back to article Windows takes a breather in London's Spitalfields

The Register's Bork column is coming to an end, and to mark the occasion we present the 12 Bork's of Christmas. Today: an unwanted appearance by the Windows command line. No PowerShell for this administrator, oh no. Whoever is behind this screen (spotted by Register reader Sam Owens) has fired up cmd.exe, probably via a script …

  1. spireite Silver badge

    Clearly a Rust effect.

    What would be better is if the scripting was in Python, and a Boa Constrictor compressed the living daylights out of a random shopper.

  2. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

    Tick tock

    How long has it been waiting for three seconds?

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Tick tock

      Three seconds from now... Three seconds from now... Three seconds from now... Three seconds from now...Three seconds from now... Three seconds from now... Three seconds from now...

      1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

        Re: Tick tock

        Are we needing some lemon scented towels?

        1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

          Re: Tick tock

          Repent, Harlequin, cried the Tick-Tock Man!

    2. DomDF

      Re: Tick tock

      Since last March

  3. G2

    that command prompt is stuck in text selection mode.

    that's a touch screen large display (see where it says "touch to explore"?) - looking at the photo it's obvious that somebody was using it when the CMD window popped up and the "click" action of the touch was intercepted by the command prompt.

    ... and since clicking in a cmd prompt usually PAUSES everything indefinitely because it switches to TEXT SELECT mode... thus it got stuck in text selection mode - notice the "Select" keyword in the title bar and the white rectangular selection cursor in the command prompt window - that's where the window intercepted the touch click action of the user.

    (To get out of text selection mode you usually have to press either ESC or enter. Clicking on X in the corner to close the window and terminate the script would also work)

  4. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    Why did Microsoft call their sleep command "timeout"? I guess they were avoiding collision with Powershell's "sleep" command maybe?

    OTOH, I didn't even know there was a "timeout" command, so I've learned something today. That's much easier than my usual hack of using "choice /t 3". (If I can remember it's called "timeout" and not sleep or wait or something else).

  5. ShadowSystems
    Joke

    It's probably something simple...

    Like that odd rumble in the guts that Mother Nature uses to signal "Get your arse to the WC before I fill your socks with shite."

    The poor slob then took off at a dead run to make it there before a trip home for fresh knickers was required.

    I blame the fruitcake...

  6. xyz123 Silver badge

    Press windows start button.

    Press Apps

    Press K

    look for on-screen keyboard

    open it.

    you now have a fully functional PC to cock around with.......

    Task scheduler + opening pornhub every few minutes could be good for a laugh.

  7. Old Shoes

    Correct way to script timeout on Windows

    The actual correct way for a script to pause for a set number of seconds is to use ping

    ping -n 3 127.0.0.1

    I learned this from exploring the underpinnings of a large bank.

    1. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Correct way to script timeout on Windows

      I have also observed (to my horror) this rather strange implementation of the sleep command in Windows.

  8. SuperGeek

    Not to end 2021 on a bigger downer...

    But you have an apostrophe where it shouldn't be!

    "and to mark the occasion we present the 12 Bork's of Christmas."

    Gah! Drives me nuts! Happy 2022 :)

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