Living With Windows Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD)

Image Credit: Taringa!

I was about to get some cash at an ATM machine a couple days back, and an all too familiar sight greeted me. The windows stop error screen affectionately known to most us as the Blue Screen Of Death (a.k.a BSOD). Unfortunately, no camera handy at that moment.

Nonetheless, ever since Windows XP made it's way into ATMs, I've personally encountered several incidences of windows related errors, but that day was my first encounter with the dreaded BSOD. That very moment, my thought started to dwell on that poor soul before me, whomever he or she may be (perhaps an old lady, for good effect), whom probably wanted to transfer some cash to help pay the medical bills of her ailing grandson. And just about the time she confirmed the transaction, the machine went poof, five thousand bucks end up in the account of the Finance Minister of Nigeria.

That probably didn't happen though (I hope). But, avid imagination aside, we all have at one point or another encounter the dreaded BSOD. My very first encounter was back in the nineties on my old man's Pentium 100MHz beast. On early version of windows (ie 95,98,Me) they were mainly caused by incompatible versions of Dynamic Link Libraries (a.k.a DLL Hell), errornious device drivers, and premature removal of removable drives. They were common. On Windows NT (ie NT, XP, Vista), they are less frequent, but when they do appear, to put it simply, that means something is really really wrong. So be afraid, be very afraid.

For those who love to dip their nose in technicalities, here's a great article from Brien Posey: Demistifying the 'Blue Screen of Death'.

Going back to ATM machines, I personally don't see the need for an ATM to be running on Windows XP, apart for maybe the shiny GUI. ATMs have traditionally been running on OS/2 and UNIX without major issues, so why need to change them? It's not like users everywhere are demanding to play Solitaire while withdrawing cash. Having a 1.5 GB operating system to run an ATM is seriously an overkill. What next? Perhaps an XP enabled a calculator? Furthermore, it's an OS that have been throughly dissected by crackers and hackers everywhere, which raises other concerns.

Confucius puts it rather nicely,

Don't try to kill a mosquito with a canon (the projectile weapon, not the camera).

Nonetheless, as Microsoft make more and more money, windows are appearing in territories where previously other OSes dominate, and with it comes our garden variety BSOD.

Someone at Taringa! have compiled a great list, here are some of my favorites:

But then again, what if..

Ads are included on the Blue Screen of Death.

Imagine the exposure it'll get if it appears on one of these..

Anyone from microsoft reading this? =)

Other Stuff

• Youtube video of Bill Gates getting the BSOD. A classic.

• So what else can I do on a windows-based ATM machine?
  Use MS Paint, apparently. Windows-based ATM machine hacked, gets Painted.

• To be fair, Linux's Black Screen Of Death, well not really, Linux Crash Top 10 Images.

• Someone actually came with a site dedicated to tallying the amount of time wasted looking at Mac OS X's Mable Of Doom (a.k.a Spinning Beach Ball Of Death).