
Check Out The New Blue Screen of Death in Windows 8 - chiphazard
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=271674969519070&set=pu.184357191584182&type=1&theater
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toddmorey
Seems like the modern Microsoft is willing to inject a surprising amount of
humanity into their projects. Wether you agree with the new direction or not,
you do have to applaud how bold they've been recently. (You could argue they
have to be bold considering the computing world seems to be trending away from
the business desktop towards personal devices, but it's still impressive to
see these bolder moves actually emerge from a large company. The thing about
Microsoft is that when they need to shift strategy, they usually can. That's
why you can never rule them out.)

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sneak
After just watching tech reviewers have to retry swipe gestures three, four,
five times and also miss too-small touch zones (in that Win8 tablet video
Gruber recently posted) I think it's safe to continue ruling them out, "modern
Microsoft" or no.

They still just fundamentally don't get it.

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jroseattle
It's pre-beta.

~~~
sneak
"Put your best foot forward."

If they've been working on that nonstop since the iPad launched, and that's
the best thing they have to show to the press in September 2011, my point
stands.

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courtewing
I don't think so. Buggy gestures or minor UI issues such as tiny touch zones
are not the consequence of poor product design or direction; they're the
consequence of having significantly large software in a very early stage of
development.

I imagine that people who think bugs in a preview release are somehow a
reflection of a company's overall vision or understanding of how their users
interact with their computer probably are not going to be very accepting of
anything Microsoft does regardless of its merits.

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redcap
A frowny is a defacto (Western) Internet standard indicating sadness or
disappointment. In Japan you could possibly write ;_;

You could also look upon it as a relation to Apple's "Sad Mac" that's been
around for probably more than 20 years.

Personally I think having a bit of personality takes the edge away from the
harshness of a BSOD.

~~~
beedogs
I liked it when they had the STOP code and the memory dump. There was
something... useful? about it.

This removes that information and replaces it with a 72 point emoticon.

~~~
darklajid
How many people in your inner circle were able to make _any_ use of that
information?

I'm not sure what to think about the emoticon (don't like those too much), but
I don't think something valuable to the general public was lost here..

~~~
dfxm12
I get what you are saying, but now _no one_ has any information about what the
problem might be and how to fix it, as opposed to people savvy enough to
Google the STOP code (and I think you are underestimating the current
population and certainly ignoring people's ability to learn to Google error
messages).

Sure, there was something psychologically jarring about the old BSOD, but
without giving us any clue as to what went wrong with the computer, how is
_anyone_ supposed to be able to fix it? Is it impossible to display a STOP
code in a friendly manner?

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runjake
Yes, they do. People knowledgeable in Windows analyze the dump files a BSOD
creates. These file have all the information needed for debugging. In
addition, it's dumped in the event logs.

People on HN seem pretty quick to jump on this pre-beta release, and Windows
in general, without proper situational awareness.

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mosburger
If you don't want to/can't login to Facebook: <http://i.imgur.com/72rry.jpg>

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chucknthem
Thanks! I'm on HN from China and facebook is completely blocked (There are
vpn/proxy options, but not worth setting up for a short stay).

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Rusky
A lot of people are seeing this as useless- one commenter called it "function
follows form."

I actually think this one's better- with "You can search for the error online:
_SOME_ERROR_CODE_HERE_ " it will overwhelm less people and get more people to
a place they can find help.

~~~
hamidpalo
Problem with that is that it would lead to a SEO battle of "pay to remove your
viruses from your rams and boost your registries" sites.

~~~
Rusky
That's Google's problem. If Microsoft can give people exactly enough
information about the problem that, for example, their knowledge base site can
give them some options, I don't see why that's a bad thing.

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uvTwitch
It is Microsoft's problem if Noober McGreenerson searches for that error code
and downloads the "fix" that ends up infesting their computer. Most people are
more than happy to blame Michaelsoft for their computer shitting the bed after
they've installed crapware on it.

~~~
Rusky
No, it's Noober McGreenerson's fault for downloading crap from a suspicious
site without doing any research. It doesn't matter who Noober is happy to
blame, it's still his fault.

Yes, it's nice when end users don't have to think, but no, it's not realistic.
Microsoft has no direct control over Google- why should they be responsible
for what people find there?

Should they just leave every piece of useful information off the blue screen
so nobody will search? That's what would really be "function follows form."

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dspillett
Less imposing than the earlier versions for a non-techie user, but I'd suggest
a rewording. "your PC..." will imply a physical hardware fault to a lot of
people and that'll not help tech support when it is actually a driver issue
(some people can be very difficult to deal with when they've got a mis-
diagnosis stuck in their heads).

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lukeschlather
Looks like an improvement. Though I think it should also say something to the
effect of "If you've seen this screen more than twice today, you should have a
professional examine your computer for problems."

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sneak
Show that one to a doctor or lawyer.

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acak
Microsoft could very well have made this screen some other color (like yellow
or red). Would it have been caught out as the new "screen of death" from MS
then or would it have been ignored as the software was still a developer
preview?

The tendency to tie things in Microsoft's new OSes (Windows Phone 7, Windows
8) to aspects of earlier versions (Windows Mobile, Win XP, Vista) could be one
of the things to dog MS as long as it is unwilling to abandon the "Windows"
brand (despite being significantly different).

~~~
jjcm
I think consistency in error messages is good though. Sure, bsods were a huge
annoyance back in the day. You'd practically be guaranteed to hit one every
week. Now though, the system itself is pretty damn stable. My uptimes on my
windows 7 machines are all measured in months right now. If something does go
wrong though, seeing a bsod will at least let me know immediately that it was
a catastrophic failure. It's such an immediately recognizable event that
removing it might not be in the users' best interest.

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mosburger
I'm a little surprised there's only English on that screen. Perhaps they
localize it? That seems potentially flakey to do if the system is in an
unstable state.

OSX's Kernel Panic screen has a handful of languages explaining what happened.

EDIT: I suppose they could generate the text/page statically when the OS is
installed and every time the locale is changed thereafter. If that is what
they do, it's better than what OSX does.

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nemetroid
Windows BSOD's have "always" (as long as I can remember) been localised. I
would guess your assumption is correct, since it's entirely possible to
install Windows without English support (I don't use OSX, but a quick search
gave the impression that English is non-removable there).

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jarek
Is this confirmed to be the screen for the final version, or is this just
something the devs quickly put in the dev build?

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laconian
The kernel panic screen on the Mac really makes users feel cosmopolitan and
cool. I feel like I'm riding the monorail to SFO when my Mac crashes:

[http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/...](http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/TS3742/TS3742_01_KP-001-en.jpg)

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bsphil
Love how quick people are to assume that Microsoft would just be scrapping the
memory dump and error log entirely. Come on folks, you should know that's
unintuitive and unnecessary to the average user. Don't get caught up in
assuming your skills are anywhere near the norm.

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schrototo
Why does it use an ASCII emoticon instead of an actual graphic that isn't
turned on its side?

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mauriciob
That is a 'kernel panic' screen. The lighter, the better.

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RexRollman
Is the comma really needed after the word handle?

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fferen
Yes, it comes before a conjunction separating independent clauses.

<http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm>

~~~
RexRollman
I think it looks bad when separating only two clauses.

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EponymousCoward
Wonder how long that took to discover. MTTBSOD?

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vogonj
There's a bug in either VMWare Workstation or the Win8 HAL that leads to it
crashing on startup, and that's VMWare Workstation in the screenshot, so...
not long. :P

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Raphael
Google Chrome already has this feature.

chrome://crash/

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jcromartie
I think you mean about:crash

But, yes, it looks like Microsoft took a rather direct cue from Chrome.

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ConstantineXVI
...who cribbed it from old-school Apple. The original design for the "Sad
Tab"[1] is fairly similar to the Sad Mac[2] errors from the original
Macintosh. This sort of error screen isn't a totally original design.

[1] <https://skitch.com/constantinexvi/f3ybu/new-tab> (Chrome originally used
this design everywhere, but now use a mildly different one outside of Mac
builds)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sad_mac.png>

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dismalist
Oh no's a bug in a pre beta operating system, Windows is obviously a horrible
operating system.

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vespassassina
microsoft is the new apple.

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chiphazard
Although BSD's are never cool but this one is way better then the old one.

~~~
piers
Looks like they've finally realised that few people read what's on the BSOD so
there's no point in displaying it.

~~~
vogonj
au contraire, they probably realized that people see the text on a BSOD,
_freak the fuck out_ , and go crazy wondering what's wrong with their
computer.

now at least they expose only the most useful information to the user ("you
need to restart", "here's a thing you can search for to find more
information") instead of crazy stuff like "beginning physical memory dump" and
STOP codes.

~~~
piers
That as well

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addandsubtract
The new era of function follows form.

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wmeredith
I hate stuff like this. When you or your product just fucked up the UX, it is
not the time to be cutesy.

~~~
shriphani
You do understand what a BSOD is right ?

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azharb
Couldn't really see it from my phone but is that a comma next to 'handle'?
Looks like wrong use of a comma.

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gvkalra
Next they'll write "Sorry ... Windows just peed .... Please restart to clean
up!!"

