

How Microsoft Research banished the BSOD - coderdude
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/how-microsoft-research-banished-the-bsod-697216?src=rss&attr=all

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megaman821
I don't care how uncool Microsoft is perceived to be, Microsoft Research would
be my dream job over any other tech company. It's like being a researcher at a
top university without having to beg for grants every year.

~~~
ams6110
I don't know. I have worked with and around academics a few times. They can be
surprisingly disorganized and crisis-driven/reactive. "Gets things done" is
not exactly how I would describe the academics I've encountered.

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thebigshane
I am curious why he is being down-voted. I am sure people disagree with him,
but I'd like to at least hear some anecdotes.

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mwerty
So would I. Some anecdotes about his interactions with MSR researchers would
have been nice instead of seemingly random dissing of academics.

~~~
hga
Here's one MSR employee who impresses me:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones>

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alecco
Non sequitur.

    
    
      1- Guy proves 4 Colour Theorem with software, and mathematically proves
         the software with another program (or something like that, it isn't
         completely clear.)
      2- Most BSODs caused by 3rd party drivers.
      3- Make software to test those drivers before shipping.
      4- BSODs mostly gone!
    

The article's title promised an explanation but instead they gave a flawed
story. It seems on one hand they dumbed down the article, but on the other
hand they kept some of the fancy sounding concepts. It would be forgivable if
it weren't a tech-oriented publication. "Deep into technology."

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neilc
Well, no, they do say a little more than that:

 _"... the techniques that George used to prove that his computer based proof
was correct happens to have direct application to a set of tools that we give
to people that build PC peripherals..."_

I know MS uses Prefast (<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms933794.aspx>) to improve driver quality. I'm not sure what other
verification/analysis techniques they use, but it's not too surprising that a
technique developed for efficient automated theorem proving would be
applicable to efficient software verification.

To say that doing this is solely responsible for "banishing the BSOD" is
irresponsible and misinformed in a few different ways, of course.

~~~
ephermata
In addition to Prefast, there is also the Static Driver Verifier(SDV). Comes
with the Windows Driver Kit, analyzes your code to detect common problems
people have when writing drivers. The Windows Driver Kit is free -- you can
learn more about SDV here:
<http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/tools/sdv.mspx>

SDV began its life as a project called SLAM. This page has documentation on
SLAM, academic papers, etc. <http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/projects/slam/>

I'm not sure of the exact connection highlighted in the article, but this work
builds on decades of work in automated theorem proving. It's exciting that now
these techniques are used on real code.

(Disclosure: the SLAM & SDV authors are colleagues of mine at Microsoft.)

~~~
thorax
Also the WHQL driver verification/certification process which does additional
testing internally at MS and allows you to actually install drivers without
major warnings on x64/modern Windows.

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petercooper
Not as quick and easy as the way they banished the Xbox 360's RROD (Red Ring
of Death):
[http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/16/xbox-360-slim-17-smaller-t...](http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/16/xbox-360-slim-17-smaller-
than-original-incapable-of-rrod-ing/)

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flubba
Very interesting work with the Four Color Theorum, but the BSOD isn't exactly
"banished", at least for me.

~~~
mistermann
I haven't encountered a BSOD anywhere in all the machines I work on in at
least 5 years. But I did skip Vista entirely. 64 bit Windows 7 seems mostly
excellent stability wise, although I could list a few exceptions to this
(Super (video converter) seemed to bring down my internet connection yesterday
until I killed it), and I could make a huge list of usability gripes with it
that I can't for the life of me figure out why MS doesn't fix.

But generally speaking I'm pretty happy.

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hga
Wow. From proving the Four Colour Theorem to reducing driver induced BSODs.

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magice
Haha, so Microsoft decides against banishing the BSOD? So far as I know, it
seems that most stuffs started at Microsoft Research end there. Therefore:
good job, researcher, now I will come back to my trusted fedora. I mean,
Fedora.

