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Microsoft's BSOD Is Getting More Descriptive With QR Codes (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: Reddit user javelinnl posted a picture last week showing a new dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) featuring a QR code and a link that may appear in a future version of Windows 10. "Right now, the code and the link take users to a webpage that discusses generic fixes for errors that might cause a crash," writes Blair Frank from CIO. "In the future, though, Microsoft could provide a QR code that leads to more specific information about what caused the computer freeze up." As of this writing, Microsoft had not responded to Frank's request for comment, but when he forced a Blue Screen of Death on his Surface Pro 3, he was unable to get a QR code to appear, though a link to the help page did. The QR code shown in the image simply points to a generic resource page for "troubleshooting blue screen errors."
Windows is designed for people who know where to click for word, solitaire and facebook.
What you call human readable is not readable for them.
4 - "The BSOD was caused by malicious software. The QR code takes you to a bogus phishing site."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Actually, while the post you're replying too is dumb, there is one really simple reason not to change the BSOD.
Reliability.
Lets go over the scenario and we'll see WHY the BSOD screen is SUPPOSED TO BE EXTREMELY SIMPLE.
A BSOD occurs when the kernel has detected a major failure or corruption within itself. At the point when its determined to BSOD, the system IS UNSTABLE AND UNSAFE. The system is deciding THE ABSOLUTE SAFEST THING TO DO IS STOP DOING ANYTHING, because THE SYSTEM IS UNSTABLE AND IN AN UNKNOWN STATE.
At this stage POTENTIALLY ANY INSTRUCTION CAN BE FATAL because you are no longer sure about anything in RAM, any data structures such as page mappings or anything else. (Sure there are some bug check BSODs that are relatively safe, but those don't happen in release/unchecked builds.)
You do as ABSOLUTELY LITTLE AS POSSIBLE in the BSOD phase of runtime. The mini dump is written to a pre-allocated location of disk ... THE SWAP FILE, that the OS put into a protected region of ram so it couldn't be corrupted in the event of a problem. It doesn't allocate more space, it doesn't move space, it just writes to known good locations. If it tried to read the disk directory, it may be corrupt and read it incorrectly, then write to the wrong portion of your disk and destroy the data structure.
On the next boot, when the system is in a stable state, THEN that mini dump (or full dump if thats the case) is written to an actual file on the file system that you can access, but its in swap until the OS boots, sees it in swap, and writes it to a standard file.
Now some dip shit from marketing wants to put a 100% worthless QR code on the screen. Thats something that has to be calculated. That means intentionally doing more computations on an unstable system and ignoring all conventional wisdom. The QR code provides no benefit and adds risk.
Its a stupid fucking idea probably done by some young engineer to naive to understand why he shouldn't be playing in that code. Or worse still, probably some jackass in the phone group decided that crashes should have a QR code so they could sell phones with QR readers to admins.
Across the board, its a stupid fucking change with way bigger risk than benefits.
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It happens too often with Microsoft software for it to be a serious bug. After all, there was enough time to create a QR code for it, then the fault was ALREADY known...
Serious bugs get fixed.