by Flack » Sun Jan 17, 2021 4:56 am
There has been a long history of bugs in DOS/Windows, most of which are the result of maintaining 40+ years of backwards compatibility. For example, there are a few reserved words that you can't use as a file or folder name (I think "AUX" is one), because it was a hidden/reserved file used in MS-DOS 1.0. I think you could crash a Windows 95 machine by either creating C:\AUX\AUX or simply typing the command. It's pretty amazing to me that you can insert a floppy disk from 40 years ago into your machine, type DIR, and have it still work. Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't more bugs.
Apparently the $i30 variable is where directory information is held, and accessing it sends Windows 10 into a tailspin as it tries to fix it. I haven't tried it yet (might do it next week on a test machine at work) but apparently it sends the machine into a never-ending series of chkdsk scans that will eventually destroy all the data on the drive. The worst part about this entire thing is that you don't need admin privileges to run the command.
In the case of the old Windows 95 issue, users had to wait until Microsoft released a service pack to fix it. In the case of Windows 10, Microsoft will slide a patch into their monthly updates (probably sooner) and magically fix billions of computers overnight. Ain't technology grand?
There has been a long history of bugs in DOS/Windows, most of which are the result of maintaining 40+ years of backwards compatibility. For example, there are a few reserved words that you can't use as a file or folder name (I think "AUX" is one), because it was a hidden/reserved file used in MS-DOS 1.0. I think you could crash a Windows 95 machine by either creating C:\AUX\AUX or simply typing the command. It's pretty amazing to me that you can insert a floppy disk from 40 years ago into your machine, type DIR, and have it still work. Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't more bugs.
Apparently the $i30 variable is where directory information is held, and accessing it sends Windows 10 into a tailspin as it tries to fix it. I haven't tried it yet (might do it next week on a test machine at work) but apparently it sends the machine into a never-ending series of chkdsk scans that will eventually destroy all the data on the drive. The worst part about this entire thing is that you don't need admin privileges to run the command.
In the case of the old Windows 95 issue, users had to wait until Microsoft released a service pack to fix it. In the case of Windows 10, Microsoft will slide a patch into their monthly updates (probably sooner) and magically fix billions of computers overnight. Ain't technology grand?