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Microsoft Code at Fault for Half of all Windows Crashes
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Aug 13, 2003 10:35 AM
from the thats-a-lotta-crashes dept.
from the thats-a-lotta-crashes dept.
Flamester writes "In a ZDNet Australia story, Microsoft is claiming that half of all MS Windows crashes are the fault of third party code, not their own. That is, according to Dr. Watson.
The article also goes into the 'rigor in which MS tests their products before release'. "
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Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also I would like to see where they got these numbers? If they are using the new 'feature' that notifies microsoft of application crashes then I'd be skeptical... If the OS crashes then the notices won't be sent to Microsoft.
Also, it is likely that MORE than half of the applications run on a Windows box are non-microsoft applications, that would mean that statistically MS apps crash more often than third party apps.
Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Informative)
I've done an embedded system with QNX, and it is quite the nice RTOS.
Under QNX, the devices hang out in the device manager, which is not in the kernel space, and the drivers are handled by the process manager, also not in the kernel. Since the kernel exists just to pass messages, essentially, it is uncrashable.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's another stupid quote from the article:
Consider this: Microsoft has been ordered not to use the term MSCE in both the United States and Canada because Microsoft does not have the legal right to "certify" people as engineers. This playing fast and loose with terms now extends to:- MCSE == an illegal appropriation of the term Engineer to fool the consumer and anyone stupid enough to pay for it
- Security == a fucking joke that isn't funny anymore
- Best practices == "we don't know how to fix it", as in "We're following best practices."
- Enhanced user experience == Fisher-Price interface
- Where do you want to go today == "Where the fuck did my data go!"
The problem wan't driver crases - their "Dr. Watson" wouldn't get a chance to report back to the mother ship in most of those instances.Parent
Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Informative)
- all of Canada [www.ccpe.ca]
- the IEEE statement on the title of engineer [ieeeusa.org]
Microsoft is not recognised by the (in the USA) Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET), and don't have the ability to grant a BSc., which is a prerequisite for using the term or title Engineer in most states.Guess you've been caught talking out of your ass again (but that's what ACs do)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of all the professions, engineers have the ability to kill the most people in the least amount of time through incompetence. A doctor can only kill one patient at a time, a lawyer can only get a handful of co-defendants on death row at once, and an accountant can only kill people if they jump out their window because of his bad advice. But, a guy who is an "engineer" and doesn't know hiw head from his ass can design a house/dam/building/bridge/etc. that can kill rather a lot of people. And those people probably weren't the ones who hired the engineer, so they don't really have any way of knowing what his credentials are when they decide if they want to use the bridge, live near the dam, etc.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're also the ones who can either sit back an do nothing about environmental degradation, which will end up killing us all, or pass sometimes-unpopular laws and/or try to educate the public.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Informative)
The "Texas Engineering Practice Act" has a whole page of exceptions, but they call them "exemptions".
Lets see if we can find the relevant parts:
Well, that would seem to apply quite nicely not only to train engineers, but also software and systems engineers.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows' Problems run deep, very deep, and they won't be fixed w/o a complete rewrite. Drivers should not be able to take down the OS, but in Windows they can because of the Windows Paradigm.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every OS can be crashed, and Linux is not significantly harder or easier. It is just that with Open Source, world+dog will see what a tremendous asshole you have been, writing buggy code like that. Now, when coding proprietary stuff at work, you can probably get away with it, shifting the blame on your sacked co-worker, or coming up with a rather technical explanation of the situation to a boss that is probably clueless anyhow. With open source coding however, there are no excuses, and people will just start laughing every time you log on to IRC. You nerd-chick will stop writing you sexy emails and naughty, compromising emoticons, and you'll basically be branded a wannabe MCSD. Nobody would want that to happen, so the motivation to write good code is clearly present and persuasive with open source code...
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
which is still sad, especially for an os whose zealous followers claim it is derived from VMS...
VMS had a major advantage in that almost every device attached to the system was also manufactured by DEC. With Windows there are a gazillion vendors of every component you can imagine.
There is no way commodity intel boxes are going to match the reliability of the DEC hardware built to run VMS. The build quality is just not the same - apart from the junk like the Multia that DEC built when it was on its way under.
One of my pet peves about reviews of the latest video hardware is that the quality of the drivers seems to receive only scant attention. I have video cards by nvidia and ATI, the performance of the two cards is indistinguishable but I have had far more hassle with the ATI drivers.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would have taken only a small team of Microsoft programmers to develop a useful bundle of fundamental hardware tests for their beloved operating system. How hard is it to have the OS test basic functions, like RAM, the PCI bus, the IDE bus, etc.? For Solaris, Sun puts a CD with their VTS software in the box set. Does Microsoft have fewer resources than Sun?
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends on the vintage. During the Amelio era Apple had serious quality problems. When I was at the AI lab about 6 years ago the Apples in use would crash about twice a day but the way they were going down was completely unlike Windows which tend to crash when provoked - indicating a likely software cause. These machines would just freeze up at random.
Since Jobs has been on board Apple do seem to have a major commitment to build quality. The problems they have been having have tended to be caused by pushing the envelope too far rather than shoddy components.
I don't think that Microsoft will go into the same market as Dell. Building PCs is a very low margin business.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that I really care to defend MS, but playing devil's advocate, MS apps would be more likely to crash than other apps because they're used more. Your average user of a Windows machine will use Outlook, IE, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. What non-MS apps will the average user want to use? AOL/AIM, WinAmp, and Kazaa. There may be a few others, but none that will be used as often as the MS-created applications. If you never use the app, it can't crash the system.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect that they are referring to drivers and other kernel-space code. The standard Microsoft weenie excuse for instability in the past has been "it's the drivers!", blaming the video drivers is a favourite.
Remember that Microsoft don't write most Windows drivers, they don't have to because their market share is so great, any hardware manufacturer who doesn't supply Windows drivers is not competitive.
I believe this is the reason why Microsoft introduced their "Microsoft signed drivers" that are supposed to guarantee Microsoft-level stability (!).
However, I have to laugh at Microsoft when they claim 50% of crashes aren't their fault. It's like an advert for a diet pill saying "Doesn't cause death in over 90% of people!".
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, while looking over bugs in the database they keep, there were vastly more bugs filed as a result of a poorly behaving 3rd party application than because of the windows code itself. Also, most of these didn't cause crashes. XP does a pretty nice job of handling application crashes gracefully. All of this is from inside professional experience.
My personal expericence (e.g., outside the MS environment) has been than XP is as stable as any other machine I've got at home (Gentoo Linux, OpenBSD). In 2 years time, I've only seen 1 blue screen of death, and I've been using many different computers using with XP on them and I've installed in many times over that two years.
MS does do a good job of testing their windows code (can't speak for office --- those nerds need to learn a thing or two about threads and finally put clippy out of his pathetic misery). They test their code far more thoroughly than ANYONE who does open source including Red Hat, IBM and others.
Of course, all of this is not to be a MS zealot because that's not what I am. I'm much more of an OpenBSD guy. It is, however, to make this discussion a little more fair by sharing my inside experience and knowledge.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
That isnt always the case. Code can get into the kernel that hasnt been reviewed by anyone for more than a brief few seconds. And after that it can be an indefinite time before that code is reviewed again. If it is sexy code, yeah, it will get seen. If it is mundane, or routine, chances are no one will look at it until they suspect a problem.
The OSS world is quickly reaching a conclusion. For a long time, stability was how Linux could eat MS's lunch. But I haven't seen a single person who can straight-face deny the marked and vast improvement in MS products stability. They have for years now been systematically refining and improving Windows and including tools and using methods to improve stability and reliability. 10 years ago NT4 was properly laughed for being an instable piece of crap. Now, Win2003 is so much better it is a *rare* company who will stay away simple for reliability purposes.
The next big battle is going to be security. MS has been working on that too. These are issues MS is working on taking from the OSS world. People ought not count MS out. They are viciously improving thier product and initiating stategies to remove the issue from the table.
Take this latest MS worm issue. Way less severe than previous issues, much better patch distribution time, and generally a much more smooth operation.
But back on topic: about your issues with Win2k crashing with certain apps. I have experienced none of what you talk about, but do not be fooled into thinking that other OS's don't have the same problems. Win2k crashing for legacy apps isn't a good thing, but in the end, its pretty acceptabe considering the level of emulation that must take place to run 16-bit real mode code on a 32-bit protected mode OS. I've crashed Linux with dosemu before as a point of reference. Additionally, it is hard for you to know what caused Windows to crash. In essence, an app that is allowed to write data to devices that run in the kernel could potentially crash the system. The same goes for just about all OS's who run drivers in kernel mode (including how most of the Linuxes work).
Your experience confirms what MS is saying. The applications you consistently run cause Win2k to crash. It is obvious they simply do not function correctly. Bad apps can cause a system to crash on Windows. It is also true that a bad app can cause Linux and *BSD to panic.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunatley for Microsoft, they allow 3rd party drivers into kernel space, even if that driver has never been seen by a Microsoft employee. That is likely what he's saying - "We provide the means to have your code not fuck up our OS, and half of you don't do it!".
The hardware/system drivers are allowed into kernel space after a user clicks a window that basically says "Microsoft has never seen this driver before - it could blow up your system. Want me to install it anyway?" and the user usually says "Yup, no problem. Them programmers are sooo smart...". It's very much a parallel argument to Windows Security - expecting everyone to know how to be a sysadmin without being a sysadmin.
If MS should learn anything from Linux development, it's that free, on-line and open collaboration breeds better drivers and a more stable OS.
Soko
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm now testing out the more recent Nvidia drivers (4496) and it's good so far, but I haven't been using it for long and haven't tried anything "dangerous" yet. Earlier drivers (=2960) were MUCH more stable but I can't seem to revert back.
I know this doesn't refute your argument. The nvidia drivers are proprietary with an open source wrapper. And with Linux machines running 100% open source drivers, I've seen uptimes that rivaled VMS systems. Genuine Linux kernel crashes on a stable system are so rare I've only seen two or three in 8 years of working with Linux on dozens of computers.
But Linux is no better than Windows in that "3rd-party" (in this case proprietary) drivers are still allowed, are often necessary, and are most likely responsible for system crashes. Well, actually I see a Windows NT BSOD every couple of weeks, and if half of these are due to Windows code, then the Linux kernel is more stable by a couple orders of magnitude.
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Re:Uhm, right... (Score:5, Interesting)
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John Dvorak has some interesting crash stats... (Score:5, Informative)
sPh
It's not a bug, it's a feature (Score:5, Funny)
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A model of closed source (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A model of closed source (Score:5, Interesting)
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Dr. Watson catches OS crashes, not app crashes (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds bad, but compared to the number of application crashes, the number of actual OS crashes is infinitesimal.
These numbers lie and are (Score:5, Funny)
His conclusions are suspect, and so are his motives. It's elementary, really. Bill G should get Magnum P.I. or Simon and Simon to do this investigation.
SCO is responsible... (Score:5, Funny)
Ring 0, Ring 3? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the OS design is so poor, or hacks and compromises are made for gaming performance at the expense of stability, then you can't really complain when the system goes unstable.
Re:Ring 0, Ring 3? (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless, if a driver is running in the same memory space as the subsystem, a driver crash is going to take it out. It doesn't matter what ring the code is in. Again, back in NT 3.51 days graphics drivers were kept in seperate memory spaces, in ring3, but that was dropped due to piss poor performance.
The GDI subsystem (several layers away from any graphics drivers) currently sprawls Ring0 and Ring3.
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Third party code- what kind? (Score:5, Interesting)
Userland applications or device drivers?
As so many others undoubtedly already have remarked, an application, however shoddily written,
should not bring down the whole OS.
If they're talking device drivers.. well, that's a different issue entirely.
On the other hand, if this is the case, what the heck is that MS certification process for?
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Geez, what a two-sided statement... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lines of code (Score:5, Funny)
Rus
Take your own medicine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clarification of 'rigor' (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm... What kind of 'rigor' is that, again? Rigor mortis?
They should steal better code (Score:5, Funny)
MS Blaster (Score:5, Funny)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Scene at MS HQ (Score:5, Funny)
Present: Emporer Gates, DBallmer
Emporer Gates: Darth Ballmer, it has come to my attention that we do not possess 90% market share in certain aspects of our operation. Your performance diappoints me...
Darth Balmer: Ook.(1)(2)(3) [Hooo...haaa...hooo...haaa](4)
Emporer Gates: Our code causes only 50% of crashes, yet we control 95% of desktop computers...can you explain the ineffectiveness of our operation? Why are we lagging in this area?!?!?
Darth Balmer: Ook. [Hoooo...haaaaa...hoooo...haaaa]
Emporer Gates: Please put your army of flying monkey dark Jedi to work on this problem immediately. I expect results, Ballmer. You will not fail me in this, or you will be looking for bananas in the sodomy pits of the Hutts!
Darth Balmer: Ook! [Hoooo...haaaaa...hoooo...haaaa]
GF.
(1) Monkeyboy [ntk.net]
(2) Librarian [lspace.org]
(3) I'm aware that it should be "Ape-boy" if the Librarian is an Orangutan, but if you don't tell the Librarian, I won't.
(4) Darth Vader breathing sound
You Mean The Glass Is Half Full? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see... umm... A MS basher is someone who believes that half the bugs belong to MS. A MS apologist is someone who believes half the bugs belong to somebody else.
Of course if you want to avoid emotional implications when describing the glass, you say "it's 50% water and 50% air". Likewise for this, except...
If half the *code* in your system is written by somebody else, and they are responsable for half the bugs, then that tells you that you and the other guy are equally competent.
Of course, you can spin those statistics anyway you like to suit your needs. Some programs are historicly more difficult to write than others. You could evaluate binary bytes, LOC, or number of binary files to get the spin you want.
I'm willing to wager that MS and its partners are equally competent, since they draw on similar pools of talent. If there is any significant differential, things will tend to regress to the mean of proportional bugginess. For example, if a given vendor always writes buggy code they will eventually be replaced. If MS can't write something, they will eventually buy a company that can.
Reality Check... (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW -- you may have noticed that sometimes when an app "hangs", and displays a "not responding" message in Task Manager, it is actually still running just fine (though chewing up a ton of CPU). Depending on the problem I may wait it out until the process finishes or simply kill it. One of my gripes with MS is that sometimes I have to use a third-party tool (sysinternals.com) tool to kill runaway processes -- Task Manager is not always able to kill it. Not perfect, but it works.
I think all of this applies to Windows server configurations also. I run IIS/ASP servers with dozens of users and applications. When configured so each account runs in its own memory space, with CPU utilization limits, NOBODY is able to bring down the whole web server with bad code -- just their own site.
The fact is, most of us are so bigoted about our O/S of choice, we are unwilling to learn enough about the "enemy" to use it properly.
CNN Poll (Score:5, Funny)
" How are you planning to protect your PC from the LoveSan Internet 'worm' affecting Windows-based PCs?
Going to load a patch from Microsoft 19%
Have already loaded a patch from Microsoft 39%
Doing nothing 41% "
Would you name this OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
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