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

"Stuff that matters" by Nimey · 2014-09-04 06:11 · Score: 4, Funny

This story belongs in idle.

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E pluribus sanguinem

Re:"Stuff that matters" by sexconker · 2014-09-04 06:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

Seriously. There's nothing to discuss.
Ballmer wrote the message. So what?
Re:"Stuff that matters" by Killer+Instinct · 2014-09-04 06:21 · Score: 4, Informative

Its a "advert" to drive hits to DICE.COM :/

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Re:"Stuff that matters" by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 06:26 · 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.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by OzPeter · 2014-09-04 06:30 · Score: 5, Funny

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!!

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Re:"Stuff that matters" by the_B0fh · 2014-09-04 06:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

Oh, how I wish I have mod points right now. The article itself and this article are both worthless.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 06:39 · Score: 1

Seriously. There's nothing to discuss.
Ballmer wrote the message. So what?
I thought the same thing about someone getting mad enough to physically throw shit, but somehow his was the chair heard 'round the fucking world.
He's relevant in the same way strippers find him sexy. He's got money.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by vux984 · 2014-09-04 06:52 · 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. :)
Re:"Stuff that matters" by Anrego · 2014-09-04 06:56 · Score: 1

Even as a long term Linux user who hasn't done much windows related since XP SP2 was news, I do still read and actually enjoy Raymond Chen's blog, and even bought his book.
The dice article is pretty pointless though as it just mirrors Raymond Chen's post.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by mobby_6kl · 2014-09-04 07:04 · Score: 2

It's a minor piece of trivia that was certainly not worth posting on slashdot in lieu of another Raymond post, but it's something I would've enjoyed reading when going through his blog. Check it out, there's tons of interesting technical and historical information there.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by Anrego · 2014-09-04 07:13 · Score: 1

Agree.
Even as a long time Linux user, I still enjoy his blog (and even bought a copy of his book). It's interesting, easily digestible, and well presented tidbits from someone who actually works with the stuff.
Probably doesn't belong on slashdot any more than his other posts though as you said, however I would have been ok with it if they'd linked directly to his post rather than linking to the dice article which is pretty much just a mirror of it.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by gstoddart · 2014-09-04 07:18 · Score: 2

LOL ... that's it ... Bennet is essentially Gilderoy Lockhart!!
You, sir, are brilliant!

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by TWX · 2014-09-04 08:11 · Score: 2

Ballmer wrote the message. So what?
So now we know who to send the counseling bills to...

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by Oligonicella · 2014-09-04 09:08 · Score: 1

Excellent sir, although you still haven't beaten Jonathan Coe.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by Mashiki · 2014-09-04 10:36 · Score: 1

Considering the way the old BSOD messages were handled in 3.x? The current implementation that he built was useful, exceptionally useful at that. Not only did you get a main dump, but it also partially dumped directly to the screen and let you troubleshoot cleanly from that.

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Om, nomnomnom...
Re:"Stuff that matters" by gargleblast · 2014-09-04 12:06 · Score: 1

Or the Jeff Cogswell analysis about how Windows 3.1 is better than Windows 3.0 for Web Scale Big Data because its BSOD is "more performant" than Windows 3.0's GPF.
Re:"Stuff that matters" by TheRaven64 · 2014-09-04 20:33 · Score: 2

Agreed on Chen's blog, but the summary is horrible. This message hasn't been part of Windows since Windows 95 (which introduced preemptive multitasking to the Windows world, so a single application could no longer freeze the system trivially), so the odds are that if you used Windows in the last two decades you've never seen this notice...

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Re:"Stuff that matters" by markhb · 2014-09-05 03:30 · Score: 1

Oh, it was the OLD version he wrote (I haven't RTFA yet). I was hoping to blame him for IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL!

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Re:"Stuff that matters" by whereiswaldo · 2014-09-05 14:26 · Score: 1

I was just watching a tornado video on youtube and noticed one of the computer screens in the communication centre had a BSOD: http://youtu.be/sl_CM6wlry0?t=...

Amiga by Pheran · 2014-09-04 06:12 · Score: 5, Funny

Nothing will ever top "Guru Meditation" :)

Re:Amiga by marcello_dl · 2014-09-04 06:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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Re:Amiga by mister_playboy · 2014-09-04 06:59 · Score: 1

This error message appears at /. as well. :)

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Re:Amiga by RKThoadan · 2014-09-04 06:59 · Score: 1

That's good if you want to really weird people out. I prefer the pure panic-inducing power of lp0 on Fire!
Re:Amiga by gstoddart · 2014-09-04 07:19 · Score: 1

Oh, I don't know ... Slashdot's "varnish cache server" is up there. :-P

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:Amiga by operagost · 2014-09-04 08:14 · Score: 2

I really think you are confused. This "blue screen" is the one that DOS-based Windows displayed when a program had stopped responding. If you were lucky, you could kill the program and save your work before memory was totally corrupted. In NT-based Windows, the system remains stable when one application hangs because of separate memory spaces. You can keep working after you kill the bad app. In either case, you lose whatever you were doing in the bad app, but in the latter, at least the system remains stable.

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Re:Amiga by Richard+Dick+Head · 2014-09-04 08:56 · Score: 2

You're comparing apples and oranges as far as the technical details. I'm saying Win 3.x let me continue when it saw problems, and NT could also do that.

I'd like to have the *option* to continue to save my work even if there was a chance of data corruption. For example, take the common NT blue screen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. That fact that my buggy network driver tried to access paged memory in the wrong sequence is miles away from catastrophic. And it certainly doesn't take priority over something I've been working on for hours. IRQ 0 is me, motherfuckers!

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The real path to male liberation
Re:Amiga by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 11:07 · Score: 1

So what you're basically saying is, you want the Hurd. Very few, if any, drivers in kernel space; most of them are user-space daemons.
The problem is, if a kernel-level driver stuffs something up to that extent, you don't know what went wrong. You don't know how to reliably fix it. Maybe everything's okay. Maybe it walked all over the system memory, and continuing would result in massive filesystem corruption. You don't know. At that point, the safest bet is to bail out. Sorry; you've lost everything you were working on that hasn't been saved; but at least you haven't lost everything on the system.
Re:Amiga by gargleblast · 2014-09-04 12:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

If a system can display an error message, it is not messed up enough.
Yeah. A really good Amiga crash would randomly poke the graphics and sound chips and the machine would look and sound as if it were about to explode.
Re:Amiga by Tablizer · 2014-09-04 12:31 · Score: 3, Funny

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

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Table-ized A.I.
Re:Amiga by jones_supa · 2014-09-04 18:17 · Score: 1

I'd like to have the *option* to continue to save my work even if there was a chance of data corruption. For example, take the common NT blue screen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. That fact that my buggy network driver tried to access paged memory in the wrong sequence is miles away from catastrophic.
Believe or not, but such situation is actually catastrophic. A network driver might feel like a small component of your system, but as it happens to be tightly integrated into kernel space and when it does something illegal, there's a real risk of data corruption or other system misbehavior.
Actually, with NT6, display drivers were moved into userspace, so if a display driver crashes, one just gets a blank screen for a couple of seconds, and after that a system tray popup informing about the driver restart.
Re:Amiga by TheRaven64 · 2014-09-04 20:57 · Score: 1
You're comparing apples and oranges as far as the technical details. I'm saying Win 3.x let me continue when it saw problems, and NT could also do that.
Not really. The kind of situations where Windows 3.x let you try to continue, Windows NT just handles transparently. In Windows 3.x, with cooperative multitasking, a single application can refuse to relinquish the CPU. If this happens, you have three choices (outlined by the dialog box):
- Just wait and see if it eventually recovers.
- Kill that application and hope that it isn't holding any handles that other processes need to be able to do useful work.
- Restart the entire computer.
In a system with protected memory and preemptive multitasking, an application that refuses to relinquish the CPU will just have its priority downgraded and the only thing that you'll notice is the CPU getting warm. Eventually, you may choose to kill the program, but it never affects system stability.

I'd like to have the *option* to continue to save my work even if there was a chance of data corruption. For example, take the common NT blue screen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. That fact that my buggy network driver tried to access paged memory in the wrong sequence is miles away from catastrophic. And it certainly doesn't take priority over something I've been working on for hours. IRQ 0 is me, motherfuckers!
It means that there's a high probability that something has damaged some kernel data structures. If you continue, there's a good chance that this corruption will spread to the buffer cache and you'll end up writing invalid data to disk. If you kill the system, the corruption is limited to the RAM.
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old message by alphatel · 2014-09-04 06:18 · Score: 2

I prefer the Windows 3.1 BSoD

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Re:old message by gnupun · 2014-09-04 06:22 · Score: 1

Ballmer's version is short and clear. I hate dialog boxes with long messages followed by "Yes/No" buttons.
Re:old message by Opportunist · 2014-09-04 06:36 · Score: 4, Funny

So this is something you'd prefer?

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Re:old message by LookIntoTheFuture · 2014-09-04 07:49 · Score: 1

So this is something you'd prefer?
That looks like something the BOFH would do. Yes, No, close button - they would all be devastating.

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Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
Re:old message by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 08:35 · Score: 1

I like this one.
Re:old message by Opportunist · 2014-09-04 09:19 · Score: 1

More like the BP(rogrammer)FH. I'd put that dialogue at the closing window, leaving the user wondering whether the question was "do you want to save your work before closing?" or "all your work will be lost if you close without saving first. Proceed?"

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:old message by jones_supa · 2014-09-04 18:28 · Score: 1

I prefer the Windows 3.1 BSoD

Well, that's interesting, because TFA precisely talks about Ballmer designing the Windows 3.1 BSOD. The BSOD in the article looks different than your screenshot.
Most likely there are multiple BSODs in Windows 3.1, and Ballmer designed one of them.
Re:old message by Yaotzin · 2014-09-05 02:41 · Score: 1

The error should not occur because the error that occurred was that no error occurred?
ERR_TOO_MANY_ERROR
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart.

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Error: No error occurred

I miss the BSOD by Barlo_Mung_42 · 2014-09-04 06:20 · 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.

Re:I miss the BSOD by flappinbooger · 2014-09-04 06:51 · Score: 1

yeah at least it's something.
something is better than nothing.
not much better, but ...

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Re:I miss the BSOD by DarkProphet · 2014-09-04 08:48 · Score: 2, Informative

That only works if you're able get to the machine to boot again :-(

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Re:I miss the BSOD by Kittenman · 2014-09-04 13:02 · Score: 1

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.
I like 'An unexpected error occurred..."

We need more expected errors. These unexpected ones are clouding the issue...

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Re:I miss the BSOD by jones_supa · 2014-09-04 18:34 · Score: 1

Yes, old BSOD was great tool for the IT crowd. The Windows 8.1 gives now just a page with awfully large text saying something like "sorry, something was wrong, we're rebooting." Good luck with finding the reason for the crash and most importantly, fixing the problem. This dumbing down of software is just disgusting.
Check out Minidump files. There's a good amount of information stored about the cause of a BSOD.

Even the Visual Studio 2013 is designed for the tablet users, I wonder why they still support programming at all, as it is is assumed to be too hard for their customers.
Visual Studio 2013 is a normal desktop application just like the previous versions of Visual Studio.

Windows 8 by LookIntoTheFuture · 2014-09-04 06:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

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

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Re:Windows 8 by Megol · 2014-09-04 06:42 · Score: 1

How the frog do you trigger a BSOD in Windows 8? Seriously, I've had driver failures but those triggered restart of the driver and no BSOD...
Re:Windows 8 by war4peace · 2014-09-04 06:46 · Score: 2

People are resourceful.

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Re:Windows 8 by bobbied · 2014-09-04 06:49 · Score: 3, Funny

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

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Re:Windows 8 by just_another_sean · 2014-09-04 07:00 · Score: 5, Informative

How the frog do you trigger a BSOD in Windows 8?
Apparently by installing updates.

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Re:Windows 8 by sandytaru · 2014-09-04 07:33 · Score: 1

Had some instability due to a too weak PSU when I rebuilt my Win8 system last winter. I was getting BSoD or worse - total unannounced shutdown - with annoying frequency. (Turns out the GTX 660 really did need that 1000 watt PSU I was too cheap to get at first.) Thankfully, no lasting damage, because the BSoD and system shutdowns worked as intended and protected the rest of the hardware.

It's very stable now. I think I've had to reboot the system once in the last month.

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Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Re:Windows 8 by reikae · 2014-09-04 08:34 · Score: 2

What's the rest of your hardware like? GTX 660 doesn't need anywhere close to 1 kW, I'm doing fine with a 450 W PSU (also powering an i5-2500 CPU and one hard drive). Seems more likely that your previous PSU was just a very low quality one.
Greetings from the someone-might-be-wrong-on-the-internet dept. :-)
Re:Windows 8 by Bratch · 2014-09-04 09:22 · Score: 1

Fairly easy. Install latest NVIDIA driver for my graphics card, wait for screen saver to start, observe sad face emoticon blue screen. If you're not sure which driver is causing the bug check, the driver verifier can help diagnose the problem. I've encountered this one and one for a registry issue, which was resolved by cleaning it three times.

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Re:Windows 8 by snookiex · 2014-09-04 11:17 · Score: 2

A friend of mine told me recently that he got one by putting his laptop on hibernation while the peripherals were still connected. He disconnected them while in hibernation, and then woke the system up again.

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Re:Windows 8 by Megol · 2014-09-04 21:11 · Score: 1

Ouch! Now that is a design failure...
Re:Windows 8 by Megol · 2014-09-04 21:12 · Score: 1

Hmm well that should work - will try it out.
Re:Windows 8 by sandytaru · 2014-09-05 04:16 · Score: 1

MSI motherboard with 16 GB of RAM, standard DVD player, blah blah. Two HDDs, one SSD and one platter, with a fat external USB platter for backups. Dual 1080p monitors. And yes, it's quite possible that the 650 watt PSU I had before was simply low quality, but it was an excuse to upgrade to a nice modular 1000 watt one, and future proof it. I'll be dropping in a 2nd 660 and SLIing them for my birthday this year.

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Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Re:Windows 8 by ihtoit · 2014-09-06 11:55 · Score: 1

I've reliably triggered an invalid page BSoD in Windows 7 by running a 32-bit process in more than 4GB of memory space.
Kerbal Space Program for the win.

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You'd think - by Darth+Snowshoe · 2014-09-04 06:27 · Score: 1

You'd think he'd have someone to do that for him!

Anthill Inside by ackthpt · 2014-09-04 06:28 · Score: 4, Funny

+++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR+++

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Re:Anthill Inside by drkim · 2014-09-04 20:26 · Score: 1

+++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR+++
I'm just glad that Balmer didn't write:
This Windows application has stopped responding to the ayiiiiiiiiiiEEEEEEEEEE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That explains a lot by Kohath · 2014-09-04 06:30 · Score: 1

'RESTART! RESTART! RESTART!' would have been a lot better. Clear instructions are useful. Screenfulls of BS just confuse people. All they can do is restart anyway.

Re:That explains a lot by just_another_sean · 2014-09-04 07:03 · Score: 2

Screenfulls of BS just confuse people.
It's not just BS to everyone though. And even without understanding what it was telling me by googling the stop codes I've been able to fix things based on good search results, especially for very common problems like driver errors. As another poster mentioned it's sometimes possible and a hundred times easier to search for a stop code and get a fix for a problem than it is to fire up WinDBG.

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Re:That explains a lot by EvanED · 2014-09-04 07:06 · Score: 1

This article is about the Win95 BSOD, not the NT one. The 95 BSOD showed up for plenty of application hangs when you didn't need to reboot the whole system and could use it to just kill that process -- or at least, delay rebooting long enough to save and close anything else open.
Re:That explains a lot by EvanED · 2014-09-04 07:11 · Score: 1

Sorry, 3.1, not 95. Though a similar one was present in the 95 line.

It is the frequency not message by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2014-09-04 06:34 · Score: 2

Hung processes and the accompanying error messages are always iffy. Is it any worse than "core dumping" or "kernel mode panic"? What irritated most people was how often applications crashed.

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Warning: Do Not Turn off this Jumbotron! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 06:35 · Score: 3, Funny

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

I KNEW IT! by dywolf · 2014-09-04 06:35 · Score: 1

I knew it I knew it I knew it!

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Hexidecimal by tekrat · 2014-09-04 06:38 · 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.

Re:Hexidecimal by pastafazou · 2014-09-04 06:41 · Score: 1

He probably plagiarized it anyway
Re:Hexidecimal by gstoddart · 2014-09-04 06:52 · Score: 1

You know, these are the same people who have put the meaningless error messages like "something bad happened, if this problem persists contact your administrator".
Gee, thanks, it's my fscking machine, I'm the admin ... how about you tell me something meaningful about the issue so I can try to find it?
Microsoft seems to be eternally stuck between dumbing something down so far as to make debugging impossible, and spitting out gibberish messages that you need a wizard level guru to decipher.
And, more on topic ... Big Fair Hairy Fscking Deal ... Ballmer re-wrote the text of the terrible error message, are we supposed to be impressed or something??? Now, if only they'd spent as much time in eliminating the terrible error in the first place.
If you're polishing your turd, you're doing it wrong. It should not be no no, when the system crashes completely, it should be in 17 point helvetica. At that point, it's like wall papering over the giant hole in your wall.

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:Hexidecimal by Ardyvee · 2014-09-04 07:11 · Score: 1

Why is it not a good idea to leave it there?

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Re:Hexidecimal by _xeno_ · 2014-09-04 07:17 · Score: 1

Did he also decide to produce the Hex output that is entirely useless and without merit?
If you read the blog entry, this is talking about Windows 3.1's BSOD. A screen I honestly did not know existed, although Windows 3.1 is so old that I'd have been a kid, so maybe it popped up all the time if you used computers daily back then. I have no idea.
Windows only picked up preemptive multitasking in NT and later 95, so Windows 3.1 was cooperatively multitasked. Apparently if the running program didn't respond to incoming messages quickly enough (presumably a check in an interrupt handler?) a blue screen would appear, and Steve Balmer wrote the text for that blue screen.
Windows 95 and NT don't use that blue screen since the blue screen that appears in 95 is for driver faults (basically) and one in NT is for kernel panics.

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Re:Hexidecimal by nmb3000 · 2014-09-04 07:18 · Score: 1

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.
Ah yes. Everyone should have to set up a second machine, connect it to the other via a serial cable (having remembered to enable serial port debugging on the host prior to the crash), and then fire up their kernel debugger just to get the bugcheck code.
Putting a numeric error code (which usually comes with the symbolic name as well) on a consumer-facing fatal error is absolutely the correct thing to do. Once you've reached the kernel panic failure point there's not much most consumers can do anyway, so providing some diagnostic information can't hurt anything. If you don't then you may as well just restart the machine and not bothering to show an error at all. That sure sounds friendly.

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"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Re:Hexidecimal by dbc · 2014-09-04 07:28 · Score: 1

???? Well, I guess you are proud to be an uneducated redneck. Just because it is useless to *you*, doesn't mean it is useless to everybody. To some of us, it is essential that the exception code be easily available. If it doesn't appear on the last screen the machine can put up before coming to a complete halt, where would you suggest it go? To a log file, when the file system might not be working? *sheesh*. Really, I'd like to hear where else you think it could be recorded in a manner that is both 100% reliable and easily accessible without specialized diagnostic equipment.
BTW -- 99% of the blue screens were 0E exceptions -- "invalid page fault". In other words, a page fault in the kernel. Page faults are only valid from user space code. In 99% of *those* cases, the cause was a driver bug where an I/O driver should have wired down a page so that it would not get swapped out while it was the I/O source or destination. Microsoft got tired of getting blamed for shitty third party drivers, thus we now have signed driver code.
Let me tell you, if you don't get an error code at a machine halt, the next step is to start hanging logic analyzer probes. Then when your bench tech is done hanging probes you get to come back and spend the next several hours staring at logic analyzer traces. Been there. Done that. Got the tee-shirt -- literally.
Re:Hexidecimal by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 07:38 · Score: 1

The problem with the hex stuff is for most of NT/2000/etc's lifetime there was no way to capture the output without writing it down. Like adding insult to injury. The system crashed, so you can't copy/paste, save it, e-mail it, or anything. Later on when small digital cameras were ubiquitous, you could take a picture of it.
Re:Hexidecimal by jader3rd · 2014-09-04 07:54 · Score: 1

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.
How is it a bad idea to present the information in a consumer-level OS? What would be better, not showing information?
Re:Hexidecimal by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 07:56 · Score: 1

>Meanwhile, some of us were running real multi-tasking Linux machines, running X. Ahh, good times.
Good times? Linux was a pathetic joke back in '92. Even Windows NT 3.51 was better and that's a *real* insult.
SunOS for life (or at least until that boob McNealy ran his company into the ground)!
Re:Hexidecimal by operagost · 2014-09-04 08:33 · Score: 1

No, cooperative multitasking means what it sounds like: each application is responsible for turning control back to the system when it is time for it to do so. This means the system cannot determine priority, but the app can.

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Re:Hexidecimal by TuringTest · 2014-09-04 09:06 · Score: 1

Actually, the message in that OS version is fairly acceptable for its purpose and context. It identifies the nature of the problem using understandable words, offers a course of action for recovering from it, and explains the potential outcomes of following it. That's pretty much what the user needs to know.
If you want to debug it you should use the logs anyway, so the message for the end user is better written in plain English.

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Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Re:Hexidecimal by UnknownSoldier · 2014-09-04 09:07 · Score: 1

> the Hex output that is entirely useless
useless??
If you don't know how to search for the first error code you probably shouldn't be using Windows ...
Re:Hexidecimal by Misagon · 2014-09-04 10:06 · Score: 1

He was probably in envy of the Amiga's Guru Meditation.

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"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Re:Hexidecimal by bloodhawk · 2014-09-04 12:07 · Score: 2

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.
WTF? of all the idiotic things they have done, leaving the debug information available in the consumer-level OS was one of the BEST ideas. It gives even the most clueless user a chance to google it, or read the screen to someone that understands it, or in the case of my mother send a photo of it so someone can look up what went wrong.
Re:Hexidecimal by jones_supa · 2014-09-04 18:44 · Score: 1

LOL, then I can only conclude you never actually used Windows 3.1.
Which is exactly what he said:
A screen I honestly did not know existed, although Windows 3.1 is so old that I'd have been a kid, so maybe it popped up all the time if you used computers daily back then. I have no idea.
Re:Hexidecimal by EvilJoker · 2014-09-06 16:18 · Score: 1

So that consumers can more easily report the issue to the vendor?

Never seen it by Svenne · 2014-09-04 06:38 · Score: 1

I must be unique then in that I have used Windows for 15 years and I've never seen that particular blue screen before. Had to google it after reading the article, and still can't find any other mention of it. In what version of Windows was it used?

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Slagborr

Re:Never seen it by SternisheFan · 2014-09-04 06:42 · Score: 1

I must be unique then in that I have used Windows for 15 years and I've never seen that particular blue screen before. Had to google it after reading the article, and still can't find any other mention of it. In what version of Windows was it used?
Let me guess, you never used ME (Milennium Edition), huh?
Re:Never seen it by wbo · 2014-09-04 06:45 · Score: 2

That particular screen was used in Windows 3.1 which used cooperative multitasking. The message was displayed when an application stopped responding to messages for a period of time (indicating that the application may be hung for some reason and could be preventing other applications from getting any CPU time.

The screen allows the user to kill the offending application, allowing any other applications to continue to run (that is as long as the hung application hadn't corrupted the contents of RAM in some way).
Re:Never seen it by Svenne · 2014-09-04 06:47 · Score: 1

No, I think just missed that one. Good for me, it would seem.

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Slagborr
Re:Never seen it by Svenne · 2014-09-04 06:50 · Score: 1

Thank you. The article makes it sound as if it was used in versions after Windows 3.1, and specifically not in 3.1. I was lucky enough to not have a Windows PC in the old 3.1 days, so that would explain it.

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Slagborr
Re:Never seen it by HornWumpus · 2014-09-04 08:52 · Score: 2

Windows 3.1 had protected memory, apps attempting to access memory the didn't own accounted for 90% of blue screens. Of those 90% were trying to access 0000:0000.
Also Windows 3.1 multitasking was more complicated then that. It had preemptive multitasking between DOS shells and Windows. But windows itself used MacOS style (cooperative) multitasking.
Also note: Windows 3.1 did way too much in kernel mode. So any driver could corrupt memory, but not apps in general.

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John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'

how about "Stack Crap, We Goofed Again..." by swschrad · 2014-09-04 06:54 · Score: 1

that screenshot was the Microsoft company song.

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if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?

Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by Pro923 · 2014-09-04 06:56 · Score: 1

I've done a lot of work in windows kernel development, and some linux kernel too. I understand that the system is in a bad state when the BSoD happens, but I've always thought that instead of the only option being to 'reboot' and lose what you're working on, things should be a little more choice based. Instead of just the BSoD, perhaps we could be given some information about the thread, call stack and call that initiated the KeBugCheck - then we could decide if we wanted to risk trying to go back in and save our work. Like - if the bugcheck occurs in the USB stack somewhere, maybe I'd elect to just suspend that thread and device stack, go back in and see if I could save my work. I'm tempted to think, "What's worse than a forced immediate reboot" - though I know that if some thread starts scribbling on memory in an out of control fashion that - yes - things could get a lot worse. But maybe not if that thread were immediately suspended.

Re:Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by benjymouse · 2014-09-04 07:19 · Score: 4, Informative

BSOD happens when the kernel detects memory corruption. With a hybrid monolithic kernel like Windows that means all bets are off and continuing could very well case damage more damage.
Even if the memory corruption happens in an USB driver, it can overwrite critical kernel memory.
Incidentally, you *do* get more information. The kernel will initiate a kernel dump which can be investigated later.

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Re:Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by bws111 · 2014-09-04 07:26 · Score: 1

What's worse than a forced reboot? A reboot that should have happened but was ignored, wiping out not only the last hours work, but your entire disk.
>99% of users would have absolutely no idea what choice to take. And no matter which they chose, they probably will wind up losing something. So why make it appear that it is the users fault if they lost data (by making the 'wrong' choice)?
Yeah, just suspend that thread that is in the USB stack. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like it could interefe with a filesystem o a USB device, right?
And remember, just because a certain piece of code DETECTED a problem does not mean that that piece of code CAUSED the problem. Thread 'A' craps all over storage, thread 'B' attempts to use storage and crashes, and you give the user to just let thread 'A' continue? Brilliant!
Re:Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by Pro923 · 2014-09-04 08:12 · Score: 1

No. You'd be foolish to continue if you knew that the corruption was within the storage stack. But as an advanced user, I can assure you that there would be times that I would know it would be safe to proceed, simply because of what caused the BSoD. It's not always memory corruption. Back when MS first came out with intellisense for Visual Studio, I'd (about once a day) get a crash in dev studio that would usually come at a time that I was going to lose unsaved code. One time, I decided to hit 'cancel' - the option to debug the crashing application. Another instance of dev studio opened and I saw that it was the intellisense thread that was crashing. I'd suspend that thread and hit F5, then save my work. This saved me a lot of headache. I'm fully aware that there are significant differences in usermode crashes and kernel crashes. I'm simply saying, that as an experienced kernel developer, I personally could (upon occasion) benefit from the ability to suspend and continue. If that thread in the usb stack tried to write to NULL or 0x70000000, I'm pretty sure that it's not writing on my storage stack.
Re:Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by bws111 · 2014-09-04 08:34 · Score: 1

I would genuinely like to know how you, as an 'experienced kernel developer', know, using only the information you said (backtrace, etc), that the reason the USB stack is trying to write to NULL is NOT because something stomped all over storage, possibly including the storage stack.
Re:Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by HornWumpus · 2014-09-04 08:55 · Score: 1

One of the big advantages of a microkernel is that it lets you know what fucking driver just tried to write all over memory it didn't own.

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John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by Pro923 · 2014-09-04 13:47 · Score: 1

I don't know where you're going with that. Not saying it's not possible. What if - instead of the bsod, you were brought to the equivalent of a WinDBG output of the crash? You could diagnose the cause of the crash while everything was halted, figure out what's in a corrupted state and what isn't - unload modules, stop threads, change memory values, do whatever you want to do. Then if you felt comfortable enough, you could allow the operating system to "resume". Look, I'm not saying that this is an end-user thing to do, and lots of time you'd probably be better off letting the machine crash. But if I had that kind of power in the halted state - I could even find my unsaved documents in memory and store them in some way without even allowing the OS to continue. And I wouldn't just have the backtrace available to me, I'd have the entire contents of memory such that I could !process 0 7 and look at every thread in the system. Hey, I could be wrong - since this kind of power doesn't exist - but like I said, I have been able to reanimate a crashed dev studio by messing around while it was in it's halted state. I'd think it'd be possible to do the same in the kernel in certain cases. Are you saying with certainty that there is never a case where this is possible? it is true though, that lots of corruption could have happened before some trap actually caught the bad state and KeBugChecked. Maybe you're right. I just don't think that you are. With all due respect.
Re:Never liked the 'D' part of BSoD by Pro923 · 2014-09-04 13:56 · Score: 1

Just to back up my credentials here - I wrote VirtuoCD, an early CDROM emulator, a whole suite of WDM drivers for a PCI device with NDIS devices hanging off of the WDM bus, the Oracle VMAPI - a driver while lets you communicate to applications in a guest operating system from the host OS. Various NDIS miniports and intermediate driver (WinPCap type stuff), StorPort Virtual miniports that represent file backed storage that look like disks but are really just files on a disk. ANd a few other things. Not bragging, just saying that I know kernel development. And you know what? I could be off, and you could be right. I'll admit. There could be no case that you could be assured that it'd be safe enough to continue the OS long enough to save files. I still say you could find your unsaved work somewhere in the memory image. I know that Microsoft would never release that kind of power because 99% of the users would fuck up their systems worse, but I still think that I could use that kind of power to mitigate the damage that is inherent when you BSoD and are forced to power cycle.

Prevent damage to your computer by inglorion_on_the_net · 2014-09-04 06:58 · Score: 2

Personally, I like the message that says "Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer." I wonder who came up with that one.

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Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.

Re:Prevent damage to your computer by sandytaru · 2014-09-04 07:35 · Score: 1

Someone who experienced the registry getting chewed up during an unexpected burp once before.

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Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Re:Prevent damage to your computer by dfsmith · 2014-09-04 07:36 · Score: 1

Maybe the engineer was anxiously looking around for flying chairs coming from Balmer's office?
Re:Prevent damage to your computer by captjc · 2014-09-04 11:03 · Score: 2

We're sorry, Someone threw a chair and smashed your Windows. Please press CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot.

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Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment

Re:Bastard! by Richy_T · 2014-09-04 07:02 · Score: 2

I'd rather know who wrote that stupid message that implied the user was responsible for Windows not being shut down properly when it was the festering pile of crap itself that fell over so I could drive all the way across the country and give them a slap.

I am sure many here will have a brief seething relapse when they see these words:

Because Windows was not properly shut down, one or more of your disk drives may have errors on it. To avoid seeing this message again, always shut down your computer by selecting Shut Down from the Start menu.

Infuriatingly active by eswierk · 2014-09-04 07:14 · Score: 1

The BSOD message can't be more infuriating than what Macs say when they reboot after a kernel panic: "You shut down your computer because of a problem." It always makes me want to shout "YOU shut YOURSELF down due to a problem YOU caused!"

Blue Chair of Death by Prince+Vegeta+SSJ4 · 2014-09-04 07:20 · Score: 1

maybe he invented this as well: http://www.hauntedamericatours...

Re:Bastard! by dfsmith · 2014-09-04 07:32 · Score: 1

... always shut down your computer by selecting Shut Down from the Start menu.

You've got to admit, the advice is sound. "I see you tried to run a program. Sheesh. Remember ALWAYS shut down your computer...".

"Keyboard Not Found" by hduff · 2014-09-04 07:40 · Score: 1

"Keyboard Not Found"
"Please press F1 or all your work will be lost."

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"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert

Re:"Keyboard Not Found" by mjwx · 2014-09-04 12:16 · Score: 1

"Keyboard Not Found"
"Please press F1 or all your work will be lost."
"Keyboard not found"
"Press F1 to continue"

Was my favourite error message. I had it constantly on booting my old 286 whether the keyboard was there or not and you would just press F1 to go on.

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Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.

Flying chairs by mendax · 2014-09-04 07:47 · Score: 2

I think Windows 8, that perverse boot sector virus, ought to have updated the BSoD to show a video of Steve Ballmer throwing a chair across a room. No doubt he's done that a few times in his office as the BSoD popped up.

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It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.

Run, Ballmer, run by paiute · 2014-09-04 08:17 · Score: 1

Ballmer always struck me as a Gump-like character who accumulated wealth and thus influence through no talent of his own. He stumbled into Microsoft with no more to offer the world than a guy off the street who pulls a slot machine arm and wins a billion dollar jackpot. At least Forrest was likable.

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If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine

Re:Run, Ballmer, run by mjwx · 2014-09-04 12:27 · Score: 1

Ballmer always struck me as a Gump-like character who accumulated wealth and thus influence through no talent of his own. He stumbled into Microsoft with no more to offer the world than a guy off the street who pulls a slot machine arm and wins a billion dollar jackpot. At least Forrest was likable.
Yeah, thats exactly what he looks like... and it's more favourable than the truth.

Balmer is a salesman, its the same impression some used car salesmen like to give. Truth is, if he wasn't a capable salesman he wouldn't have lasted long at Microsoft (which he didn't when things went south).

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Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.

What he should have written is ... by quax · 2014-09-04 08:23 · Score: 1

... Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!

Re:What he should have written is ... by captjc · 2014-09-04 11:13 · Score: 1

No, this is Steve Ballmer, not a Dalek. It would have been, "FUCKING KILL! FUCKING KILL! FUCKING KILL! "(TM)
There once was a CEO named Steve,
Who threw chairs at employees for reprieve,
He shot lasers from his eyes
To bury other guys,
And he'll Fucking Kill you if you don't believe.

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The BSOD message didn't go far enough by leroybrown · 2014-09-04 09:24 · Score: 1

This would be noteworthy if a chair came flying out of the monitor upon BSOD.

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Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration

Anybody else remember UAE's vs. GPF's? by sirwired · 2014-09-04 10:33 · Score: 1

UAE's (Unrecoverable Application Errors) were the bane of Windows 3.1. When Windows 3.11 was released, MS proudly announced that UAE's were no more!

How did they pull off this programming miracle?

By renaming the error to "General Protection Fault".

And they vanquished THOSE in Windows 95 by calling it an "Illegal Operation"

After that, it was just [Program] Has an Error (using various wording, depending on version.

Re:Anybody else remember UAE's vs. GPF's? by Ash-Fox · 2014-09-04 23:15 · Score: 1

Guess how they fixed the Red Ring of Death on the Xbox 360.

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Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Re:Anybody else remember UAE's vs. GPF's? by ihtoit · 2014-09-06 12:09 · Score: 1

let me guess: a BIOS flash that disabled the red LED switch?

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Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel

Developers, Developers, Developers, by MrKaos · 2014-09-04 11:56 · Score: 1

Developers.

It doesn't make sense with the last "Developers" missing.

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.

Re:Developers, Developers, Developers, by MrKaos · 2014-09-04 11:57 · Score: 1

I.LovE.ThiS.CompanY.yaaaaaaaaaah

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.

"Infuriatingly passive"? by Opyros · 2014-09-04 12:12 · Score: 1

Actually that sentence is in the active voice.

Guru Meditation by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-04 12:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

The term "Guru Meditation Error" originated as an in-house joke in Amiga's early days. The company had a product called the Joyboard, a game controller much like a joystick but operated by one's feet, similar to the modern-day Wii Balance Board. Early in the development of the Amiga computer operating system, the company's developers became so frustrated with the system's frequent crashes that, as a relaxation technique, a game developed where a person would sit cross-legged on the joyboard, resembling an Indian guru.[3] The player tried to remain extremely still; the winner of the game stayed still the longest. If the player moved too much, a "guru meditation" error occurred.[4] The final unlockable balance activity in Wii Fit represents a similar game. The same game is unlocked from the start in Wii Fit Plus.

- from Wikipedia -

The data is gone...let it go by T.E.D. · 2014-09-04 13:43 · Score: 1

offer to hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart the PC (and lose all your unsaved data).

If you have a BSOD, your unsaved data is already gone. How you move on from there (Ctrl-Alt-Del, or the power switch, pulling the plug, sledgehammer, etc.) is simply a matter of preference.

Reminds me of... by LongearedBat · 2014-09-04 16:51 · Score: 1

There was a guy who dreamt about being a great poet who could truly touch people's feelings. Unfortunately he lacked talent for coming up with rhyme, analogy, insight and so on.

But he found employment at Microsoft, where he finally made his dream come true as an error message writer, with classics such as "BSoD", "Press 'OK' to continue.", "Catastrophic Failure.", "Abort, Retry, Fail?" and many others that have touched a nerve on each of us over the years.

It's way better by proibido · 2014-09-05 04:14 · Score: 1

than ask to search the solution online!

Re:Bastard! by cwsumner · 2014-09-09 04:02 · Score: 1

... always shut down your computer by selecting Shut Down from the Start menu.

You've got to admit, the advice is sound. "I see you tried to run a program. Sheesh. Remember ALWAYS shut down your computer...".

The wording is because people used to using DOS were accustomed to saving the data from the program and then hitting the power switch. [Bang] += Dark Screen!

This habit is not good in Windows or other OS's that need so save other stuff. The message is a reminder -not- to just hit the power switch. 8-)

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

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