Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bill Gates Acknowledges Ctrl+Alt+Del Was a Mistake

Posted by timothy on from the tilde-backspace-left-arrow-was-taken dept.

theodp writes "If he'd had his druthers, Bill Gates told a Harvard audience, Ctrl+Alt+Del would never have seen the light of day. However, an IBM keyboard designer didn't want to give Microsoft a single button to start things up, and thus the iconic three-finger-salute was born."

10 of 665 comments (clear)

  1. There you have it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even bill gates does not approve of Ctrl+Alt+Del

  2. So why continue it... by nschubach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Once they got the "Windows Key", why did they continue using the Ctrl + Alt + Delete?

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    1. Re:So why continue it... by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thank god we are at least past the era in which pressing the Win key or Alt-Tabbing in a game would jam the whole operating system.

  3. Could have been worse than Ctrl + Alt + Del by MiniMike · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm just glad we didn't have to do something like Ctrl + Alt + Del + F6 + Esc + (number pad) Enter for the same functionality.

  4. Re:Redundant keys by __aaeihw9960 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Semicolon; damnit; why don;t people use that one more often; I find it can replace all other punctuation;

  5. Re:Redundant keys by MiniMike · · Score: 5, Funny

    But people who type properly use both shift keys.

    Many keyboards have a space between the Esc and F1 keys. I heard somewhere that to allow for adding undetermined capabilities later, they originally wanted to add another key in that space. As it would be for undetermined functionality, and to keep with the naming scheme of the other function keys, this key was to be labelled "FU". While the actual key was never adopted, it's spirit has lived on in every release of Windows.

  6. Re:Makes sense by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Funny

    But then managers would hit it every time they went to change their password Post-It.

  7. Rebooting the linux servers. by ls671 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I used to work for a small company where we had 10 Linux servers and 1 windows NT box hooked to a Keyboard Video Mouse (KVM) switch. My boss was using the windows server for Webtrends.

    He would never check which server he was on before pressing ctrl-alt-del to login so he would reboot the Linux servers at random causing customers to phone us because they were offline.

    Gladly enough, ctrl-alt-del isn't as hardcoded in Linux that it is in Windows. All I had to do is modify the init scripts to ignore ctrl-alt-del so that solved our problem.

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  8. Re:Redundant keys by femtobyte · · Score: 5, Funny

    If I ever find myself on a Windows machine, I figure woe already done gone betided me.

  9. Re:Redundant keys by houghi · · Score: 5, Funny

    WHAT ABOUT THE CAPS LOCK KEY?

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.