Comical/stupid Windows error messages

[stargonjie]

Share yours, here's some:

[TerraHertz]

This one popped up in WinXP yesterday, when I wanted to turn off the PC.



There were no programs running. Checked the task list - nothing. No hint of *what* file. Would not let me do a soft shutdown. Eventually had to just hold the power button down to make it see reason.

Then powered back up and ran checkdisk. No faults.

[PA0PBZ]

Windows telling me (in Dutch, sorry) that I should use a resolution of 3 x 8192 for optimal performance 

[Ampera]

The classic and iconic series of Microsoft Sam reads Funny Windows Errors awaits.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_fxrsmw50qlca1w0cBTaM2MrUvwOTsOd

If you want to waste time on youtube, there are few better ways than this.

[Moshly]

ULA 

[Refrigerator]

I used to get the "task manager is not responding" message from time to time.

[SeanB]

I have had the " An unknown error has occurred" with the option to generate a report (right...) or to press OK to continue.

Don't you love application writers who use that as the ONLY error message, at least now you rarely get a segmentation fault, though those probably are solved by simply closing the program without warning by the kernel.

[station240]

How about this one, got this error myself.

Seems windows didn't like the idea of having a zip file with nothing in it.

[radar_macgyver]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/please-wait-a-moment/

This, from software that we pay thousands of dollars for.

[Halcyon]

Why pick on Windows? A few of those error messages are fake, most are due to poor programming of applications (and not the OS itself) and a couple even make sense. Most operating systems have their fair share of dumb errors. One that springs to mind is Apples "Sad Macintosh" error with the occasional HEX error code on boot - real descriptive!

[T3sl4co1l]

Why pick on Windows? A few of those error messages are fake, most are due to poor programming of applications (and not the OS itself) and a couple even make sense. Most operating systems have their fair share of dumb errors. One that springs to mind is Apples "Sad Macintosh" error with the occasional HEX error code on boot - real descriptive!

Speaking of -- some perspective.

You know how there are so many iconic pictures of public displays, billboards, marquees, that sort of thing, with horrible BSoDs sitting on them?

Well of course there are, why shouldn't there be?  Consider:

Those devices are very custom hardware.  You don't light up LEDs with an SVGA compatible CRT driver.  They might not even be compatible with traditional video formats (VGA, DVI, HDMI).  So, guess what, the drivers are custom.  And you know what happens when a company writes drivers for themselves?  The same thing that happens to all* software: it's horrible, horrible crap, a minefield of bugs!  And you're going to load this crap into your kernel space?  No kidding it's going to BSoD!

*I do want to leave a nod for the very smart, responsible programmers out there, who are capable of designing low-bug, and even bug-free, systems.  Very, very few projects can afford that level of commitment, so it's unfortunately a very small part of our daily lives.  Even when it comes to something as important as drivers.

Tim

[T3sl4co1l]

Also, obligatory...



Tim

[timb]

Why pick on Windows? A few of those error messages are fake, most are due to poor programming of applications (and not the OS itself) and a couple even make sense. Most operating systems have their fair share of dumb errors. One that springs to mind is Apples "Sad Macintosh" error with the occasional HEX error code on boot - real descriptive!

The early Macintosh didn't have much free space in ROM (which were small and expensive, this was pre-flash). Toolbox (a BIOS and core parts of MacOS rolled into one) was stored entirely in ROM, so instead of having long descriptive error messages (which could have taken up to 1kb) they used hexadecimal codes to indicate the problem. This only appeared during the pre-boot phase. Once you booted off a HDD/FDD into MacOS you got real error messages.

A descriptive hex code certainly beats cryptic beeps, which is what the PC did at the time!

[Ampera]

Lol, I love the "Crash sounds" that the Macintosh had. We were too lazy to program working and functioning software/hardware, but at least we can play a sound after everything ELSE breaks.

[Halcyon]

Why pick on Windows? A few of those error messages are fake, most are due to poor programming of applications (and not the OS itself) and a couple even make sense. Most operating systems have their fair share of dumb errors. One that springs to mind is Apples "Sad Macintosh" error with the occasional HEX error code on boot - real descriptive!

The early Macintosh didn't have much free space in ROM (which were small and expensive, this was pre-flash). Toolbox (a BIOS and core parts of MacOS rolled into one) was stored entirely in ROM, so instead of having long descriptive error messages (which could have taken up to 1kb) they used hexadecimal codes to indicate the problem. This only appeared during the pre-boot phase. Once you booted off a HDD/FDD into MacOS you got real error messages.

A descriptive hex code certainly beats cryptic beeps, which is what the PC did at the time!

Completely understand all that. But to be fair, most PC BIOS manufacturers did a pretty good job of maintaining some kind of uniformity between error codes. There are variations of course but I'm speaking generally. To this day I can still tell you what they mean among the big BIOS players and there weren't a particularly large list of beep codes.

I actually preferred the beeps over waiting for the CRT to come out of standby and/or warm up each time you applied power, particularly when you're wrist deep in a case, with bits pulled out and sometimes not even a VGA card installed! There were cases where I needed to strip machines back to bare bones and I mean bare: No video card, no I/O controller, nothing but board, memory and a CPU.

Maybe instead of long hex codes, Microsoft could get creative and create "code words", like "Cookie Ribbon Dachshund Purple" could translate to "application.exe fucked up or there is a problem with your memory at this address... here is a dump..."

[ZeTeX]

[Tomorokoshi]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/please-wait-a-moment/

This, from software that we pay thousands of dollars for.

Been there, done that.

[guido]

So i'm still using Vista. Stil works fine, but Microsoft decided to stop support this year. I get it, they can't continue supporting every OS they ever made. So MSE now gives me a number of pop-ups every time i start windows. I got the message...

It says to check this URL: https://support.microsoft.com/nl-nl/help/14223/windows-xp-end-of-support. It's in Dutch, but i think you can spot the problems:

• Ondersteuning voor Windows XP is beëindigd
• De informatie in dit artikel is van toepassing op: Windows 10 (=The information in this article relates to Win10)

I recently had to work on a Win8.1 laptop, updated to 10, which crashed. Factory install of 8.1 no problem. Installing all updates did not work. Some updates did not install. Really tried, but no go. Win10 re-install nope. So i had to give it back. Learned a lot, but the most important thing is that i'll go for Linux for my next OS.

[Tomorokoshi]

Another approach to error messages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Meditation