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London's BT Tower Broadcasted Windows 7 Error Message Over the Weekend (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Generally a system crash is a private affair, but the BT Tower, one of London's tallest landmarks, spent much of the weekend displaying a Windows error message in a very public fashion. The building, originally known as the Post Office Tower, is famed for both its revolving top floor and, more recently, for the banks of LEDs at its summit that act as a very prominent billboard. Sadly for BT over the weekend it was showing what looks very like a Windows 7 error screen. "Choose operating system to start or press TAB to select a tool: (Use arrow keys to highlight your choice and then press ENTER)."
The wave of script-kiddies who found out the tower runs Windows from this event and start displaying "we are legion lel" messages.
The idea that massive public electronic displays like these aren't monitored by a human 24/7 is preposterous.
Kriston
Is here!
Sign of the Brexit times.
That is just simply awesome.
One more epic Microsoft suck for the ages.
I can't tell you how many store signs, kiosks, and god knows what that I've seen displaying a Microsoft Blue Screen of Death.
Abort? Retry? Fail?
Windows; the operating system which made "did you reboot it" the first troubleshooting question of idiots who don't understand uptime.
It's a simple fact that if you want a rock solid system that you shouldn't be bothering with any version of Windows. I know they don't have to use any exotic hardware either because those giant displays have FPGA based translators that take a simple video input (I used to chat with a guy who made them). A simple SBC running some Linux or BSD variant would have been the sane choice.
Someone put in the minimum amount of effort into this display and it shows.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
amiga no better the preview guide channel crashed all the time
I remember the community bulletin board channel on my local cable provider ran on an Amiga. Every few months you could see what a Workbench desktop looked like by flipping to that channel over the weekend after the system had crashed and rebooted. It's output wasn't even that great. Looked like a VIC-20 outputting big blocky text-mode text and graphics.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Last time I checked, that is the Windows Boot Manager, not an error message.
At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, during the opening ceremonies, a BSOD was projected in large characters, on a wall of the Bird's Nest. But in contrast to the message in London, I doubt the BSOD in Beijing stayed up very long.
That isn't a windows error message. It is the boot selection screen. It may have resulted from a crash, a reboot or simply a restart post patching
That is NOT a windows error message. IT is the boot manager selection. could be caused by anything from an OS crash to hardware crash or simply someone restarting the machine after patching.
Most of these fancy LED billboards are really just VGA displays (well, part of one anyway). They just leave some crap running on a bog standard PC, and have the billboard driver software pointed at a certain part of the desktop, simaler to video screen capture software.
I broke a bank's drive up ATM while depositing cash and the Win7 screen showed up, BSOD. Had to wait 10 minutes, then call Chase to make sure the money got deposited, it did. Still, scary 10 minutes. I thought this shit was foolproof. /s
you can link this with that other /. post about why people don't switch to linux.
decades upon decades have we seen posts on the internet of failing public displays with BSOD's, windows popups, reboot loops, safe boot menu etc.
still for some reason people keep using windows...
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I've heard claims that you could see the Fremont Street Experience do that way back when.
Can't wait to see what happens on 5 November
All these problems with stupid errors appearing inappropriately on remote displays would be fixed if they would just set it up to display a window, or a second screen, instead of the entire main screen. I don't know if this is a hardware problem or a Windows problem or a vendor problem, but it happens so often it's obviously a problem that should be fixed. And it can be, if someone would just do so.
It was hardly broadcast was it? A display issue like you see regularly on Windows powers billboards. So, not news.
https://news.images.itv.com/image/file/1822523/stream_img.jpg
looked kinda cool though!
Imagine a world where editors were better qualified to edit the text than random children.
I'm in awe that people are so concerned over a freaking BILLBOARD.
I'm sorry but if BT's technicians have to choose between helping people with actual problems, and fixing a billboard (because heaven forbid we NOT be blasted with ads 24/7), the billboard belongs on the bottom of the queue.
Just because it's prominently visible doesn't mean it's important.
Sounds a lot like security we have here -- a couple failed logins will reboot the computer into a bootloader that requires an admin password to get the key to unencrypt the volume in order to boot Windows. Probably somebody was trying to change the message and entered the wrong password too many times so it locked itself. Had to find the guy who has the admin password, probably fly him back from holiday to type it in.
Seriously, I don't give a crap about what OS a display sign runs. Why should anyone?
Yeah, it's fun to point and laugh, but it's just a "hey look, that's funny" moment and then you move on. Maybe, just maybe, the sign owner put in exactly the right amount of effort into this sign. Maybe they used the right tool for the job.
Maybe having an error message show up once every few years isn't the end of the world. Get a grip!
Seriously, Windows is in no shape form or way suitable to be used in embedded systems or server systems. It is somewhat suitable as a game-launcher.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It's the windows boot manager, that's part of the volume boot record. The OS is already started.
I flew across the Pacific many years back. This was before you got screens in every seat back. Instead there were large, theatre-type displays on a wall, so that every section of passengers could watch a movie.
The media server was running Linux. It crashed and had to be rebooted. We got to watch the reboot cycle in letters about 10 cm tall.
Sure, "Linux would eliminate public error messages".
In 3, 2, 1... Should've used Linux!
This will be the same Post Office Tower that was classified as a state secret [including it's location] due to it being a communications hub.
I bet the Russians completely missed all 191 metres of it when they walked around London.
There is a revolving restaurant space at the top but it's not been reopened as the authorities are a little bit worried it's a prime terrorist target - the IRA had a go at it by blowing up the men's bogs in 1971.