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  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Emergency mode? Bah! It takes a Microsoft product to really break a digital sign

(2021/06/21)


Bork!Bork!Bork! It's a return to familiar ground for the bork desk today as that most common of Windows occurrences turns up in a UK transport hub: a screen of bluest death.

[1]

Snapped at London's Euston station by Reg reader Jed, it appears that atikmpag.sys was misbehaving once again. The code in question is related to the display driver and, as related by Windows in the error message, an attempt made to reset it and recover from a timeout has failed.

What Windows does not say is that it has then proceeded to react with all the stability of a drunk uncle at a wedding and barfed up an error unhelpful to all but the most technically astute of observers.

[2]

I'm ready for my close-up (click to enlarge)

By our reckoning, that 0x00000116 is indeed the timeout mentioned in the text. It is a VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE and the four parameters after it would give us some clues as to where we should start looking in the memory dump file.

However, the third parameter should be the error code of the last failed operation, and 0xC0000001 looks to us like something pretty bad has happened. Possibly a duff file. Maybe an actual hardware failure.

Still, at least this is a proper Blue Screen of Death rather than the cutesy emoticons and QR codes found in more recent Microsoft operating systems (an effort, we suspect, to protect users from the doom that has afflicted their PCs.)

[3]If HAL did digital signage. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that...

[4]All in all it's just another bork on the wall: For pity's sake, begs signage, climb onto the pub's roof and boot me up

[5]Hungry? Please enjoy this delicious NaN, courtesy of British Gas and Sainsbury's

[6]If there's a lesson to be learned in these torrid times, it's that civilisation is fleeting – but Windows XP is eternal

[7]What does London's number 65 bus have to hide? OS caught on camera setting fire to '22,000 illegal file(s)!!'

Not that Microsoft particularly likes using the word "death" when it comes to its operating systems. A former Microsoft engineer [8]explained earlier this year that "bugcheck" was the preferred term and that the blue came from the soft hues of a programmer's MIPS RISC box and the SlickEdit editor.

Still, BSOD aside, we have to admit to a certain nostalgia when presented with rail departure boards (this hack has not troubled a railway station since March 2020) although the borked screen appears to have led a tough life. We have a horrible feeling that the white streaks beneath it might be result of the odd poorly bird or two flapping around the concourse.

Unless, of course, Windows is leaking something other than memory. ®

[9]

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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/06/17/bork_2_2.jpg

[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/06/17/bork_2_1.jpg

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/14/bork/

[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/13/bork/

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/09/bork/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/06/bork/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/19/bork/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/02/windows_blue_screen/

[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YNC3nWFnq@FaPBkS8FQCGwAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/

Interesting choice of words

Just A Quick Comment

So Microsoft prefers "bugcheck" to 'death'-type words/descriptions. That's playing loose with the English language - something MS are very good at - but I prefer 'crashed' or 'knackered' as a description. They're not offensive words and are more descriptive of the problem compared to "bugcheck" which is another MS non-word.

I'm sure others can come up with other synonyms...

Temporary Interruption To Service UPtime.

TimMaher

Any good?

"bugcheck" was the preferred term

Pascal Monett

That's like Google who is still fighting against the term "google this".

Sorry, as far as the user is concerned, it's a BSOD, not a bugcheck. When that blue screen shows up, the PC is effectively dead and anything you were doing is lost.

So, Blue Screen of Death is the appropriate term.

Sorry Dave. With all due respect, you're wrong on this one.

Re: "bugcheck" was the preferred term

Yet Another Anonymous coward

Blue screen of unhappiness?

Fucked.

heyrick

Not something inane and stupid like "bugcheck", fucked . Just like that Very Important Document that you were just about to save. It's gone. All gone.

Icon, because that's how you'll be feeling whilst suddenly staring at the equally stupid unhappy face.

Re: Fucked.

Piro

Faulty, Useless Computer Knackered, Eliminated Data

Re: Fucked.

fidodogbreath

[1]Better than a QR code

[1] https://media.giphy.com/media/nS8HuK8hZDPUI/giphy.gif

Is Linux A Finnish Conspiracy?

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF CORRUPTION -- According to a report recently
issued by the NSA (No Such Agency), Finland is now considered a national
economic and security risk. "We don't trust the Finns... software written
by these people could potentially contain backdoors that could undermine
domestic security," the report states. In response to the news, US Senator
Fatcatte (R-WA) has proposed a bill, the It's For The Children Act of
2000, that would ban all software written by native-born Finns.

"It's time we take the Finnish threat seriously," Fatcatte said at a press
conference. "Not only is Finn software a threat to domestic tranquility,
but it could radically alter the computer industry, costing us thousands
of jobs... and, more importantly, billions in tax revenue. We must prevent
the Finns from subverting our economy with so-called 'open-source
software'." He then asked, "Is anybody thinking of the children of
programmers who will become unemployed when Finnish software overruns the
country?"