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Longhorn: Fewer BSODs, More RSODs
Posted by
timothy
on Sun May 08, 2005 06:31 PM
from the more-colors-still-available dept.
from the more-colors-still-available dept.
Jan Theofel writes "Windows Loghorn will present you less BSOD. Joi Ito reports that Windows Longorn will get additional ROSD (red screen of death) for 'really bad errors.' So you will get less BSOD but some new RSOD. You can find a ROSD screenshot in a virtual machine in his weblog entry."
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New Feature (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New Feature (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait to upgrade!
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Re:New Feature (Score:5, Funny)
Blarney:
Ohhh...
Your computer crashed...
But don't be sad....
Be HAPPY!
BSOD, BSOD,
it's like getting a typing break for free!
With a song and a dance, it will all go away.
But it'll be back another day.
User: They must relax gun laws for justifiable computer shootings.
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Re:New Feature (Score:4, Funny)
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Patent #7,554,674 (Score:5, Funny)
That's innovation for you!
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Re:Patent #7,554,674 (Score:5, Funny)
They will be thrilled to hear the news in Milan and Paris.
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Re:New Feature (Score:5, Funny)
It is a new technology specially developed for datacentres: you either predict which moment any computer gonna crash, or you can point a box and predict that one will crash, but you can't predict at the same time which computer and when.
I think they call it "Ballmer's Uncertainty Principle", or something like that.
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Re:New Feature (Score:4, Funny)
Although a good kernel panic is rare, it's nice to know they look pretty when they come up. It's kind of like someone placing confetti inside of an airbag.
"Ohhh Shi... hum, that nice looking... ohh, ya... shit."
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Changing the Color (Score:5, Interesting)
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Orange and Yellow? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Orange and Yellow? (Score:3, Funny)
Kryten: Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.
Next thing you know they will have a mauve screen of death.
BSOD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BSOD (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps someone can help out with the setting..
Re:BSOD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Funny)
The MS guy said "There will be no blue screen of death on the xbox"
I wish I'd been there, I'd have stuck my hand up and asked "What color will it be instead?"
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Re:I see BSOD's a lot. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I see BSOD's a lot. (Score:3, Interesting)
They've all gone away after my PSU blew and i replaced it with a decent one that didn't come with the case and weigh less than an empty cardboard box.
Without warning? (Score:4, Funny)
"WARNING: Your kernel will crash in ten seconds. Owing to the very nature of the event, there is nothing you can do about it."
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Re:I see BSOD's a lot. (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. I have never seen my XP machine at home BSOD, even when the video card was failing to the point that it was adding random horizontal lines across the display.
At work, I saw 2000 BSOD on several servers when we applied an MS hotfix that conflicted with some sort of secret kernel patch they'd given us a few years previously for those same machines.
I saw 2k bluescreen one other time, when a workstation had a zip drive and the user installed drivers for it from 1997 or so.
Other than that, the only time I've seen it happen is if I make an OS image on one machine and then try and use it on another with different hardware. That's still stupid, but at least I know how to avoid it.
This is in an environment with close to 1000 Windows servers and about 25,000 Windows workstations.
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Re:I see BSOD's a lot. (Score:3, Interesting)
The hardware is rock solid because it originally shipped with Solaris. The Sun reps said that we are one of their few customers running 64-bit Linux because it isn't stable enough.
Re:I see BSOD's a lot. (Score:4, Funny)
* Disclaimer: I use the term "drivers" very loosely.
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Re:And I'm Not Using Linux (Score:3, Funny)
Re:BSOD (Score:5, Funny)
In all seriousness though, XP isn't nearly as prone to BSODs ( or any other color :P ) , as 9x was. I'd still prefer my Debian or Gentoo though.
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Re:BSOD (Score:5, Informative)
(If it could just restart explorer, that means it's recoverable and in user-space. I.e., not a BSoD, which happens in kernel-space. After all, explorer is just a shell.)
And yes the restarting is a pain, since then you have no idea what just happened. Even worse is when it happens on boot - yay restart loop. AFAICT, checking the event log does not give all the information available in the BSoD.
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in other news (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft was unavailable for comment at this time.
Page already Slashdotted... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.networkmirror.com/adYJGbG8ajC3f55y/joi
Re:Page already Slashdotted... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Page already Slashdotted... (Score:3, Funny)
Thank goodness. (Score:4, Funny)
wtf is a really bad error? (Score:5, Funny)
Frankly, I think customers ought to get rsod's for actually buying the damn product. That seems like a really bad error to me.
Re:wtf is a really bad error? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if they follow IEEE, US Military, SEI CMM, and other related standards 'really bad' is a 'critical'/'show stopper' roughly defined as 'System can not perform a necessary function or data loss occurs'. One step below that is 'high' meaning basically 'problem can be avoided, though it's a PITA'.
Critical errors can be categorized from 'system or application crashes before it can be used completely but no data loss occurs' (bad) to 'system silently corrupts data' (nasty).
If you want better definitions, check the specs for any of the above and look for a rating system called "Severity levels". (Note: not the same as priority levels.) Typically there are 4 levels of severity.
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Just an educated guess... (Score:5, Interesting)
So there's actually a lot of BSODs that are 'preventative' in nature. That is, the kernel says "uh oh, that call should never have been made, the system *might* become unstable, shut it *all* down before any real damage is done".
Then there's "Boot disk not found", or "Boot disk failure", which are in fact real serious, because it's the end of the line for the machine.
Maybe they've broken down errors that are likely Kernel driver programming mistakes, and errors that indicate the system is severely damaged.
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Great (Score:4, Insightful)
Blues (and greens) are generally more soothing/comforting (which is why blue or green are most frequently favorite colors), whereas reds are more jarring (which is why it's used for stop signs, warning labels, etc.).
Mod parent INSIGHTFUL ! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, right. (Score:3, Funny)
Not anymore, heheheh....
Alternate View (Score:3, Informative)
Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! (Score:3, Informative)
You can [everything2.com] to a degree.
Re:Give me my any-color-but-blue SOD! (Score:4, Informative)
ok its SYSTEM.INI
the [386Enh] section
the 2 lines:
MessageTextColor=X
MessageBackColor=X
where X is:
0 - Black
1 - Blue
2 - Green
3 - Cyan
4 - Red
5 - Magenta
6 - Yellow/brown
7 - White
8 - Gray
9 - Bright blue
A - Bright green
B - Bright cyan
C - Bright red
D - Bright magenta
E - Bright yellow
F - Bright white
that said, i think its only for win9x, your way is probably for NT
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Red-shifting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Red-shifting (Score:5, Funny)
Red: For extreme specific errors. An error has in fact already happened.
Orange: For nonspecific systemwide errors, signifying imminent error.
Yellow: An elevated error status, it is suspected that an error could occurr at any time
Blue: The standard error message for vague and undescriptive errors of no substance
Green: No error at this time, but remain on watch for errors.
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Re:Red-shifting (Score:5, Funny)
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Not difficult to recreate... (Score:3, Interesting)
My own RSOD [69.57.142.53]
Microsoft's new RSOD with Clippy... (Score:4, Funny)
Speaking of reliability, I was just thinking how Microsoft could reduce the complexity of the next version of Windows, Longtooth, due in 2009.
Longtooth will include a tremendous amount of new features implemented in completely new code. Many, but not all, existing features would be reimplemented in VisualBasic.NET just for the heck of it, even if mature versions are already implemented in C or C++. Programmers making the new VisualBasic.NET code would not be allowed to look at the code that already exists, so that new ideas might be better implemented. The features will be chosen by random for reimplementation.
All Microsoft code would assume that any Microsoft code (the OS and any Microsoft applications) is secure. This code will always execute with no checks to make it run faster. All other code will be subject to Longtooth's new security system, dubbed Microsoft Longtooth Security Center 2003. This feature will give users more control over processes that execute in their computers. I will explain some of its features here:
To maximize security, Microsoft Longtooth Security Center 2003 will make certain assumptions about the user. For example, users who use Microsoft products are assumed to know what they are doing. However, users of 3rd party applications not made by Microsoft are always assumed to be complete idiots. Therefore, all user interface events occurring outside of Microsoft applications will trigger a safety mechanism.
For example, each time the user moves the mouse in an area not controlled by a Microsoft application, the user will see crosshairs moving across the screen to indicate where the mouse will be located. When the user stops moving the mouse, an authentication window will appear and state: "The user has requested that the mouse be moved to the location on the screen indicated by the crosshairs. This area of the screen is controlled by untrusted code that may cause damage to your computer, your documents, or your network. Do you wish to allow the mouse to move to this location?" Buttons for "yes", "no", "details", and "help" will be displayed.
Selecting "no" will cause the mouse cursor to remain at its previous location. Selecting "yes" will bring up another window, requesting the user's password to authenticate the movement of the mouse. If the user enters the correct password, the mouse cursor movement will be authenticated to that user and the cursor will be placed at the new location. Selecting "details" will display the X and Y coordinates of the new position, followed by warnings against using untrusted rogue code such as Linux.
For additional protection, clicks, keys pressed on the keyboard, items selected in a menu, or other input events will trigger similar security mechanisms. Since Microsoft code is considered secure, these checks will not occur in windows owned by Microsoft code. Also, the mouse may be used to click on the above buttons and fields during mouse movement authentication. If any such movement of the mouse takes place during the authentication process, the mouse will still be moved to the location indicated by the crosshairs, but a bug in Windows will cause the cursor to immediately "bounce" back to the location where it was last used during authentication. Microsoft will refuse to fix the bug unless Linux is outlawed in all countries, even those countries that have no computers.
Many other authentication checks will be made by Windows. I'll return to this topic in a moment. First, let me mention that Clippy, the talking paperclip, along with other Microsoft characters, will appear during this proces
Guru Meditation (Score:4, Interesting)
The next thing they need to do (Score:5, Funny)
RSOD? (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/rsod/ [bbc.co.uk]
How to get a Red screen of Death even in '95 (Score:5, Informative)
Under the [386Enh] header, add these two lines:
MessageTextColor=B
MessageBackColor=3
That will give you a bright cyan text on dark cyan background screen of death. Feel free to substitute other colors 0-F as desired. This works in 95, 98, and Me, at least. Red's in there somewhere - don't remember exactly where - just try a pair of values, wait the usual 15 minutes for a SOD, and see if you like the combination. I can honestly say I haven't seen a BSOD on my screen in months.
How much have you gotten BSOD'ed recently. (Score:5, Interesting)
In Windows 98, I would run the comptuer for a few days, and for no reason it would just start being slow and throwing random BSOD's at me.
Since using 2K and XP, I've seen a few recently, but they're all realated to a piece of faulty hardware that I've been too lazy to replace. Other than that, I can't reacall seeing a single BSOD in years on a computer of my own.
I'm honestly asking people. Have you run into BSOD's that really truely was 2000's/XP's fault instead of being some sort of hardware fuckup?
Rabbit hole (Score:5, Funny)
Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue screen?
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