  17. 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.

  18. 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

  19. 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
  20. 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.

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

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  22. 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.

  23. 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.

  24. 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
  25. 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 chrish · · Score: 2, Funny

      Next up, skinnable *SOD screens.

      --
      - chrish
  26. 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.

  27. 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.

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

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

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

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

  29. 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.

  30. 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 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.
    2. 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 ;-)

  31. 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'.

  32. 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.

  33. 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.

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

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

    --
    blog
  35. 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.

  36. 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.

  37. 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.

  38. 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.

  39. 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.
  40. 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 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
  41. 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!
  42. 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.

  43. 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.

  44. 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...

  45. 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...

  46. 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.

  47. 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.

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    warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
  48. 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.

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    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
  49. 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?

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    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.

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      Predictive text is shiv!
    2. 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.

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  50. 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.

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    Irene KHAAAAAAN!
  51. 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.

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    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.