Steve Ballmer Authored the Windows 3.1 Ctrl-Alt-Del Screen

Nerval's Lobster writes According to Microsoft developer Raymond Chen, Steve Ballmer didn't like the original text that accompanied the Ctrl-Alt-Del screen in Windows 3.1, so he wrote up a new version. If you used Windows at any point in the past two decades, you can thank him for that infuriatingly passive 'This Windows application has stopped responding to the system' message, accompanied by the offer to hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete again to restart the PC (and lose all your unsaved data). Update: 09/09 15:30 GMT by S : Changed headline and summary to reflect that Ballmer authored the Ctrl-Alt-Del screen, not the BSoD, as originally stated.

Comments

"Stuff that matters"

[Nimey]

This story belongs in idle.

Re:"Stuff that matters"

[OzPeter]

Seriously. There's nothing to discuss.
Ballmer wrote the message. So what?

Bet you wouldn't say that if Bennet had posted this story. But the again it would have been a philosophical piece about how while he likes the color blue, its not his favorite color blue, and how he wished that all error display screens should be *his* favorite blue color, and how dare the manufacturers of all the different OS's not consult him and get *his* opinion on what makes for a really nice blue color, even though each of those OS manufactures have their own ideas as to how things should be done and they have most likely done their own research into colors, but anyway that should all be scrapped and re-implemented Bennett's way (at their own expense of course) and while their at it could they also make it so every program works exactly the same on every different combination of computer and OS as it's a major hassle having to learn how to do things differently whenever you site down at an unfamiliar computer, but then again why should computers be unfamiliar in the first place, maybe it would be better if they all had a dedicated "Bennet" login so that he would just be able to sit down at any computer and just use it the way he wanted to, in fact what would be even better if all that research into melding telepathy and machines was finally completed so that he wouldn't even have to sit down at a computer as it would simply recognize him from a distance and would then fire up its 3D holographic welcome display (which BTW is fully detailed 3D model of Bennett himself - on a pedestal) so that he can instantly get down to his .. Oh look! Squirrel!!

Amiga

[Pheran]

Nothing will ever top "Guru Meditation" :)

Re:Amiga

[Tablizer]

If a system can display an error message, it is not messed up enough.

There is an in-between. I once saw the error message:

ERROR: There is not enough memory to display the error m

Anthill Inside

[ackthpt]

+++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR+++

Warning: Do Not Turn off this Jumbotron!

[Anonymous Coward]

Applying critical patch 42 of 13,699,364...

Re:old message

[Opportunist]

So this is something you'd prefer?

Re:Windows 8

[bobbied]

And here I thought Metro was the BSOD... Silly me..