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...and not a little bit scary in places. Especially the Medical systems and the paper trail involved in every one of their updates. Paper trail for updates will probably result in no updates, making these machines a hackers wet dream.

Do you thing you could add these systems to WSUS? Patch Tuesday for my breathing machine! Woop woop! ;-)

Cancer patients sometimes get fatal doses during radiation therapy due to keyboard error. In the old days of manual knob twiddling this was extremely unlikely. However a simple typo can now be fatal due to accidently giving 10x the required dosage.

I once saw Windows being used as a public facing Web Server

Only now with Windows server core does Microsoft understand the concept of a modular OS. Windows perhaps would be a good candidate for the tasks outlined, however having the full desktop and the million other services installed by default just doesn't make sense. Fingers crossed that in the future the desktop version of windows follows some of the ideas of it's server cousin and become more modular and only have installed the modules needed.

However in reality everyone knows that unix/linux is perfectly suited to these kinds of tasks, want a DNS, simple just install the DNS service, no other junk needs to be installed. You are left with an OS which is super fast and has a very low surface of attack.

Does the eula now allow Windows to be used in mission critical apps ?

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10004610o-2000331777...

so how about some disclaimers from the XP eula..

LIMITATION ON REMEDIES; NO CONSEQUENTIAL

OR OTHER DAMAGES. Your exclusive remedy for any breach
of this Limited Warranty is as set forth below.Except
for any refund elected by Microsoft, YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, if the Product does not meet Microsoft's Limited Warranty, and, to the maximum extent allowed by applicable law, even if any remedy fails of its essential purpose.

15. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY AND REMEDIES.

Notwithstanding any damages that you might incur for any reason whatsoever (including, without limitation, all damages referenced above and all direct or general damages), the entire liability of Microsoft and any of its suppliers under any provision of this EULA and your exclusive remedy for all of the foregoing (except for any remedy of repair or replacement elected by Microsoft with respect to any breach of the Limited Warranty) shall be limited to the greater of the amount actually paid by you for the Product or U.S.$5.00. The foregoing limitations, exclusions and disclaimers (including Sections 11, 12 and 13 above) shall apply to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, even if any remedy fails its essential purpose.


So, to break it down, you are free to use Windows anywhere you like, just as long as it doesn't screw up.
If it does screw up, it is your fault, not Microsoft's fault, but they will send you $5 to make you feel better.

The most ridiculous way to use Windows is on a server. I wouldn't use Windows on a desktop too, but that's another story. But server? Why would people use the slowest and least secure server OS ever produced?

Edited 2008-07-09 13:58 UTC

The most stupid use of Windows that I'm aware of: US Navy used windows on an SSBN in a test. The machine blue screened in the middle of the harbor (Norfrolk, Va.). The submarine stopped all operations while the computer was rebooted. Thank God it wasn't at test depth. or at station during a launch against a real threat.

Along the same lines as the featured article, the scariest place I read where Windows was used was to control mission critical functions aboard the USS Yorktown in 1998. Windows crashed and the ship was dead in the water.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1998/07/13987

While the actual cause wasn't specifically windows' fault, this problem just underscores the fact that more mature operating systems such as Unix and embedded systems such as VXWorks should be used for controlling mission critical functions.

Hopefully, the military has learned from this experience. However, the cynic in me thinks not.

... past the login screen is bad. :-)

Anyway.... I just remembered a time (like a year ago) in a Citibank ATM (here in Bogotá) that was displaying a beautiful BSOD. It was a shame I didn't have a camera with me to "inmortalize" the sight.

Edited 2008-07-09 15:05 UTC

The MTA in NY uses windows machines for their metrocard systems. I've seen plenty of those things blue screened and just waitign for someone to reboot them. I was devestated when I went ot an ATM and found a windows blue screen, I always thought hat something that needed that much security woudl run some proprietary unix based os, especially since windows is overkill for what these things need to do anyway.

I'm willing to bet that a fair number of these problems are the fault of management making purchasing decisions without doing any research or consulting a lowly geek. They just know "they need some sort of disk to put in the electro-doohickey to make it run, and hey, I've heard of this 'Windows' thing!"

Then the vicious cycle is completed either by in-house geeks who make backhanded comments about the choice of operating system (and management thinks they're just being elitist), or by outside contractors who know a cash cow when they see it ("The Windows server running the town's streetlights needed to be patched and rebooted. Highly technical, you know. That'll be $500. See you next week?")

Of course, the enterprising folks making streetlight controllers and breathing-machine software that runs on Windows 98 aren't entirely without blame either, but it's so much harder to market this "Linux" thing that nobody's heard of...

And nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft!

There's some funny stuff here, but in reality some of it makes sense.

1. To display a static green arrow over the open TSA security lanes at Detroit Metro

Well using windows would be one of the quickest way to get a programmer to show a green arrow full screen. Not to mention, they *could* potentially decide to display other images. Custom signs are expensive. My uncle recently wanted an 'on air' style lit up sign... the lowest cost was $200.

This same concept goes for the rest of them. Windows gets a developer quickly up and running on a known platform.

Now of course I've seen my fair share of humorous crashes (be it ATMs or movie ticket dispenses...).
So don't think I'm pushing windows for critical apps but for non-critical stuff, even if it needs to be rebooted, windows is often makes sense.

I once[and only once!] tried to use a Sainsbury's Bank ATM only to be confronted to an NT Dialog box saying that the virus scanner signatures could not be updated.

I bet they just plug them into the intenet and update straight off the ClamAV site .

I wonder if the author ever bothered to check out why his machines were crashing. The quality those days was not quite as good as today, but I doubt the late service packs of NT4 had that many crashing bugs or memory leaks. It could just as easily have been his application that was leaky.

Also, if a machine is not attached to any network or its network is segregated from the public, then patches are probably unnecessary. On The other hand, I'd want to take strong measures to ensure that the networks do stay separated.

I can see it now..
"Pardon me sir, we need to reboot the equipment due to a virus -- in the computer. Just relax, we'll be back up in a minute."

A stupid use of any OS is letting the author to type out this idiocy. He's a helpdesk dork without much experience outside the cubical world.

I've mentioned it plenty of times before. Windows (3.11-2k) is used in air Traffic as are DOS, Solaris, AIX, and SCO. Regardless of OS, any failure is virtually always hardware - fans usually, sometimes a drive, mostly user input devices. You don't hook boxes like these to the internet. You don't present the user anything but the application. The user can't play solitaire. Most are sealed units without any means of access - no thumb drives, no floppy, no cd-rom.

His belief that everything needs patching shows his lack of outside experience. The train control was probably tested in a specific configuration and that specific configuration was certified as stable and performs its duties.

There's no reason his NT kiosks needed to be rebooted every 24 hrs. Why did he let them get to the floor in that state? Has he ever heard of Quality Control? AIX or Solaris won't make up for shoddy practices. Regardless of platform or development methodolgy, testing is always a part of the process.

Giving his customers a half-ass product was criminal.

Maybe the TSA displays also need to (or plan to) display messages occasionally and the green arrow is the default.

He mentions embedded solutions, but those often cost more with the custom hardware requirements. Oftentimes a PC or PC-based system (Windows or *nix) is the cheaper route today.

11. In space programs or in NASA
12. In Defense systems (Navy, Army, Airforce,..nuclear defense,...etc)
13. In Research Labs or Experimenal Labs where dangerous devices exists (Laser, chemicals,....etc)
14. In Big shelters
15. In War
16. and finally on your desktop

run windows. I once saw one that the normal program had crashed on and it was just sitting at the desktop, complete with the Start menu at the bottom. I really wish I knew how to control the thing. It would have kicked ass to double click on that nice juicy Internet Explorer icon, browse to some sleazy pr0n site and leave that on the display for the next person who came along to see.

As typing this on a Mac, running Linux at work. I have to say that this argument is over a decade old. XP and even Vista run much better then the old 95 and NT counterparts and most of these actions seemed to be bias on on the old Windows 95 stereotype. Windows today in terms of stability is really about the same as Linux or Macs. I have seen both crash on me far more often then Windows XP. Yes they crash for different reasons and some are more preventable then windows but the fact they do crash just like Windows. For many of these applications the reason for using windows is because it already comes with the PC Many Kiosks are just PC's hidden in a box. So it is cheaper for them the buy a Dell PC for say $200 and put the money on user side stuff like touch screens and thermal printers and just have a simple VB application that runs it, vs. Getting the same PC having to clean it off, install Linux, Write a C++ app or a web app to display the graphics.... The install time you loose the cost savings of linux.

I've never and would never use windows in an industrial application. But getting Linux compatible industrial hardware is akin to sticking toothpicks under your nails

When will these morons learn, Linux is the best for most of those applications!

If you think whole article otherway around it just proofs that Windows is pretty solid system. He just proofed us that there is hundreds of millions Windows systems that don't fail in lots of different situations.