How to crash Windows
I don't remember for what version (3.0 perhaps?). I was then one of the only 2 people in my company working on Windows, all the other people were using CTOS (which had the big advantage of being a fully networked system).
One day, I was told by Windows that I didn't have enough room left on my hard drive to be able to save some file.
So presto I started a command-line to look for some temporary files I could remove.
Obviously, any file with the .TMP extension was a likely target.
And finding a file with such an extension which was taking a few tens of MB was a good way to liberate a lot of room in one move.
And so, I removed that file, and got back to saving my work.
I was almost done when Windows decided to crash, and even restarted the computer…
Restarting Windows proved to be impossible, the system complaining about a missing or corrupted swap file, without providing the name, of course.
After checking with my colleague, and contacting the MS engineers we were working with, we discovered that the file I had removed was the missing swap file…
No recourse but reinstalling Windows...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
