London Greenwich station: A reminder of former glories. Like Windows XP
- Reference: 1624877106
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/06/28/bork/
- Source link:
Spotted by Register reader Stuart at London's stately [2]Greenwich station , the board, which is more accustomed to showing train schedules, was instead flashing the nether regions of Windows XP in its death throes.
"Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file": words to strike fear into the heart of many a user as a favourite app or process tumbles while Windows XP attempts to deal with whatever nasty has befallen its memory management.
[3]
Click to enlarge
Maybe there was a hardware fault behind the scenes or perhaps a disk reaching its capacity? Or was an app leaking memory like a sieve as Windows demonstrated its rock-solid resilience with a terse message about virtual memory?
"Apparently there are no staff at the station and none of the passengers seem to notice," said Stuart. "I feel almost sorry for it."
[4]
Not us. Having had to deal with Windows XP's various peccadilloes in a previous life, the operating system deserves no sympathy. Particularly when Microsoft spent the last few years trying to kill the thing once and for all. Even the veteran embedded and POS versions breathed their last in 2019.
[5]Emergency mode? Bah! It takes a Microsoft product to really break a digital sign
[6]Nobody expects the borkish bank-wisition: When I said I wanted some notes from the ATM, I never thought I'd see...
[7]Microsoft: Purveyors of the finest BORK since the 1990s
[8]Déjà bork: BSOD fairy pays key-cutting kiosk another visit
That said, we do have a certain fondness for Greenwich station itself. One can see the attractive light fittings in the reflection of Windows' borkage and the station building is one of the oldest in the world.
Tourists might, however, be better hopping off at the neighbouring [9]Cutty Sark for Maritime Greenwich station on the Docklands Light Railway for some of the more famous attractions.
[10]
The station is also not to be confused with the altogether more modern [11]North Greenwich station , which is notable for being next to the O2 but, er, [12]not really being in Greenwich .
While the thrusting concrete architecture of North Greenwich is to be admired, it is comforting to know that the elderly Greenwich station lives on.
[13]
It is therefore somehow appropriate that at least one screen is blessed with one of Microsoft's also-elderly operating systems, demonstrating that it can fall over with the all the grace of its more modern ancestors. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/24/microsoft_windows_11/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_station
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/06/24/bork_3.jpg
[4] 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=2YNnyIMmjuwBQ1sd0daa86gAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/21/bork/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/28/bork/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/24/bork/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/18/bork/
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutty_Sark_DLR_station
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YNnyIMmjuwBQ1sd0daa86gAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Greenwich_tube_station
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozkTshHwE-0
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YNnyIMmjuwBQ1sd0daa86gAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: How much longer will we have to endure this ?
a rock-solid Linux implementation that Just Works.
Yeah, isn't there a company that sells "Unbreakable Linux"? I'm sure it never goes wrong or suffers from hardware problems.
Re: How much longer will we have to endure this ?
It's a matter of numbers. Functional (i.e. in active use) uptimes of a year are quite normal for Linux deployments, yet pretty much impossible to achieve on Windows.
Unbreakable? No. More robust? Definitely.
Re: How much longer will we have to endure this ?
"Unbreakable Linux"?
Isn't that what Minix is trying to achieve?
Re: How much longer will we have to endure this ?
You must be new to El Reg.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/14/bork/
Re: How much longer will we have to endure this ?
> [ ... ] and go with a rock-solid Linux implementation that Just Works.
I can't help but notice that Microsoft's troll bots are very busy downvoting this morning.
It's not like we aren't all looking at a photo of an eminently fucked XP box.
Re: How much longer will we have to endure this ?
Are we sure that this isn't an art installation ?
Following the success of the "poems on the tube", whatever Network-South-East-Is-Called-Today asked artists to come up with something which embodied the spirit of transport in the suburbs of the Capital
Re: How much longer will we have to endure this ?
In fairness, that error can indicate a hardware failure, or memory leak.
Linux is, no doubt, better protected against memory leaks, but it's not invulnerable to them, and unless you are running on enterprise grade hardware, with lots of redundancy (unlikely in this case), any OS is vulnerable to hardware failures.
If this is a memory leak, all it likely needs is someone to hit "reset". South Eastern, National Rail or whoever manages the computer should really upgrade though. Not good to be running XP, especially as the system really needs to be connected to a network. Not good to connect XP to a network, even if the network itself is well protected.
Are we allowed to submit suggestions for improved system stability at the concept stage of Windows 12?
Something like FORMAT C: ?
re" FORMAT C:
I was thinking more of a 12lb hammer. Far more permanent.
Too much, too soon ?
Ellen Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit...it's the only way to be sure.
Windows going up to 11 just sounds wrong, what do you think Nigel?
Why not skip 12 like they did with 9!
language practice
Telling tourists on the DLR that they probably don't want to get off at Greenwich station. To add to the fun, "the first set of doors and the last set of doors don't open" at Cutty Sark, which is probably where they wanted to go.
leaking memory like a sieve
On a tangential note, my son left his minecraft session unnattended - but only on a menu screen - for about eight hours over the weekend.
About 11pm, after the tv had gone off, I thought: "Why on earth does the computer sound like it's thrashing the disk?"
By that stage, minecraft was up to 37.2GB in size [1] and presumably still trying to get bigger; it took me 15 minutes just to login in; and about another 15 to diagnose and fix it ... mostly involving waiting for the command prompt to return.
-
[1] About 10x the usual, as far as I can see
Re: leaking memory like a sieve
30 minutes? What was wrong with the off button?
Re: leaking memory like a sieve
Maybe minecraft had taken up crypto-mining?
Greenwich Station and the area are indeed a delight. Good old XP thrown in too. Happy days. Computers were less boring then.
At least I knew which control panel to find stuff! and where to find the control panel!
Windows XP's various peccadilloes
I didn't realise Greenwich was on the peccadillo line.
How much longer will we have to endure this ?
I wonder how much longer it is going to take for companies to remove Borkzilla bloatware from platforms that don't need it and go with a rock-solid Linux implementation that Just Works.