Who needs ghost train scares when Windows is such a fright?

What frightens you? What, as an IT professional, would make you shriek like a small child? What tech horrors are lurking under your bed? For Register reader Andy Bailey, it's Windows showing its face in the gift shop of an Alton Towers ghost train. Yes, the image might be a bit wobble-inducing, but that Windows Explorer error …

[TeeCee]

Actually, this one is:

Boooooooork!

[b0llchit]

Re: Actually, this one is:

So scary,... it almost made me laugh ;-)

[Jedit]

"What would a scary ride for an IT professional look like?"

You'd have a copilot...

[Anonymous Coward]

0x000000000000030

Good, but formatting needs a tweak - replace the x with a w for the full effect

[Andy Non]

Could be worse... In Russia

People die "accidentally", falling through Windows.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Could be worse... In Russia

In Russia, Windows reboots you. . . And I thought, "What a country!"¹

________________

¹ Probably obscure for those not familiar with late 1980s US sitcoms. If so, you're better off.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Could be worse... In Russia

""What a country!"1"

I'm in floods.

I haven't seen a Yakov Smirnoff reference in ages.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Scarey ride eh?

After a bit of brain storming (and liquid refreshment) here at roach employment (and occasional widget making)

Presenting ladies and gentlemen.... the windows ghost train

Which starts out as a simple electric cart outside a well decorated and kept entrance.... then it starts as you enter the door..... you notice the ride has become much rougher, nothing like the smooth ride advertised until you arrive at "Windows 95: adding a CD driver to the startup" tremble with fear as autoexec.bat looms over you with config.sys evil laughter in the background.... then you are on the line for your first internet explorer.... marvel at the shameless way m$ defrauded its creators, and the way it was incorporated deeply into windows until IE 6 gets your system pwned. then its onward and upward while ignoring the flaming track that says "Windows ME , abandon hope all ye who enter.".. then its the smooth ride of win Xp... with the vomit inducing service packs as m$ tried to get a successful OS until the swamp of windows vista , and despite your efforts to get out and push the cart along , it just gets slower and slower and slower until you escape the swamp to windows 7 and all seems good until the terrifying appearance of windows 8 replacing all the control icons with something made by a 5 year old while hiding all the actual control menus... but your hopes are raised as the sunlit uplands of win10 and win 11 are promised with a glowing light at the end of the tunnel although at this point you are faced with a choice of tracks with the question "Are you a 40 yr grizzled IT veteran?" selecting the "no" path takes you to the right and and deposits your cart back at the beginning of the ghost train ride, while selecting yes leads you to the left path that lights up suddenly with a sign saying ".dll hell" and your cart stops, tilts forward and you plunge into a bottomless pit.......

But in all fairness you could have chosen the linux ghost train, where you build your own cart and it rolls along quietly in the sunshine and stops and lets you off.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

Re: Scarey ride eh?

In the early part of the Linux Ghost Train you have to get out and rebuild the locomotive every few dozen yards, but they last *much* better towards the end of the ride.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Scarey ride eh?

Someone once described Linux as "everyone turns up at the airport with their own bit of the aircraft which they assemble, get in and take off"

With a postsctipt that it then flies faster and cheaper than any commercial aircraft

[swampdog]

Re: Scarey ride eh?

The real nightmare only starts when you sober up. You remember(*) that M$ have been using linux since day one.

(*) It is after all, the only operating system good enough to stand up to the mess slapped on top of it and consistent enough to mess up reliably!

[Pascal Monett]

"Or just some shoddy code somewhere"

So difficult to tell with Windows, isn't it ?

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Scary?

For me, any code that I've written more than six months ago.

I've been on that roller coaster more times than I can care to comfortably remember.

[Blackjack]

Forced to use a corporate App that needs Internet Explorer to work.

Forced Mandate to use Copilot.

Windows Recall forcefully on at all times.

Windows 11 updates.

[Someone Else]

Run, Blackjack, RUN!!!

[spireite]

Windows VIsta boot screen?

[Bran Muffin]

From what I've seen lately

That Linux train rolls along so smoothly and quietly until all of a sudden, the tracks disappear in a vertical dive, plunging the rider(s) straight down into a maelstrom of opposing data thieves. And this happens at least twice.

[Someone Else]

Re: From what I've seen lately

If that's what you've see "lately", you need to lay off the 'shrooms!

[MachDiamond]

Reason missing

The reason left out of the article was "Just because".

Could also be GCRs, a minor planet in aspect, a bad throw of the bones, tea too cold giving a poor reading, stale eye-of-newt used in the potion, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has become a real horror story

over the years. The speed at which it is crashing to earth has only been accelerated by all this AIslop that Microslop keep trying to make us use.

I will not Obey.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Windows has become a real horror story

"Let me put it this way, Mr. AC. The 11 series Operating System is the most reliable ever made. No 11 series computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information"..."This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it" -- Satya Nadella

AC's flock together ;)

[Blue Screen of Bleurgh]

Windows 8

'nuff said!

[BartyFartsLast]

Windows 8, Vista or, shudder, ME,

[502 bad gateway]

Woooo wooooooooooo woooooo

Someone in the polyester suit division clearly thought a dumb slideshow display needs all the capability (and vulnerability) that an aged Windows operating system can offer.

;)

[billdehaan]

Doctor's offices

We've all seen Windows popups, or worse, BSODs, on ATM machines, train and airport arrival/departure displays, advertising banners, and the like. Amusing, sometimes annoying, but not frightening.

Being in a ophthalmologist's office as the retinologist is shining the bright light into your eye, seeing the results of his probe on the huge 32" LED disable as he moves it can be disturbing enough. When the display of your optic nerve on the display is blocked by a Windows popup, that can be frightening.

Fortunately, it was only a test, not a surgery or anything invasive, but it wasn't exactly the ideal way to calm a patient's nerves...

[mcswell]

Update at the wrong time

Somewhen between 2005 and 2015, I was giving Powerpoint presentation to some US govies on a company-provided Windows laptop, when the laptop decided *on its own* to install a Windows update. The whole system started crawling, and then rebooted.

The audience was very nice to me, while I attempted to give my presentation without any slides.

Windows updates aren't delivered that way any more, of course, but I really wanted to throw that laptop out the Windows.