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

Posted by timothy on from the and-he-approved-this-message dept.

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.

8 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"Stuff that matters" by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

  2. Re:Amiga by marcello_dl · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  3. I miss the BSOD by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd rather get some cryptic information about stop codes or an error message than a condescending sad face accompanied by a reboot request. At least I can look up the code and get a ballpark idea what the issue is without firing up windbg.

  4. Windows 8 by LookIntoTheFuture · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, at least it doesn't have a childish sad-face imoticon like the Windows 8 version.

    --
    Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
  5. Re:"Stuff that matters" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since Ballmer wrote the message, and the message was quite good, Ballmer is a developer.........

    From TFA

    "Okay, Steve. If you think you can do a better job, then go for it." Unlike some other executive, Steve took up the challenge, and a few days later, he emailed what he thought the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen should say.

    The text he came up with was actually quite good, and it went into the product pretty much word for word.

  6. Re:"Stuff that matters" by the_B0fh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh, how I wish I have mod points right now. The article itself and this article are both worthless.

  7. Hexidecimal by tekrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Did he also decide to produce the Hex output that is entirely useless and without merit? I understand that's for debugging purposes, but who decided that was a good idea to leave in for a consumer-level OS? Seriously.

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    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  8. Re:"Stuff that matters" by vux984 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

    Awesome. Thanks for that. It almost makes having to suffer through Bennet's use of slashdot as his personal blog worth it, just to see it satirized like this. :)