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The Very Worst Uses of Windows
bigplrbear writes "I found an interesting article revealing the many places that Microsoft products reside, and what they're used for, ranging from elevators to ticket scanners."
From the article: "Thanks to VMWare Windows is spreading throughout the datacenter. And, of course, there is only one operating system to use if you are dependent on Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and Excel. While I have joined the chorus of security folks who rail against the Microsoft Monoculture I still cannot believe some of the uses for Windows. Some of them are just downright silly, some you may claim are criminally negligent." Note: I'm making no claim of criminal negligence!
What, you mean other than as a desktop OS?
Medical equipment: I confirm. My cousin is an engineer for General Electric, Medical section. As far as I know he services cardiac echography equipment. From what he told me, they all run Windows. Of course, this isn't life threatening, but I do know he's hardware guy and it wouldn't be the first time he calls me for a software problem in his job.
While not in this case, a BSOD may mean real "D" these days in a hospital.... Sad, but true...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Not for use in nuclear submarines!
Ford Sync?
Mac OS X?
-=[You cannot consistently judge this statement to be true.]=-
Now we know why Apollo called Houston to tell them they had a problem. Windows crashed on them!
Looking at the list and the important tech applications it runs, if some of those Windows failed or glitched, people might be in serious danger.
Not so dangerous for the certificate kiosk, but vital for systems like train controls, and med equipment.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Most plants are running on PLCs, but their user interfaces HMI are pretty much all running some form of Windows. Common ones include Proficy iFIX (by GE), RSView (Rockwell), and WonderWare InTouch (Wonderware) on either Windows XP, Windows 2000/2003 or some form of Windows Embedded.
It is actually incredibly difficult to find mature HMI software that is available for Linux.
Titus Barik
I'm all for having a "lol" at stupidly overcomplicated systems being used for the most mundane of tasks, but this article is a little sketchy on some of the details.
For example, one line states "Why not program some stripped down embedded system for that task?" when it doesn't even indicate what version of Windows the system he's talking about uses - there IS an embedded version of Windows available for such tasks, you know.
The article is still a good read, though, but I'd take what it's saying with a pinch of salt and don't just immediately start bashing Microsoft, after all it's not their fault if a sysadmin makes a stupid design choice or 10.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Windows really doesn't belong here. Nor most places in a data center.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I encountered a doctor's office once where, not knowing what is what, they decided to install Windows 2003 Server on every computer, including the front desks.
I've seen quite a few... every ticket machine at Melbourne Airport one day was going through a BSOD-reboot loop, placed quite a workload on the human employees. I really don't understand how any company who's done a tiny bit of research could think Windows is an appropriate platform for something that should really be running a custom embedded system like a cut-down *nix.
Granted, a lot of that is probably perfectly stable, patched, and just-retired Windows 3.11. Probably not quite the security problem he makes it out to be. But running a current desktop OS vulnerable to the same worms flying around in email is just negligent.
Another problem with overbloated systems running simple tasks is the huge draw of electricity. How much power could we save (and, therefore, money) by using bloated systems less for simple things?
An obvious observation, but I thought I'd make it.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
I nominate the Diebold Windows CE (Visual Basic for Applications) voting machines to the list.
After all, Diebold could have done worse and used Windows XP, or Windows Vista (not that it was out at the time), but I still nominate Diebold to the list for having chosen VBA (not that there is anything wrong with VBA, VBA has its uses -- it's just that it's really a poor choice for making supposedly secure and transparent voting machines).
After all these years I am willing to admit that Microsoft has won the desktop and server wars.
i beg to differ...
Let's be thankful that it doesn't run on the NASA Space Shuttle, International Space Station, or any other NASA or foreign space agency boost and/or orbital hardware. Windows in these mission critical situations could add new meaning to the phrase 'crash & burn'.
We've got a huge lathe that runs something like windows NT. Funny thing is that it takes twice as long to boot and WAY longer to shut down, AND has less functionality than much older systems. I don't know about the machine control drivers, but I could write an interface that would do 10x as much on linux.
And then there's the worry that $500,000 worth of hardware could be completely fucked by a worm or just stupid windows crap. WTF!
While I have joined the chorus of security folks who rail against the Microsoft Monoculture I still cannot believe some of the uses for Windows.
Why do I still use Windows? Well its so I can get my little 32-bit Ski-Free fix. What is that you say? SkiFree works fine via Wine?
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1
Not running on the defibrillator itself, but on the computer that configures it.
Yep, The prison where I worked as a guard for a while changed their control center from mechanical switches to a PC running XP. I worked the control center a lot and the "upgrade" sucked. You had to page thru several screens to see all the doors and the touch screen was too sensitive. You could open 2 doors or the wrong door by accident. The interlock system was suppose to prevent that by requiring you to use both hands to open doors, but it proved to be impossible to use so it was disabled. the OS was always crashing (likely the shitty program) and you had to wait for the system to reboot before you could open doors without the keys.
Which is worse? I'd be just as worried about hand-coded x86 assembly in an embedded environment, or even Linux. Good old WinTel.
1) Are elevators really that complicated they need an entire opertaing system?
2) Elevators???? That gives 'Blue Screen of Death' a terrifyingly true meaning.
i completely agree on scada systems being mentioned. i have first hand experience from the security side of things implementing a scada system and it is an absolute nightmare. industry leading companies are taking their traditionally isolated and proprietary systems and slapping them onto networks to offer their customers 24x7 access without a thought to patching, AV, IPS, network isolation, or anything of the sort. they practically laughed in my face at the notion that i would like to patch this machine regularly and have AV/IPS on it.
eventually a convoluted system came about at which it will be patched, but several months behind current standards, as that is all they can guarantee will not break their product. until i even raised the question it appeared the thought had never crossed their mind to patch/av their machines. they flat out told me that their business plan is to get these boxes up and running, then drop them on the network and never patch or implement any AV solution whatsoever.
and they arent even implementing this on a server os..
In Phoenix we have a power company called APS. In some of the gas stations there are kiosks that allow you to pay your bill using Cash. I was walking through a circle K the other day, and to my horror i saw this:
link
Sorry about the shitty image quality...I took it using my crackberry.
Yes, that is a dialog box politely informing you that you have been Trojaned.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
A good chunk of the Command and Control systems on most modern (or most recently refitted) naval vessels in the United States' inventory run on Windows technology.
It kinda gives me the shivers knowing that one of our ships could be sunk by an "inbound" because the point defense system is suffering a BSOD...
I am a surveying student and I am a bit miffed by the new theodolites I saw at a conference recently. These things are pretty complex devices, they have two way radio communication between a staff and the instrument, robotic controls that track the prism on the pole and a bluetooth controller to record data when you're standing next to the pole. But the thing that worries me is that the OS on the theodolite, a precision instrument, is windows CE! Now I have little experience with it, but reading /. comments leads me to believe it has little going for it.
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
it doesn't even indicate what version of Windows the system he's talking about uses - there IS an embedded version of Windows available for such tasks, you know.
I presume you mean Windows CE?
I'm on a team that (among other things) makes BSPs for Windows CE. Did you know that every single driver in CE5 runs in user mode? Ayup. They're simple DLL files that device.exe launches and runs as threads. Just at a slightly higher priority than Pocket Word.
Think about that a moment.
The drivers crash just like programs too. They just...bail. Suddenly the device the DLL is providing an interface to is simply gone. They don't run in supervisor mode, so they are susceptible to every single thing that can crash a regular program.
They're starting to fix this in CE6, but naturally Microsoft's solution is...to do both!
In typical MS fashion, they are fixing a clusterfuck by mixing it with what they should have been doing in the first place, thereby making an even larger clusterfuck.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The local AMC 24 movie theater has Windows 98 on the ticket machines. A little BSOD told me so.
The machines take credit and debit cards so must have a network connection of some sort, most likely through the theater's common connection which hopefully is secure pipe back to the head office.
I presume the keyboards are locked up under the cabinets somewhere. Not really a bad solution, a reasonable low cost one requiring a level of physical security. I presume they are rebooted daily to avoid memory leaks.
More than anything we must trust the system. Because even if they were proprietary solutions someone coming in a midnight could easily install a data logger.
I've read a couple of anecdotes about Windows NT being behind the AEGIS Missile Destoyers. This isn't an overkill situation, but a horrific use of windows nonetheless. When NT fails (as NT does), it takes down everything... weapons, guidance, radar, steering, propulsion, navigation, communications, and even power. The crews resort to using battery-powered semaphore spotlights or hand-held maritime radios to call for help. The new "teeth" of our Navy's attack power is rendered utterly impotent in a nanosecond.
Subsequent to reading the stories, I had a rather coincidental chat with a guy on a plane (single-serving friend) who worked for a contractor that ran ocean-going tugs for the US Navy out of Boston(?). According to him.... (with a chuckle) "...a couple? More than that, I know exactly what you're talking about - we get called out a couple times a month to tow in those destroyers, and yeah its always 'computer problems'..."
I wonder what Navy patsy was stupid enough to sign the dotted line for this nightmare. Take a cue from the army and go *nix guys...
Windows for Warships
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"It may be hard to comprehend today but Microsoft effectively trounced Sun, DEC, HP, and IBM"
I'm going to go ahead and assume that the author wrote that without ever having used Solaris. If we're talking "before the turn of the century," that implies Solaris 7/2.6. Even on Solaris 8, I remember how hard I had to struggle (applying OS patches, etc.) just to do things like generating an SSL certificate, or *starting* the windowing system. I don't even want to *think* about operating a touchscreen on Solaris 7.
Windows is awful, and with every release it gets more terrible. But the reason Microsoft trounced the others is because they were *even worse*.
Also, a few months ago I stopped at a bank machine to withdraw some cash.
So I entered my PIN and withdrawal amount. While waiting for the magic money machine to do its thing, I idly tapped my fingers in random patterns on the touch screen.
Suddenly, a standard Windows XP taskbar and Start button appeared.
Being curious, I tapped the Start button. Kinda freaked me out when a complete Start Menu appeared. Everything was there, including Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and Windows Media Player.
I can't believe that neither the ATM machine manufacturer nor the bank put any effort into building a custom, stripped-down image to run the bank's cash machines...
When drinking one night with a former roller coaster technician who had decided to get into the less stressful job of datacenter ops, I found out something terrifying about a famous (and, it should be said, injury/fatality-free as far as I know) catch & release roller coaster.
The coaster is designed such that the train car is loaded at a station. Then a tractor mechanism pulls it backward, up to the top of a steep incline. Once at the top, the mechanism releases the car, and the train goes rocketing through the station, through a series of tight loops and twists, and then coasts up an identical steep incline on the other end. There another mechanism catches the car, drags it all the way to the top, and then lets go, sending the car back through the series of loops and twists in reverse. The car decelerates up the incline back on the original side, is caught once again, and returned gently to the station for boarding.
All of these catch mechanisms need to know the velocity and weight of the train car in order to properly catch and decelerate it without hurting any of the occupants. Those values will change with every load of passengers, due to people's varying weights and their distribution around the car, so they have to be calculated on the fly.
The software that does this, the engineer swore to me, runs on...
Windows 3.11.
This knowledge made future rides on that particular coaster a hell of a lot more scary.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
I have no reservations about it. Given the constant stream of complaints that Bill Gates himself had about the quality and stability of Windows, I'd say it is pretty safe to assume that Microsoft is WELL aware of problems with Windows. And for Microsoft to actively push their OS as a platform upon which important, significant and even critical systems and services are run without disclosing the KNOWN risks of using Windows under such circumstances is criminal negligence or even worse.
Once again, resorting to the old "car analogy", if an auto manufacturer were caught pushing their dressed-up SUVs as actual ATVs, I think it's safe to say that various consumer protection agencies and possibly the department of justice might get involved.
How does Microsoft get away with this? Simple -- they are the only game in town and as such is typically viewed as "the best we have." To complain that the best is not good enough would be considered by most to be a wasted effort.
"Critical Mass"
Microsoft achieved it and now most tech people know only Microsoft Windows and will deploy only Microsoft Windows for any given task.
It's good that some people like the NYSE has found Windows lacking and that better alternatives exist for their specialized tasks.
I don't think anyone will argue that Windows on the desktop is acceptable for a lot of people, especially those people who don't have people like me to help them use other systems. If they are on their own, trying to use Linux or even MacOS might leave them out in the cold or under rather EXPENSIVE support costs. (A lone user can barely throw a stone without hitting someone who can deftly advise them to reboot and reinstall.)
But to put Windows in SPECIALIZED applications and devices makes no sense. "Compatibility" isn't an issue there. "Usability" isn't an issue there. "Stability" and "reliability" are often the most important considerations with cost as a third or fourth. (I don't have a second most important consideration, but I'm pretty sure the fifth is "profit!!")
how about WFW 3.11? Remember the article about how Microsoft was going to stop licensing WFW 3.11 to embedded manufacturers? I bet alot of those devices are running something along those lines.
windows CE on those price guns, but the thing is, they all act like thin clients and use software thats actually running on a unix server.
Aside from the fact that putting drivers in user mode increases reliability, you've got a good point.
I'm sure that lathe could be controlled by Linux or QNX running on the same hardware. It amazes me to see the horrendous job that companies who make perfectly good machine tools do on their control software. They wouldn't make the lathe's chassis out of cardboard, why would they build their control systems on windows?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I used to wonder why some companies (Not NEC) still manufacture ATMs with IBM OS2 built-in. Thanks to this article, I can now see why.
The game.
I don't know how complicated elevator control is, but, most of the bloat from Windows is about the GUI and backwards compatibility. The reason (I am guessing) that most of these places are using Windows, is because they are buying off-the-shelf technology which will often be pre-loaded with some sort of Windows. Writing fresh code for a freshly designed embedded system is simpler and probably better but is way more expensive than buying a Dell that can do the same thing with Visual C++. As long as people don't plug stuff in while its on or do other "crazy" stuff, it will be fine.
It is entirely too easy to deploy another VM client with virtualization. Soon, I see Microsoft Cracking down on the licensing.. After a few companies get audited, things will start changing...
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
In 2001, I was on a trip with a friend to Finland, Estonia, and Latvia. We needed to buy a bus ticket to get from Tallinn to Riga, and we needed some of the local currency (the bus company wouldn't take a credit card - another WTF).
So, I tried to take money out of the ATM in the office to buy my ticket. In the middle of my transaction, the application crashed, taking the OS with it (or vice versa). After a couple minutes watching the Windows automated boot process, the machine came back up to the "enter your card" prompt.
But it still had my card!
Fortunately, I didn't need my bank card for the rest of my trip, and my friend was able to get out enough cash separately. However, if I had been traveling alone, I wouldn't have been able to take the bus trip.
And I had to call my bank back home to cancel the card and request a replacement.
Never got that card back. Fortunately, no one ever used it to take my money, either.
>I presume you mean Windows CE?
No, he means Embedded Windows, like Windows XP Embedded: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/products/whichproduct/default.mspx.
(What scares me is that you work on embedded systems and have never heard of it. I've never even touched embedded systems work and I know about it.)
Not nearly as exciting, but if it's the middle of winter and your office building goes cold, blame Microsoft. I know our "server" (of sorts) runs Windows. And as far as I know we do fire alarms too which is scarier. Of course I have more problems with XP, Java, and SQL on my laptop than anything that could be attributed to the building system.
Every 2nd Wednesday of the month, instead of playing a TV program, I can hear it, but see a windows XP desktop, with a minimized window of the video playing, and a notice that updates are ready to install. That usually sticks around until late afternoon, or early evening, when someone finally either installs the patches and reboots, or just restores the minimized screen..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I do contract work for Diebold and NCR here in Australia working on EFTPOS machines but mostly ATMs. Did you guys know that nearly all ATMs (Automatic Teller Machines btw) run on Windows XP? To actually do maintenance on these things, you have to log in via the xp log on screen and then there's a start menu and everything. The older ones still run on DOS and up until about 2004 all of them ran on Windows 2000 but have now been upgraded to XP :P
I used to work in a semiconductor fab (memory specifically). The original fab was all unix based on our end. Some of the machines ran windows, though. When a new factory was built, for some reason, management decided it would be a good idea to start from scratch on the system that controlled the manufacturing process. Rather than use our proven, stable, and known unix based system we created a new system from scratch which ran on windows.
I left the company in march 06. Not long before I left, though, sometime in February, management pulled everyone together to yell and scream because that windows based factory had already gone over it's allotted downtime for the entire year.
We even saw the virus scenario mentioned in the article. It infected the terminals the people in the actual factory used and all of the tools which were controlled by windows computers. All production had to be stopped while we ran around to every terminal and tool in the factory, rebooted with a clean boot floppy, cleaned the virus, and then booted the thing back up.
I really hope you're referencing some kind of media here (movie, comic, etc), for I would much like to know its name so I may consume it.
... well ok, not quite, but still! There's an ATM at my school which embodies the mother of all WTFs in my oppinion. It's a DIEBOLD ATM with a _headphone jack_ which usually displays the Windows XP login screen with a big error message saying that the bank domain is not available! If you think I'm making this up I wish to present to you... the evidence: http://www.dumpt.com/img/viewer.php?file=wmbbbwi8otsxgqlmi93u.jpg
You don't think enough... therefore you better not be!
Windows in the machines that spit out tickets for the short term lot. I know this because the last two times I've been there, the screen was displaying a 'Low Virtual Memory' warning. Windows also runs the multi-display arrivals/departures screen, because I saw an error message from some UpdaterControl.
These things started showing up in the Krogers around here about one or two years ago. They're sort of like soda dispensing machines, but you rent DVD films from them instead. You run through a selection of video case covers via the touchscreen (which lead to a description of the film if need be) before making your selection and swiping your debit card. The machine then takes about ten minutes and a bunch of horrendously loud noise before spitting out one DVD.
The thing is, they run Windows XP Home. I've seen the things randomly reboot (and repeat) many of times while standing in the nearby checkout lanes. One day there was merely a constant blue screen of death. Yep.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
For those who missed my entry in Risks of Thu, 23 Jun 2005 ...
As my dear laboring spouse was rolled into the O.R. to deliver twin boys last month, all of the machines in the room were happily humming along, including several displaying a far too familiar screensaver. One of the attending physicians ordered "a quick ultrasound" to ensure things were indeed as they should be. The nurse turned to one of the machines with the little windows flitting about on the screen. Just as she moved the mouse to wake up the machine, the flitting stopped and the machine was no more. All fifteen people in the room, including the soon-to-be mommy of plummeting patience, then waited for the nurse to power-cycle the machine (which was running Windows Server!) and await its resurrection.
While this turned out not to be a life and death situation, it very well could have been, especially with a multiple birth. In addition to checking the background of physicians, do we now have to check what software they're running???
PS: the twins Bennet and Bryan, while premature, are fine now.
Charles C. Palmer, IBM Research
Well, Lexmark seems to be using GNU/Linux on their printers... at least T or X 644 and 850 have a 2.6.6 kernel version reply... AAAND there is glibs and gtk sources on their drivers CDs... im still trying to open a firmware but im unable to doit :( would be nice to load some apps inside the printer...
if anyone have an idea, the firmware is inside a PJL job starting with:
@PJL LPROGRAMRIP SOCKET=17 KERNELCOUNT=298946 TYPECOUNT=394578 KERNELENCR=3
u
(saw that with less)
sample file: ftp.dell.com/Printer/LS_ST_E213a_updeng.fls
I remember many moons ago seeing the Windows 95 desktop on public access TV stations. Before that, I remember seeing the Amiga bootup screen, prompting you to insert the Workbench disk!
Also back in the early 1980s on Minneapolis cable systems, one bizarre channel was a Commodore 64 desktop, er BASIC with a bunch of cryptic numbers. Those were the days cable stations had the "story" channel, which featured children's stories rendered on some computer, with slow-drawing graphics, page by page. Good times.
I was searching for VPS hosting and came across a google ad titled "Beat the Patriot Act!" advertising Windows XP hosted in Canada. Definitely the most ironic uses of Windows. You have 2 choices of customer support - smoke signal or ham radio.
Here in the US, the SQL Slammer worm of 2003 knocked about 13,000 Bank of America ATMs off-line. All of the ATMs and their back-end transaction servers were running Microsoft products.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Slammer
-- http://www.cotse.com/20032701.html
Other banks, like Bank One (now JP Morgan Chase), ran OS/2 on the ATMs, and OS/2 Warp Server with IBM DB2 on the transaction servers. Most of the banks who used OS/2 and DB2 to handle their ATM transactions weathered the storm nicely...
Windows 3.11 wasn't a truly multitasking operating system, so that, if an application was doing something in between Windows messages, it genuinely owned the whole machine. If you are doing a near real time system, you probably don't want to lose a time slot in the middle of a roller coaster ride so that some other daemon could fire off and do something else. So yeah, Windows 3.11 might actually work rather well, so long as the application wasn't trying to allocate too many resource handles.
Actually, I wonder why MS wouldn't release a non-preemptive Windows, just for this purpose. It would be a lot more reliable for some applications.
This is my sig.
I work in healthcare, and I just started at a facility that uses IV fluid pumps which run on CE.
Now, if one BSODed and it just didn't pump any fluid through, there are few situations which it would cause a major problem provided it were caught relatively soon. But were one to glitch and feed too much of many drugs (some of them by a very small margin) it could easily be fatal.
Even scarier, I've heard rumors that another model from the one we use have built in wireless networking (not sure if it BT or WiFi) to allow for central monitoring/control...
If I were the patient, I'd rather take my chances with a watch and counting drips.
Slightly less scary is that almost every electronic charting/medical records system I have seen runs on one flavor of windows or another, and most of them have either restricted or unrestricted internet access.
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
All these suggestions (Use Linux! Install *BSD! Solaris FTW!) are all well and good, but if/when the system goes down, to whom do you go for support? Hardware caused a crash? Try and track down the kid in a basement that wrote the driver you're using. Some core functionality in the kernel caused a hard lock? Update to the latest kernel and hope for the best (Oh, and have to recompile your whole system while you're at it).
With Windows, if something goes wrong, you can contact the hardware manufacturer (If it's hardware/driver-related) or Microsoft if it's software related. And if they won't help, you can sue them. You can't say the same about *nix, where the prevailing attitude seems to be "It don't work, you're on your own to find a fix".
Sure, you can go through a "Supported" linux vendor, like RedHat, but they're not guaranteeing the software, just the "Service" they provide.
While Windows may be a swiss cheese of security holes, they are legally actionable security holes, which is more than can be said for *nix
Several years ago, I was at the state fair, and there was this pretty slick looking sci-fi themed video game. Well, it crashed. The poor tech had to fix it rebooted it, and it was Windows 2000. She had to click OK through a ton of dialogs to get the game started again. Forgot the name of the game, but it involved flying through some narrow tunnels. And obviously, it was made after 2000. Heh, probably easy to emulate in MAME, as MAME is not exactly needed!
I think one of the Golden Tee games runs Windows too, as I've seen that BSOD.
They were only boxes for monitoring experiments, not control software, but nonetheless the proximity was SCARY.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
I went through a walmart self checkout one day only to find that the program had crashed and underneath, it was running Windows XP.
They're Windows XP Embedded running on Radiant POS touchscreen terminals. Yes, the managers have the keyboards locked up in the back. Sure, those terminals have USB connectors under the screen so you could use anything you want, but the terminals are running under a least-privileged user. No they are not rebooted daily to avoid memory leaks, but the main server at the theatre that drives all the box and concession terminals monitors them all and can reboot them remotely at any time if necessary. The software on there (RTMS by Radiant) is quite small and efficient, and the 'terminals' are really just all-in-one desktop PCs running XP.
And yes, each AMC theatre is on the VPN which is corporate wide.
I heard a few months ago that there is this one super-expensive sewing machine that runs Windows XP. Seems overkill to me that one would install an OS on a sewing machine, but even so...I can just imagine getting one's hand impaled by the needle because of some software bug.
My version of Excel (Excel 2007) can open > 65536 line csv files just fine.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
(not that there is anything wrong with VBA, VBA has its uses -- it's just that it's really a poor choice for making supposedly secure and transparent voting machines)
Apparently, all VBA is good for is running Game Boy games.
Yes, only two of those (CE and NavReady (whatever that is)) run on anything other than x86 processors, which are not terribly popular in the embedded world.
-- and of course nothing whatever can go wrong with a *nix based platform used in the same environment.
There is also the small natter of FDA approval:
The 8-pound in-home gadget connects caregivers and patients outside of hospitals or clinic settings. It manages vital-sign collection, patient reminders, educational content, and motivational messages. The device has a 40GB hard drive. Information collected by the device is sent to the health care professional, and from there, physician and doctor can engage in video conferencing to discuss health issues. Doctors monitor and remotely care for their patients via an online interface using software called the Intel Health Care Management Suite. It currently runs on Windows XP only.
With the ability to hook up to wired and wireless monitors, such as glucose or blood pressure gauges, a caregiver can schedule times to remotely measure vital signs, or patients can check their own. The encrypted information is sent to a remote database, as long as the device connected to the Internet via broadband.
The Intel Health Guide PHS6000 received FDA clearance to enter the market after years of development and research, including pilot studies in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Intel said it expects the product to be commercially available from health care providers by late 2008 or early 2009 Intel's in-home health device gets FDA nod [July 10. 2008], Intel Health News
The purpose of the device is to support home care for the chronically ill. Home care is cheaper. Patients tend to remain more active, engaged and independent.
Longer uptimes might be good for marketing, but they're no use to users who have to reboot just as frequently to get their peripherals working again.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Why the hell would you want to hammer a single-user constrained, GUI-centric "operating system" square peg into a server OS round hole?
There's a reason why Windows still doesn't scale, and there's a reason why running multiple virtual Windows servers that don't fuck with each other is common.
Actually, you don't even have to build the stripped-down image. You just install Windows XP Embedded or Window Embedded Standard. (This version of Windows isn't available to the general public; this was an issue during the antitrust trial.) Interesting that it wasn't used for the ATM. Perhaps because the Embedded license fees are a little stiff: $1K for the runtime, and $90 for each machine. I think OEM rates for desktop Windows are much lower than that.
Next time I use an ATM with a touch screen, I am so repeating your experiment!
No building controls system runs on Windows. The front-end software is there to provide a GUI for interacting with the system.
Scheduling, data collection and trending, reporting, etc. The logic runs at the controller level, be it application specific controllers or freely programmable.
If the front end goes down, the worst that will happen is you stop collecting data on your trends. Tridium's supervisory controllers run a JVM on QNX. (www.tridium.com) Their front-end runs on Windows or Linux (Red Hat support only at this time)
I've never done a GUI in Python
There are several GUI frameworks for Python. You could try either Tkinter or wxPython if you want a GUI app that runs on the local machine. Or read on:
All of my Access replacements in recent memory have been web projects.
And you can make web projects with Apache mod_python.
So why not just reboot the peripheral's driver and keep going? Heck, if the driver's going to crash /anyway/, and you have the choice between killing the driver and killing the entire OS, it seems like a pretty sound decision to kill just the driver. Even if in some cases this isn't useful, crashing the entire machine is never useful.
How about Nuclear power plants?
We've nearly broken the hold on Word & Excel.
But does anyone know of the Linux mail apps (Thunderbird?) interface with Exchange to synch calendars, shared tasks and folders? I'm trying to be a prototype of breaking the MS monopoly at work, but I need an answer to that set of tricks.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Maybe Congress is using Windows. Windows has finally found a way to screw us all. Windows' approval rating has just dropped from my perspective.
Excel 2007 can open a spreadsheet with 16,000 columns and 1 million rows. What's New in Excel 2007
That's nothing! My car's navigation system runs on Windows Mobile (CE).
Every once in a while my car crashes and then I have to pull over to the side of the road and reboot it.
No joke! I'm 100% serious.
It is a very cool system, though.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
(n/t)
I was at a major retailer one time, and the line at the checkout was incredible. Turns out all the registers where unresponsive. Turns out the mainframe was down. Turns out they where running software on ancient registers with code that was written before I was born (and I'm not 19). Scary!
Oops, sorry...wrong troll topic.
Seriously. Businesses use the wrong applications of technology all the time, but this litany of "scary" applications of the Windows OS only reinforces that it works well enough for businesses to use it in a many situations. And, because it is a commodity operating system, it is often cheap to deploy, cheap to support, and cheap to upgrade.
Get over it.
Arrr, laddie, I've seen error messages the size of great whites! Swallow a man whole, they will!
CAN
YOU
STAND
THE
HORROR!!!
But yeah, the most wacked out ginoruous displays in Times Square are at the end of the day just great big monitors. Running Windows 2000.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I recall when CIBC "upgraded" all its ATMs to Windows some years ago. My first encounter with the new system began with some predictable familiarisation with the new interface. The encounter thereupon somewhat less expectedly continued as an introduction to the boot process, while the machine ate my card and bankbook, which had been in the machine when it crashed. Happily, I had a camera with me:
http://askimberley.com/img/cibcatm4.jpg
http://askimberley.com/img/cibcatm1.jpg
http://askimberley.com/img/cibcatm3.jpg
http://askimberley.com/img/cibcatm2.jpg
Karma: Chameleon (comes and goes)
"Now the funny thing is you can't open files with more than 65000 rows in excel and since the spectroscope itself has nothing but windows applications, none of them is capable of displaying the saved samples" - by von_rick (944421) on Thursday July 10, @08:29PM (#24145911) Homepage
That is what Access is for, & where it "takes over" + does a better job, than Excel can: Access is just plain-jane FAR more powerful than Excel is, by far...
(Learn it, & you'll never regret you did - especially since you are hitting the "infamous magic number 64k row limit" in Excel... the one that does NOT have to exist, but does)
Access is just a better analysis tool by far anyhow, considering its nature it only makes sense - Rushmore Query technology based db engine, & another bonus is, is that .mdb compound OLE structured storage documents?
Widely used db format also - bonus.
(& Access is especially powerful, if coupled w/ its internal VBScript .bss modules language vs. macros, & for its forms + reports programming - top that off w/ the fact you CAN use attached tables OR better yet, stored procedures on SQLServer 2005, & REALLY put your Access skills to work (especially if you do analysis of the data, & thare is TONS of it (otherwise, JET is not bad & especially for less than 25 concurrent users))
Access has a nice GUI-style 'drag-N-drop' query designer, & report designer (easy to use & get used to, in other words), because that is where it's TRUE power is, in SQL (a force unto itself imo!).
APK
Alot of video games run Windows Embedded with pc hardware now days.
In theory that works, but in practice the device manager is not always successful in cleanly unloading and reloading stream interface drivers.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
But of course! They invented supervisor mode on a lark, simply because they like taking up die space with useless instructions.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I agree, and what a whinger!
No, I wouldn't use Windows for major process control, but yes for HMI. In don't know anyone serious in process control who would use windows for the actual control of plant, though for limited IO such products do exist Heck, we're firmly in the "safety interlocks must also be hard-wired" camp.
However, the article's description of SCADA as a protocol demonstrates a negligible understanding of that whole industry. It's like calling "word processing" a protocol.
In terms of some of the trivial applications, sure it's overkill on the hardware and OS side, but hey, I can develop a VB app to display a green arrow in about 1 minute. The licence costs for XP Embedded are almost nothing, and there's hundreds of hardware options available off the shelf in all form factors, including small fanless boards with solid state drives. The time it'd take me to find or assemble some other platform to make it happen would far outweigh any saving in equipment & OS cost. Sure, someone else could do the same with Linux in 1 minute with known equipment. Good on 'em! No skin off my nose.
If deployment is 10,000 units then yes each dollar on equipment counts, but by then the installation costs will far exceed the hardware so that'd become the main consideration in choice of platform.
-- All your bass are below two Hz
I was in a Macys (long story) and ran across a price scanner. These are little gadgets with the SKU reader to tell you the price of an item, but they also had a card-reader tacked on to tell you the remaining balance.
I walked past one and saw this: http://img55.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0710082036ib1.jpg
Yes, a Windows XP desktop. The taskbar was barely visible, but off to the bottom. Internet Explorer, Recycle Bin, and My Computer were there.
This got me thinking. Why would people use such a complicated system with so many parts and so much bloat... to look up a SKU?
The best answer I can come up with is that store maintainers want to keep this data in one format. I can imagine that the server has a SQL table of the names/SKUs/prices/sales/etc, and the registers can run querys against it. It would be easiest to make your devices query the same database - no glue necessary.
Still, wouldn't some form of Linux be more suitable? The kernel can be stripped down to remove everything not necessary (all mouse and keyboard input, sound, all other network adapters and graphics cards), while still allowing the same functionality.
So I understand why they did it. I still cringe when I think the power that thing must have... just for its simplistic function.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I presume you mean Windows CE?
No, he means Windows Embedded. Duh.
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/embedded/default.mspx
Nice job with the pointless off-topic MS rant.
Comment of the year
This has nothing to do with the quality of one OS over another. The whole paying field is tilted toward commercial systems by, among other things...
People aspiring to be locked-in... Including CEOs that want "gold reseller status" and Engineers get XX Certified and turn into little self-serving XX salespeople.
The amount of crap that is spoken about support contracts for commercial products. Supported, my ass - hours on the phone talking to someone who knows less than you do, it's more like psycology; "you know the answer - I just have to bring it out of you"...
Fearmongering over Intellectual property and licensing
FUDspreading over the supportability of one platform over another.
Insisting on a crappy GUI over a workable text UI at any cost. Heaven forbid the end user see text, much better he see a picture of a bleeding aardvark and a shoelace and try and figure out what that means...
OK - so I can blow a few Karma points in a rant every now and again, but really - it's not even Windows' fault - it is a competent OS in many ways as testified by how widely it really is deployed with no-one usually noticing.
It's the pseudo-professionality garbage-sphere that surrounds it that gets my goat.
Nullius in verba
Some details are emerging about the Vista based "Quebec." Microsoft Readies "Quebec" Vista based embedded OS [June 6 2008]
Thank you for missing the point completely. Access is not a database engine, it is a front end for whatever engine you want to use. Yes, you could use the Visual Basic editor in Access to write your own database application, but you don't need Access for that, you can just use standalone Visual Basic; it's just there to write macro's and extend your forms etc. No what Access is good for is data entry and report generation. It provides an easy user interface to graphically design entry forms, reports etc. so that you don't have to write your own database application, as long as Access provides the capabilities you need of course. If you find yourself doing most of the work you probably shouldn't be using Access. Anyway, to get back to the point: you could do everything using Python, Visual Basic or Java alone, sure. But it can be a pain in the arse and when everything you need is available through a nice interface, the work is unnecessary.
Why use Windows in so many (stupid) applications?
2 reasons:
1) on the techy side: resume padding.
2) On the non-techy side, as in managers deciding that I should use Windows instead of QNX: they think it's cool and hip and the most innovative...
The writer of this article is making an assumption and then wandering around to find ANY justification. His specific example Number 5 [Train control] - he basically 'thinks' that a train is controlled by Window based on a converesation with someone and then looks for a justification for his opinion. No-where in the PDF he links does it say the train control system runs on Windows. It does say that the external plug-in management software is based on Windows [on a laptop I presume] but so what ? - that's common for many out-of-band management tools. I'm no windows fan at all [I think in the embedded sphere it's not advisable] but this article smacks of sensationalist and badly-researched reporting.
I stumbled across this ATM error while in Sydney. The user was waiting there for 15mins and did not know what to do as her card and money had not been returned.
http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080704177mv6.jpg
Have you ever tried contacting MS support? Even the high end MSDN support? They're not bad per se, but there is zero procedure for what to do in a bug situation, either it can be fixed without a programmer, or you're SOL.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
I work for a fortune 500 company that runs web-connected building control software; not only HVAC, but door control, video surveillance, and fire alarm systems. This article didn't actually give example of catastrophic failure, and neither have the comments on the article. That's because most systems are redundant - if this building software crashes, the panels and systems continue to function. Not only that, but the software is designed to run with a redundant server. If I were in charge of a nuclear power plant, and it was running on Linux, I'd have a redundant server there, too. Think about.
The US Intelligence Community uses Windows EVERYWHERE. Not just office automation, but on systems that handle critical national security data. Most of the larger, legacy systems still use Unix, but the need to stand-up networks or systems quickly lent itself to half-ass admins that had little more than a security clearance and the know-how to install a Windows OS.
That being said, sometimes time is all that matters, and if the system isn't up quickly, there's no point in standing it up at all. So I guess it's a do the best with whatcha got scenario.
If we follow this trend---IBM, Microsoft, Google---with Google being the next technology megapower, what are we going to have next? While integrating a train controller with GPS and Google Maps isn't that far-off, what about an elevator that runs off of Firefox which has a Google Gadget for polling button pushes over an AJAX API?!
I once had a signature.
Using user-mode drivers is generally better for stability actually. In an ideal world drives don't contain bugs and it doesn't matter but in the real world drivers can sometimes crash, hang or end up in a wierd state. If your driver is kernel-mode you're pretty much fucked and the entire operating system can be brought down with it. If the driver is user-mode, you simply restart it. This is why for more and more things even GNU/Linux is starting to use user-mode drivers. It makes a system more robust.
"And, of course, there is only one operating system to use if you are dependent on Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and Excel." Uhh, has the guy ever used a Mac?!? Okay, Macs don't have Outlook, but they have the similar Entourage instead.
I've actually read about people using Windows for stuff like internet services, database systems and heaven's forbid, FIREWALLS! Seriously, you'd have to be some sort of moron to use a desktop OS for important systems.
The Very Worst Uses of Windows
At all.
When I was having my eyes scanned at the office in preparation for LASIK (Dec. 1999), the scanning program raised an access violation as the technician went to save the data. That did not inspire confidence.
The surgery went fine, though.
The dumb terminal machines that dispense Metrocards to ride NYC Subways run on Windows. No wonder so many are out of service at any given time. Overkill? Absolutely! The least the Transit Authority could do is set up kiosks so riders could surf and check email while waiting for the next train. Maybe throw in MS Office so we could get those last-minute reports done before work.
x86 is becoming more popular in the embedded world all the time though, since there are more credible x86-compatible low-power processors coming out, and because there is more demand for larger amounts of processing power in embedded devices, and you don't need to be quite as efficient at that point - what's another ten or fifteen bucks on an expensive device? We're not talking mp3 players here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The top 2 very worst uses of Windows are, in reverse order:
2. government and
1. schools ... alongside Microsoft Office.
Believe it or not: Several years ago, an entire US aircraft carrier went out of control because of a computer crash. Operating system: Windows NT http://seclists.org/politech/2000/Aug/0027.html http://www.infosecnews.org/hypermail/0008/2584.html Shouldn't this have made the top ten? Can you beat this?
The only way to make Windows never go down is install it on an elevator.
Oblig: the only way to make Windows not suck is install it on a vacuum cleaner.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The good places to use Windows!
Ummm...your link points to a page about "Windows Embedded CE". How is the parent wrong?
I used to work in an industrial plant that used very potent and lethal chemicals, and thus had an intricate evacuation infrastructure and plan in place should an emergency occur. The sensors, alarms, and emergency communication for the evacuation system were controlled by several dozen custom PLC-based devices. Simple, foolproof, and did the job they needed to do for over a decade without a hitch.
Then along comes a vendor with this approx. 5" cube PC running Windows XP, and someone was convinced by the "ooh, cool" factor that we should "upgrade" the plant evacuation system to use these micro PCs and Windows XP. After almost a year of development and equipment upgrades, we ended up with a system that was not only limited to exactly the same functionality as the old system, but one that had to be continuously babysat (including reboots of one or more stations at least weekly, and even an occasional re-imaging).
Another example of "upgrading" just for the sake of upgrading, not to mention a very, very inappropriate reliance on Windows XP. If the NYC metrocard machines break down no one dies, but if a lethal chemical sensor doesn't set off an alarm because there's a BSOD on an 8" LCD in a locked PLC cabinet, that's another issue.
After all Windows has a number of advantages when it comes to being a system that interfaces with the user. However often the hardware itself isn't directly controlled by the Windows system, but by another embedded device that runs whatever it needs to (and doesn't need to interact with the user).
I've seen this sort of thing quite often. We have a spectrophotometre (I think that's the right term) and there are three components: The measurement unit itself, the controller computer, the Windows PC. The unit is, of course, where you put your samples and what does all the actual measurement. However it is a very complicated device, that has lots of things to control. Well the PC you are on doesn't do that directly for a number of reasons. It instead connects to a specially modified PC (has a bunch of proprietary cards in it and such) that runs just the control software on some RTOS (not sure which). That controller then actually interfaces with the hardware.
In this way you have a nice GUI program that you can easily get data and pictures to programs you need to work on them in, or across the network, but the unit is still controlled with the complex hardware and software it needs.
Sensible way of doing things, really. Windows has good tools for GUI programming and such that make it very easy, and is a platform on which many apps run. Why not develop the user interface component on that, and only do the code that needs to be realtime on the embedded platform? Also a way to increase security of the embedded system. Rather than having to worry about all sorts of local attacks (like buffer overflows and such) you only accept input from a port that is connected to another computer and just sanitize data there. There's no complex access to the system, as there is with a GUI, and as such less anyone can screw up.
The old text mode ones run a very old version of OS/2 (like version 1 or 2) but all the newer ones run Windows. The security is supposed to come from the fact that they don't connect directly to the net. They use these little hardware crypto units (that are very secure) that connects back to the bank either via a circut switched connection or via VPN.
But they all run Windows, at least all that I've seen.
Has anyone witnessed a Metrocard vending machine being rebooted in NYC. It hosts Winnt. I have also seen Windows 2000 Desktops after the Flight Arrival/Departure Menu Crashed at the Airport in Tampa.
Patchcord Adams: "Did you hear why they're using Windows 3000 as a prison guard?"
Fry: "No, why?"
Patchcord Adams: "Cause it always locks up." *honk* *honk*
No, but I did throw granola at a deaf person once
The more people who use a certain something, the more valuable (and widely used) it becomes. It seems to me that a network effect applies to operating systems (and the related skills).
Imagine you have a large population of Windows desktop developers out there. You're going to build a medical device with a UI (or perhaps even without one). If you build it using Windows, you can tap into that large population. Because you use Windows, that population then grows. Extend ad infinitum to device X, Y, and Z.
Certainly, there are other issues in the selection of an OS than the network effect. And when those gains exceed the value of the network effect, you make a different choice. You see companies try to optimize for the network effect all the time via standardization, but you also see companies adopting variances from the standard at times.
I think it's important to separate the issue of the network effect and the issue of Windows being crappy. One can rail against various negative attributes that Windows has and promote alternatives. Opposing the network effect, however, is like trying to oppose the rising of the sun.
If you're building a technology alternative, nuture that network effect. Make it easy for knowledge of your technology to be re-used widely and broadly.
Could anyone point to a case where a Windoes crash resulted in human casualties? Numerous personal experiences with BSOD from the 90s should not be a substitute for serious statistics/scientific data about the risks of running windows as an embeded OS on mission critical devices.
With Linux there is no accountability.
I don't know if you're a troll or an idiot, but the end result is the same. This is utter and complete bullshit.
My company wouldn't have several dozen fully-paid-up RHEL server licenses if we weren't damn sure who was accountable. We'd slap CentOS or something similar up and save a few bucks.
And if Linux isn't good enough for you, you go with something solid and reliable like Solaris or maybe AIX or possibly (depending on the application) a stripped-down high-reliablility embedded OS. You don't go with some rinky-dink toy like Windows. That's bordering on negligence right there. You can't sue Lego if you rebuild your car's chassis using their plastic bricks, and then get in a auto accident and discover you have no crumple zone. It's not Lego's fault you tried to do something insanely stupid. Using Windows for any sort of critical app where people's lives may be at risk is nearly as stupid and negligent as driving around with nothing but small plastic bricks between you and the SUV in the next lane.
(This story so obviously needed a car analogy.) :)
I had laser eye surgery (lasik).
The machine was running Windows.
I was scared...
For a stand-alone, non-networked system, it doesn't matter if your Windows is updated for the latest security patches.
For embedded solutions, I agree, the Linux/UNIX solutions make more sense. But if you're dealing with something that someone else purchased or developed, you have very little choice.
A couple of those instances should not be using computers, like the green arrows. I think a lightbulb would work better, or a neon sign even.
As for medical equipment. Sure, any equipment involved in medical procedures should be monitored and have an extremely detailed history of what patches have been applied and when. At the same time, this equipment should not be connected to a network, or if it is, then it should be on a highly protected LAN that is not connected to the internet. Why? Go back to my original comment. When a computer is not on the internet, then securing the computer becomes a matter of physical security. Then the only patches needed are the ones that fix operational issues. The security patches can be bundled and applied in bunches.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
My two favorite...
Why not use a toggle switch for each lane to turn on a bunch of green LEDs shaped like a down arrow? Oh, I know! Your tax dollars at work, paying for a Windows license for each down arrow!! I bet it's running Windows XP Professional, not Home. And I bet the box each of these runs on has 4 gigs of RAM. Proof once again that the TSA is so inept, it should be called the Totally Stupid Administration.
Yeah. Unfortunately, Windows is used in quite a few machine controls. Control systems generally have real-time requirements as well as safety requirements. We're talking moving parts, motor control, relays that turn on and off large systems that can be dangerous. Here an OS crash means that mechanical equipment physically crashes and people get hurt or even killed. I worked in a machine shop that bought a machine with a Windows-based control on it about ten years ago. While the machine was mechanically sound, the control was a piece of junk. After a month of struggling with it, we had them take it back. It makes no sense to use Windows in a system like this. More likely than not, it's used to provide GUI and networking. That's all. And that can be provided just fine with any of a zillion embedded OSes out there that don't crash, or a customized Linux distro that, uh, won't crash either.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
It's a rather insane situation where a very complex and problematic system is used for a very simple task. The Indian company that made the machines for the elections there could sell you more than a hundred machines for the price of one Diebold machine, have a more secure system and still make a profit. It's a far better way to go - shorter queues and the consequences of criminals getting hold of one and ballot stuffing are reduced to almost nothing. To rig the vote you would need to steal a lot of them instead of a minibar key and a USB stick on a single machine which is all you need for the hopelessly vunerable Diebold machines.
Would you like help?
I switched over from Comcast last fall. The UI isn't terrible, but flawed to the extent that you become aware of it, if you know what I mean. Just a poorly designed interface I think because of the habit of Windows developers to get lazy and rely on OS shortcuts (like certain cookie cutter dialog models). I'm a masochist when it comes to most tools, appliances, etc., so it takes a lot of annoyance for me to start digging into configurations to amend usage problems.
I was at the point where I was ready to switch back to Comcast because of the buggy, mediocre cable boxes and I got quite a chuckle when, while digging through the setup menus, I saw that the OS was based on Windows CE 5.01.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
In practice running Windows Embedded XP on a flash device treated as a normal read/write device can be a disaster. It hot spots activity on the flash device causing failure in a very short space of time.
And it works out to be very expensive per device too.
It was used where I work but the problems listed above made them give Linux a try instead. They never looked back.
Evolution just might be what you are looking for.
This is an old one but it was a fairly expensive mistake compounding over more than a decade. A University with six seperate libraries had a lot of terminals and a reasonable catalogue system. They replaced them with a smaller number of PCs running very slow terminal emulation software to access the same thing. Frequent breakdowns reduced the number furthur and resulted in long queues. For some reason they went through two generations of PCs before there was a web based catalogue that would justify moving the system to PCs at all.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Because, while it might offend your sense of only using the _perfect_ match for the job, the Real World is still driven by money. A cheaper mis-match that works, beats an expensive solution that uses the minimal computer and OS imaginable, just to make a point.
Machines are cheap, people are very expensive. So if you need another half a gigabyte to run Windows there, but you can use existing skills and libraries to make that app, you might actually save millions in the process.
Yeah, you could program most stuff on DOS. And put up with incompatible and glitchy graphics libraries just to have that arrow cursor and some minimal widgets for your app. You could write your own interrupt-based thread simulation, 'cause DOS didn't come with any support for that. And write your own spinlock semaphores at that, and wonder why your app deadlocks. You could still do your own pointer arithmetic to put up with 16 bit addressing in a world of gigabyte-sized data sets, and do your own shitty XMS/EMS block copying just to address more than 640 KB. You could even reimplement most of the network protocols and half the other libraries, because nobody else ported those libraries to DOS. Etc.
Yeah, you could do that, just to willy-wave about your app not needing a full-featured OS at all.
Unfortunately, all that costs money and time. Money and time for your programmers to learn those old, quirky, half-arsed libraries instead of using something they already know and their IDE already supports better. Money and time to debug all the bugs you've introduced in the process. Etc.
And if you think that your reinventing the wheel will be more robust than Windows in the process, well, I can tell you that you might be in for a surprise. Most of the people who rant about how MS should be shot at dawn for having bugs, write far far far worse and less secure code, and some can't or shouldn't write code at all. Which isn't supposed to mean that MS writes good code, but, well, mostly think George Carlin's "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even dumber." It applies to programmers too, and doubly so to those who get hired just because they're the cheapest retrained burger flippers and someone thinks that's a cost cutting measure. About two thirds don't even know the language they're supposed to program in, according to one study.
At any rate, if any company did that kind of waste of money just for some fucked-up jihad against MS, I hope the shareholders nail the management to a cross. Because that's certainly a breach of the fiduciary responsibility to make money for the shareholders. Companies are there to make money, not to fight OCPD-nerd crusades.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
http://gizmodo.com/393426/cylons-baseships-run-windows-xp
I guess he WANTED to spend all that money and foced himself to run Windows. Otherwise he would have found the Kisosk HOWTO. Yes, very much outdated, but sill an interesting base for what you can do now. Interesting tips there.
Now it is even easier. Install Opera and run opera -kioskhelp to see what options you want. Use that instead of Netscape in the Kiosk HOWTO.
Once you have decided what parameters you want Opera to use to run, run only those things that you actualy need. Even disableling the keyboard and mouse and making the HD read-only, exept perhaps some small partition for cache and/or data users leave behind and logfiles.
If there is a network, you can write the data to another machine, so that the data is not lost when the machine is stolen. You can even connect more then one screen to the PC.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
There was me thinking it might be found on the article on the Phoenix Lander
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
If you need Excel, Word or Outlook (Entourage), you have only one choice - Mac OS... Honestly, why do people assume the Office suite only runs on Windows?
Truth is, Office was first released for the Mac (1989), and later ported to Windows (after Windows became a more widely adopted PC operating system). To this day, Office is released for Mac and Windows.
Some of the applications in the Windows suite are not available in the recent incarnations of the Mac version; but with the exception of Access, they're mostly niche applications.
Say again? I didn't hear you.
Oh, you didn't read the EULA. Neither did a single one of those idiots who came up with the brilliant idea to deploy a consumer-grade OS in settings where high availability is paramount.
The sooner fuckups like this can be made actionable in a legal context the better.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
"Thanks to VMWare Windows is spreading throughout the datacenter. And, of course, there is only one operating system to use if you are dependent on Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and Excel.
And that OS would be:
Apple Mac OS X. At least if you need the *latest* Versions of Microsoft Office.
With native Microsoft Entourage (outlook for Mac), Word, Excel and Powerpoint...
My regular bar has a very good video jukebox, which could really run anything as it's just pushing pixels to TV screens, but one day I saw it reboot and indeed it ran Windows 2000...
If anything, many of these examples are just brute force in action. Unfortunately, there are a lot more Windows PC programmers than real embedded programmers around, so people will just use the only tool they know about to solve every problem they have. They don't see the silliness of using a 1GB+ OS to do something that could be done in 32 kB of code. You could make a decent hobby out of spotting BSoDs in the wild, I have seen more than I care for. IMHO, this really becomes dangerous when you are actually stupid enough to plug your "embedded" Windows box into the Internet.
The company I'm doing my internship in is designing multimedia kiosks(phone booths, with web cam(lol.) and all) in .NET, with Windows XP. Using SQL Express as a database on local computers.
.NET remoting
/TMert (can't be arsed to login)
Moreover, the pcs are powered with a 4-core intel processor, 2 gigs of ram and 80 gb hdd
what the hell.
I told them to modify a linux kernel, use a stripped down version, code everything in C++ and use SSE for camera data compression, and use TCP/IP for transferring data between booths.
reply : well, nobody knows those stuff around here, plus this is better, easier.
better in which manner ? moron.
More news : webcam data is transferred between nodes using
There are security leaks everywhere, from database access to hardware hacks(cutting USB keyboard's cord and attaching it to an USB device for some remote access attack etc) and open ports with no administration.
Hey at least I get to study OpenGL while they don't give a crap about me
Hey Gang,
I'll be honest, I ran a VERY VERY expensive electronics test lab on dos/windows. Now, first, viruses were not a problem, as the system was NOT in a network at all - wou wanted data, you used the sneaker net (This was in the 16 bit windows days)
The other thing is, other than data COLLECTION, and issuing ONE command (start) all it did was MONITOR the HPIB (aka GPIB aka IEEE-488) bus, and record what was going on. EVERYTHING was running it's own embeded Microcontroller (Including some custom ones we wrote). The windows box (and originally it was a DOS box - yeah, that's how far back it goes - BTW I checked with the old company - it's still running) just was a (believe it or not) inexpensive data recorder (a PC was cheaper than a dedicated recorder)
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Ok Gang,
I haven't even got fully through the list, but Items 1 and 2 make me thing the list is totally bogus. Guy is complaining about "gee, too much horsepower for what it does". I've been in that market. Buying a $500 PC, throwing a piece of software to display a green arrow (or scan a ticket) that was written in a week, and used over and over is often MUCH cheaper than "Why not program some stripped down embedded system for that task?".
I've been ther - for some reason, those "stripped down embedded system"s often cost MORE (much more) than a PC, and if you've ever priced the cost of hiring an embedded systems developer vs say a VB developer, you would understand
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I wanted to view you picture but I had to go and get dressed first - dumpt said "no nudity allowed".
rest at the URL which has a link to full article
Assuming that control systems run 100% isolated is nothing more than an assumption.
Tech Public Policy stuff
he said it was XP, oh and no need to repeat yourself in your post just because /. doesn't allow no text posts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/20/slammer_worm_crashed_ohio_nuke/
Tens of millions of lines of Code for displaying sensor data.
I would have used a small, stable operating system, like QNX, VxWorks or Integrity/RTOS. Some Canadian designs (CANDU) seem to use QNX-based machines, and they did not need to patch the kernel or reboot for as much as 15 years.
Oh, and by the way, the LONDON HEATHROW BAGGAGE HANDLING SYSTEM which crashed after a system update was also running on Windows Server 2003.
One of the contractors was IBM. They could have used AIX, OS/400, z/OS, z/VM, VME -- any of their own, stable stuff. But they decided to sell a crappy product based on a PC/Windows-platform, and it crashed. How embarrasing.
Well, that serves them right...
The hard truth is that it is much cheaper to develop around Windows than it is for, let's say, Linux and money is what truly matters.
Reasons for Windows being cheaper:
- you don't need to figure out each library there is in system and resolve conflicts by n+1 applications, there really should be some standardization and "frozen" version to allow developers continue with actual application development
- development environment is more mature and functional in Windows (GCC and GDB may have whatnot features but even simple tasks such as checking a value of variable on a breakpoint is much harder than just "point-and-click")
- user interfaces with GUI are much simpler to explain and they are much easier to create for Windows, partly due to development tools (yes, there's technically more evolved choices but also much more complex to implement)
- GUI also reduces need for user training for non-technical people
- integration to several systems is quite easy on Windows, industrial applications often require communication with PLCs, databases, other applications and whatnot: there's communication layers available nearly "straight from box" instead of need to fiddle with all variations endlessly or, god forbid, implement the communication entirely from scratch
Remember VHS and Betamax? It's not the more technically advanced that wins but the one that gains more foothold and essentially it's about money.
The worst use of windows i have seen, is the Silicon Imaging SI-2K digital cinema-camera.
It's horrible when you power-up the camera, you have to wait until a full blown windows version is booted - in all it's graphics glory - before you are allowed to shoot anything.
I work as a safety engineer in the automotive industry and I must say I'm quite surprised at TFA and the above comments. Some of the mentioned uses look like safety-critical to me. No automotive engineer in his right mind would do that, first reason being product liability : if something bad happens to a customer in the field due to a Windows crash, I strongly doubt that Microsoft would back you up if you explain to the jury that you thought their OS was fit for safety purposes... And it would be also difficult to take credit from the reliability history of this OS, not if the judge ever used a Windows PC... My worst Microsoft experience is a car radio based on Windows CE that I had a chance to try in the early 2000s. It featured a 2x8 inches screen for the navigation, with a bird-view of your car and the surroundings... It is VERY useful to have a view of 30km each side of your car and 10 km of the road ahead... It only crashed four times during my trip, it had to reboot completely (30s) to give you back the radio broadcast... Utterly broken mess.
Electronic billboards?
ATMs?
Those screens that tell me that I'm standing in Terminal A, and my flight is currently boarding somewhere in Terminal F?
I can't begin to count the number of times that I've seen these screens just sitting there with a BSOD or windows error. In the case of the latter two, it always seems to be when the information (or, say, access to money) is fantastically urgent.
I dont see how the hell the use of windows as an arrow sign is worst then usage in medical equipment. But maybe I'm biased:
I had an laser eye operation 3 years ago, in a dedicated laser shop. The curgen bragged about this 0,5M euro machine and said experts from Germany frequently came to adjustments and service the thing, keeping it in peak condition. I notice its gui is windows.
So between shooting the first and second eye the darn things stops to respond and he has to reboot it. Being an engineer, and user of windows, I knew the chance of the thing crashing in the 20 seconds it takes to do the laser shot is minimal, so no need to panic, but still this is not the sort of bad sign thing you want with your eyes slashed on an operation table.
I my opinion anyone putting windows, with its lifecycle history, on medical equipment is utterly incompetent.
Fortunately, it only verified the solution. If solutions diverged, it bailed. Not really a good thing while shooting a approach during a stormy night
This is a good post, and I have noticed in recent months that the M$ shills ( perhaps paid shills ) have been modding down all well thought out posts on Slashdot that put Windoze in a bad light.
It is not just a few misinformed fanboys, but a very thorough and complete operation to down mod anything that is not favorable to M$.
Actually , the use of ( M$ ) itself may be one of the keys to an automated system, that alerts the shills to do this.
Has anyone else here seen this? , Is the Slashdot staff aware of this happening?
To much coincidence for me.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Erm, run on Access.
management supports the users having to much access and total freedom to cause me and the desktop support staff headaches.
I don't know if your company is big enough to have a risk management staff but sometimes an effective tactic is to involve the lawyers. Not in a threatening way but in a "here's how much liability we are looking at thanks to our insecure network" sort of way. There is of supporting information out there. Show them what a BSA audit costs. Start with easy stuff like why you need an email retention policy and see how it goes.
Management may not listen to the techs but they usually listen to the lawyers. The important thing is to make sure everyone knows it is the lawyers who demand compliance and let them play bad cop. They'll grumble but accept it since few people really want to argue with the legal department.
It never ceases to amuse me: The pompous way you display your extreme arrogance.
_________________________________
Q: What is wrong with Vista?
A: XP
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
I've never touched embedded systems at work, and I've used it at home. It's fantastic, even for desktops. You can make a tiny (100 meg) XP install CD/image that will give you explorer, firefox, networking, directshow, etc. No bullshit running when you don't want it. Great stuff.
because you don't want a loudspeaker giving your info to everyone around the ATM, just 'cause you can't read the screen.
You would be surprised how much medical equipment is connected to the internet.
No I wouldn't be surprised because I see such devices regularly but I'm not worried about it too much either. The medical devices themselves really aren't the problem. The problems hospitals have with internet connectivity and are mostly related to accessing medical records, scheduling and ordering medicines. When the computers that control those go down THEN chaos ensues.
The stuff that is working on acutely ill patients is typically overseen directly by medical staff so if something is not working right it normally is noted quickly. Critical devices like IV drips are typically stand alone so a virus is not a significant concern.
They supposedly have a firewall and a VPN, but their IT department is not so bright,...
My experience with hospital IT staff is that the guys who run the overall network and the critical databases are (usually) pretty bright but the monkeys they hire to maintain the PCs and sometimes man the helpdesk are borderline incompetent. It varies greatly from hospital to hospital though. One time I had the IT staff at a hospital I was working in send TWO guys to swap out a SIMM and I had to walk them through it. But the guys who ran the network were usually quite competent - though extremely overworked.
It's not a conspiracy, it's that some people, while fine with legitimate criticsm of Microsoft and Windows, are getting a little sick of the frantic tinfoil-hat bullshit that gets thrown around instead of rational cricism around here. For instance, if you routinely use words like "Windoze" or replace the letter "S" with a dollar sign, you might be part of the problem.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
I'm also taking advantage of VMWare to run Windows, but my goal is to reduce its footprint in my network, not increase it. For example, one VM is being prepared to only process documents with Office 2007 and Acrobat Professional. It's available via Remote Desktop and will never be used to access the Internet for anything other than software/security updates. Yes, the security of this system is hanging on a policy decision, but more secure and pleasurable environments are available in my network for web surfing and email (mainly Linux and OS X), so this isn't a burden at all. In fact, it's a welcome relief, since I can now archive images of the VM to restore whenever a software upgrade disrupts Windows (the main incentive for this move). There's no reason the same can't be done in a lot of environments using thin/fat linux clients and a Windows Terminal Server. Even nontechnical users can browse locally on Linux with Firefox and click an icon to run a Remote Desktop client for Windows-only tasks.
A Microsoft presenter at a Microsoft Tech ed told us that one of the students in a course he was teaching planned to use Visual Basic in the operation of a Nuclear Plant. The presenter said he tried to dissuade the person from doing so. Even Microsoft had to draw the line on that.
In Minnesota the Stillwater Lift bridge spans the St. Croix between MN and WI. It was stuck open recently due to a computer malfunction. I did some digging to try to find why back then and it turns out they had just upgraded to Vista and the console locked up for about four hours. I don't think it crashed or froze because of Vista, just because the bridge is old and Vista choked on data it wasn't expecting. Can't find much about it now, though.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Windows is everywhere.
Our metro's ticket thingie runs Windows NT4 for workstations, the monitor that shows us the schedule for s-trains runs windows XP.
Many of our ATMs run windows.
I Odense (A city in denmark) theres these huge screens that shows bus times. Its interactive, there a keyboard and a mouse so you can find out what ever you want about bus times.
Unfortunately, they run Windows Vista. This means, that the bus time application can easily be minimized, and IE can opened. They havent even blocked internet access. So everytime im in Odense, i see these monitors showing pr0n instead of bus times (Which ofcourse is great, since you sometimes have to wait half an hour for the bus)
A few years back, I ran a Windows 2000-based University computer lab, one of the most ferocious environments around for keeping desktops working - especially when you have many computer geeks as patrons. My colleagues used DeepFreeze, but I found it superfluous as I NEVER had a machine go down and all I used were the tools built into Windows (GPO, NTFS, User Groups).
If you set the file system permissions correctly and keep all logins in the Users group, it is remarkably difficult to crack these systems.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
"First of all, let me point out that the FDA requires a lengthy paper trail to be filed every time medical equipment like dialysis machines, imaging equipment, radiation therapy, and biological monitors are upgraded."
I had a professor in college that did a short stint with the FDA's software testing group in 2005-06. It's a one man team pretty much, it's amazing that anything get checked at all. There was a case a few years ago where pace makers had buggy software and they were already in people!
He later did a stint with the FAA and said he'd feel safer flying than having a medical device.
A week or so ago I used an ATM to get some Euros from my account. Directly after the transaction, the ATM crashed and I saw a Windows XP desktop in front of me, and I could use the ATM keys to navigate around (and that was one of those new ATMs where you can also do transfers etc. so it had a tab key!)...
Im betting part of the reason a screen is used for the arrow is because somewhere in the decision making process a director said that led green arrow that runs via switch doesn't look high tech enough. His yes men immediately agreed, and money was wasted.
I've seen this happen, I work in a library on a big 10 campus and we cant get the "sign committee" to agree on anything. Some want flashy LCDs other want to keep the old pressed on letters behind glass from the 30s.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
you don't need to figure out each library there is in system and resolve conflicts by n+1 applications
You don't need to do that in UNIX platforms either, but you DO in Windows. I've worked in a Windows shop supporting a product that had to run on Windows and multiple versions of Linux. All the Linux software used one common library, and worked well together. The Windows applications used different Windows APIs (all APIs from Microsoft, mind you) and had to be glued together with VBScript wrappers.
development environment is more mature and functional in Windows [...] user interfaces with GUI are much simpler to explain and they are much easier to create for Windows, partly due to development tools [...] GUI also reduces need for user training for non-technical people
I've, multiple times, completed development of a Tk-based GUI *application* while the Windows guys were still messing around with mockups of the *look and feel*. In the job I described above, all the code was written for Qt, on Windows and UNIX, because it was simpler, cleaner, and more reliable than the conflicting Windows APIs.
Implementing communication layers "out of the box" is not nearly as common a problem, particularly in real embedded systems (it's not all Linux vs Windows). And it's often even easier than dealing with dozens of different (and often conflicting, as well as poorly documented) APIs... I've seen companies spend as much work creating a layer to run third party components under (and then pushing to make their layer an industry standard) as they would have writing the usually very simple protocols themselves. Even Microsoft reimplements stuff out of the box over and over again... which is why there's so many inconsistencies in different applications on Vista: these applications are all built for different Microsoft GUI libraries, and so they had to implement the Vista UI elements over and over again... and didn't get it right.
(guys who use general purpose OSes for mission critical applications) and make the world a safer place.
And sue the Microsoft for not disclosing its protocols and thus forcing manufactures into using Windows for these applications - this one can yield billions in damages.
Any lawyers out there?
I wrote: In the job I described above, all the code was written for Qt
I'm referring to our group's code here, not the code from other groups we had to glue together with VBscript.
The UNIX code from other groups was not a problem.
If you have difficulty with conflicting libraries, don't blame the OS, blame your development model. Yes, if we had one group using Gtk and one using Qt we'd be in trouble, but no more than if one group was using .NET and another Win32.
I think citrix also caused a boom with Windows 2000 a few years ago, but anyways, I see alot of people here discuss how they would be petrified to see a BSOD while they are in the hospital, but the same can be said about Linux and a kernel panic, or a core dump of the actual application.
Windows NT was rebuilt from the ground up as a multiuser OS. It's the application vendors who screwed up. Regardless, it's a moot point as nearly all Windows software runs client/server and not as a dumb terminal such as you are accustomed to, whereby it's supposed lack of multiuser capability would be a liability.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
killing your wife?
He never said he didn't hear about it. He made a guess about which embedded OS Microsoft makes was being referenced.
You have poor reading comprehension.
NASA
http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/fb121.jpg?w=470&h=500
Think radiologists. They have no use whatsoever for anything to do with patient care.
You are talking about teleradiology I presume? Most of the time a radiologist isn't going to use a laptop for that. Besides there are all kinds of HIPPA problems with using a laptop. Most of the radiologists I personally know work in a central location with a decent graphical workstation if they are reading digital images. In fact you need a special screen that has been approved for clinical purposes in many locations. A laptop would be of little value to them.
over your head
I do all my bank work using the drive-up ATM and online banking. Once I went to deposit my check using the ATM as I have for the past 8 years, I put my card in, punched in my pin and the system just froze up. I sat there waiting for a good 2 minutes and nothing, wouldn't even spit my card back out. So I drove around and went in and told someone in the bank. The lady went to check out the maching and when got back she said it had rebooted and that my card was ejected and sitting there waiting to be removed. I was somewhat shocked. She then said that it has happened before and the system runs Microsoft Windows XP.
I was receiving radiation treatments following cancer surgery (five years ago) and one morning just before the beam started up I heard the old Windows 95 error "ding" over the intercom. That did not make me happy considering that errors with radiation equipment can kill patients.
When I was done with the session I walked through the control area on the way out and found that they use Windows for patient scheduling, nothing more. Thank Christ.
I have also seen old versions of Windows in the control area for the MRI equipment where I get my regular scans. It crashed during the scan once and I had to wait five or six minutes inside the machine while they rebooted. That was a bit fucked up since I have minor claustrophobia, and even after 15+ MRI scans I still get a bit agitated during the exam.
"...there is only one operating system to use if you are dependent on Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and Excel"
Not quite. Word and Excel run beautifully in Wine on *nix, and with Google Docs and OpenOffice there's no need to be tied to MS Office at all. Outlook, on the other hand doesn't run to well in Wine, although there are loads of alternatives.
I found several years ago that the CELL library (CIP Ethernet Library for Linux) with some tweaks did an excellent job of transferring data back and forth with The Logix5000 series PLC processors.
Then with a little C code and some TCL/TK I had some good test and simulation systems. The ran real well with Red Hat 7.3. I don't think Rockwell has a product that quite matches the ease and flexibility. If they do then it would have to be RSView and another expensive license.
Well, then maybe you should learn to read, instead of pulling wild assumptions out of the ass. Quoth the message I was answering to, "Most of those applications shouldn't be running Windows, or any other full featured OS, anyways."
He also does mention MS-DOS twice as being enough for the job. That's why it's compared to DOS, lemming.
No, _your_ arguing out of wild assumptions is fluff. If you have a problem with how the conversation went, fine. But base it on what was actually said, not on what you're "pretty sure" must have been said.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"We were told the engineer could not reboot the computer. Now, I did not get confirmation that the train ran on Windows but it is telling that that would be anyone's first assumption. And products like this locomotive control system do run on Windows." And that's evidence enough to make a top 10 list?!? Good thing you this guy isn't a judge. "Some people heard a summary of your arrest on the evening news and assumed you were guilty, so that's good enough for me. GUILTY!"
Every copy of Solaris (and Java, as I recall) sternly tells you not to use it for critical medical equipment, nuke plants, missile guidence, all sorts of stuff.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Indeed, thanks to Twitter (the /. troll, not the microblogging service), I now routinely 'foe' anyone who routinely uses M$ or the other immature designations for Microsoft, and I have 'foes' set for -6. That way the signal/noise ratio is larger.
Back in the day lots of minicomputers ran dedicated systems with programs loaded from punched tape. With the memory storage devices we have today and the powerful microprocessors and CPLDs/FPGAs there's no reason for using a disk operating system other than the mass consumer market has made it cheap.
Using Windows or even linux if the inherently lower reliability of an OS adversely impacts a system's fitness for its intended use is just lazy.
Solaris and those others, OTOH will happily run for months and years without requiring a reboot. I recently ran across a system at work (RedHat 5) that nobody bothered with because it always did it's job. When I had to go look to see what the problem was, imagine my surprise to find it running RH5. Everyone that knew the root password had either quit or forgot they knew it, it had been sitting there running for several years. Windows will NOT do that.
Accroding to Netcraft, the server out there with the longest uptime is fp002.crayfish.net, currently at 1817 days (~5 years) of uptime and counting; running -- Windows 2000.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The 'Arrow' example is probably not quite as simple as it appears to be.
We've been running a Jupiter video display processor in our NOC that pipes in a dozen or so vga sources and pipes them out in any sizes, config we choose to 6 outputs.
It runs win2k and has only been down once (unplanned) in the last 5 years and that was due to a generator issue.
While I worked hard to find a 24 X 7 X 365 solution running *nux there were simply no products on the market that met our requirements when we purchased it.
I would imagine that the airport uses a similar system for their signage.
I'm not saying that running windows for this sort of solution is ideal, only that (at least a few years ago) there was nothing else to choose from.
I'm hoping there will be something on the market when our solution reaches it's EOL soon.
You can spend a mint building out redundancy using giant Linux/UNIX server clusters to run your critical applications and use a replicated EMC SAN infrastructure for reliability!
Wait! EMC CLARiiON Arrays run Embedded Windows...
If only games were made for linux instead of windows (and I'm talking about real games here like spore, crysis, oblivion, not crap like gltron and the like). Otherwise, I see no reason to switch to an os that will end up wasting more of my time.
A couple of years ago I had a brush with this little company. They manufacture an Electronic Flight Bag product, which is, essentially, a specialized computer used to store all sorts of documentation that pilots need to use on daily basis: various tech manuals, forms, notes and even maps. The hardware is actually very nicely executed, but the software is Windows XP Professional (not even Embedded). Because of that, the resulting product is slow, suffers from numerours interface glitches and is not very stable.
What can an app written in Python+SQLite do that a an app written in raw ASM can't?
Be maintained easily and run on multiple computing platforms.
What can an app written in VBScript+Access do that an app written in Python+SQLite can't?
Open existing Access Databases.
Apparently, someone got Python to run queries on Access .mdb files through ODBC.
The Very Worst Uses of Windows - I say rubbish. These are the best uses I could see out of such a problematic OS. Why, because they work.
Disclaimer: Anywhere you use Windows is a bad use I've been using Unix for the last 10 years on my desktop. And with every windows version starting with 98 I've given it a bash and by the third crash given up. My question is this the MS license specifically exclude putting Windows to use in any situation where human lives might be at risk. I would expect a person making medical machines knows better. And the worst use I've seen was my bank running there site on Windows did not last long though move to Sun and apache within weeks.
A few years ago, I used to occasionally go to a McDonald's in the Woburn Mall. This particular location had a couple of ordering kiosks that would let you customize your order and pay directly at the kiosk with a credit/debit card.
However, more often than not, the machines were either frozen, off, or being worked on. They were running Windows 9x (95, if I remember correctly). The system might have been an enclosed network with a central server doing all of the actual credit card processing, but I'm pretty sure each machine got its menus (breakfast/lunch) every morning directly from a server over the Internet.
Amusingly, this McDonald's is in the same mall as a TJMaxx. I wonder if they had the same kiosk provider...
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
I'm on a team that (among other things) makes BSPs for Windows CE. Did you know that every single driver in CE5 runs in user mode? Ayup. They're simple DLL files that device.exe launches and runs as threads. Just at a slightly higher priority than Pocket Word.
Think about that a moment.
The drivers crash just like programs too. They just...bail. Suddenly the device the DLL is providing an interface to is simply gone. They don't run in supervisor mode, so they are susceptible to every single thing that can crash a regular program.
Idiot! Step away from the embedded system before you hurt someone.
Running drivers in usermode is *GOOD*. Memory protection is *GOOD*. Supervisor mode is "susceptible to every single thing that can crash a regular program", except it takes down the whole system. I'd much rather have an operating system where drivers crash just like programs and get restarted just like programs, several orders of magnitude faster than a reboot. Not to mention being easy to debug like programs.
Look up either Singularity or QNX white papers for the advantages of running drivers in isolated memory spaces.
Windows NT has been multiuser from the ground up since 1993.
One problem is that kernel level (stop mode) debug tools for x86 are not widely available, and Intel AFAIK has no intention to change this. Now, that hasn't stopped anyone from making the Linux kernel work, among others but it is a disadvantage versus say ARM.
Another problem with overbloated systems running simple tasks is the huge draw of electricity. How much power could we save (and, therefore, money) by using bloated systems less for simple things?
An obvious observation, but I thought I'd make it.
Two exact servers one running Windows and one running whatever Unix OS you want on it are going to draw around the same amount of power regardless of how "bloated" the core OS is. The thing that consumes the most power on servers and workstations are the peripherals such as PCI cards hard drives and other physical parts.
As for the suggestion that less powerful servers would take less power that is quite valid. Just try buying some older slower servers for a large deployment and then try to keep them running.
Most server upgrades that are done these days are not done because the old server was not capable of doing the work the new server was (unless it was slow from day one or the application grew out of control) its for the illusion of reliability and the shiny new service contract that the CEO's think saves the company so much money.
You are all idiots. If you knew anything about windows you would understand why saying windows crashes or needs rebooting is a complete lie and is nothing to do with the OS more the 3rd party drivers that hook kernel mode functions and pass parameters full of garbage......idiots
Every copy of Solaris (and Java, as I recall) sternly tells you not to use it for critical medical equipment, nuke plants, missile guidence, all sorts of stuff.
So does iTunes. That's always been my favourite. It really makes me wonder how I could use iTunes to control a nuclear power plant.
Sorry, I could not let that last statement go by unqualified. The option to automatically reboot has been around since NT 3.x. You just have to look for the recovery options on STOP errors in System properies and change it from the "do nothing" defaults. Windows 2000 simply came with that option set to a more sensible default (although it led to confusion initially for NT administrators that were used to the old behavior.)
This used to happen every daylight savings night on our local community access channel, up until a year or two ago. You could still hear the audio, but instead of seeing the presentation, you'd just see the notification that Windows 98 has updated for Daylight Savings! Out of boredom, I recorded this on a VHS tape, and eventually saw a mouse move on the TV to click OK, then it clicked some icon on the Windows desktop to restart the powerpoint presentation (or whatever it is that they use.)
In another instance on the same channel just recently, I saw the default Windows XP screensaver on the screen! They must have just "upgraded" from 98 to XP within the last year. I also recorded this to another VHS tape to see what they would do.