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strangest error ever?

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TollhouseFrank

Senior Headphone Guru
Joined
Nov 29, 2004
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T3h Intr@tub3z!
I'm sure this has been a thread somewhere, but if it has, i haven't found it.

What are the strangest errors (any OS) that you have ever seen?

I have 2. One involves Windows 98, the other involves Windows 2000 Pro.

W98: I had just purchased norton system utilities 99. After an update of it, and running a full system scan, i decided just for the heck of it, to run a virus scan. Within 2 minutes, it came back, and told me something along the lines of "Win.exe has been found to be a virus. Deleting now." :eek: Of course i panicked! But luckily, it deleted it to Norton's virus vault, and i managed to restore it.

W2k: I was working for a local university (official position: Information Technology Assistant), and my boss asked me to go run a defrag on all the machines in a lab that is hardly ever used. So i went to do it. On the first machine i went to, as soon as i click on the defrag.exe in the accessories menu, an error pops up. "Windows has performed an illegal operation: Divide by 0 error". :confused: I went and got my boss to show him, so he wouldn't think I was cracked. He laughed strangely, grabbed the machine, picked it up, slammed it down (while it was running!), started up the defrag again, and the error never appeared again. Also amazing, there were NO head crashes on that!
 
I once download this program called something like blaster.b or something like that and I mean if I didnt know better it seemed like that program was trying to mess up my computer, I say this even though it may sound wierd but once I installed it had to do a restart like most app so it gave me that message saying my pc will restart. The strange part is after that everytime my ps started blaster would restart it. (actually I never got blaster but im sure that would be just like it)
 
Mine is not the strangest error, but it could be the most worthless.

I was installing an ATI driver on my roomates win2k system, when I get a box that pops up and simply says "error". I am pretty sure I saved a picture of it and will upload it in a week when I get back from vacation.
 
with win 2000 i was browsing through this forum and a blank message box appeared and the red circle with white cross in it was the only thing on the box deside the ok button...
 
I remember reading "Visual Basic For Dummies" and it had little comics.

One was this guy who got an error message in Windows, and the computer played the sound of people laughing at him instead of getting an error message.


That would be so awesome, I think the new Windows should have that. :D
 
Speaking of viruses. . .way back in the day, there used to be a virus called Stoned. It infected your boot sector, and all it did was every so often when you turned your computer on, it would simply post a message on the screen saying "Your PC is now stoned", and you had to reboot. Was kind of funny.

The other day, a user asked me how to send a message with a request for a return receipt. He had just typed up this really long, important email that he wanted to be sure was delivered and read. In Outlook, I pulled up Help, and typed in 'return receipt'. Outlook immediately crashed to desktop with no error, wiping out his email. We brought it back up and it wasn't even saved in Drafts. He was pretty pissed :)

I once had a customer bring in a PC (at a previous job) that had to be 10 years old. He had an old 20 MB MFM hard drive that he wanted data off of before he bought a new machine, but he couldn't get the drive going. I brought it out back and turned it on, and found that the drive wouldn't spin. You could feel it hitch and try to spin when you powered it on, but it couldn't get it going. So, I pulled it out of the computer, slammed it on the concrete floor, put it back in, and it booted right up! Got his data off and sold him a new machine. Fun!
 
G-PHoRCe said:
with win 2000 i was browsing through this forum and a blank message box appeared and the red circle with white cross in it was the only thing on the box deside the ok button...

That is a classic sign of buggy software!!! Gee wiz, some programmers are lazy!!! :( :temper:
 
Couldn't help but share this item.
 

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LOL thats great enabling! I once had my computer tell me "Nothing to do." in a simple small dialouge box....it was hilarious because I wasn't doing anything...
 
Its funny on movies the angry man always kicks liek the TV or what not to get it to work. People laugh because electronics are so delacite but sometimes a good kick will fix them right up.
 
...I was trying to dwnld a game, and of course I had to fill out a form which wouldn't save the entries to a drop-down list. If I left the site, I had to completely fill in the form again, which was really gettin me PO'ed, it was a huge form, and typing it all out repeatedly was frustrating to this old fart... :bang head

...so, the first time I got the "ERROR: 504 Gateway Timeout" error, I just carried on surfing, went back later, and that's when I found I had to re-type the form info. That kinda stuff annoys the hell outof me, but being a persistent kinda guy, I figured I'd just sit there clicking "submit" until my info was accepted, and every time I got the 504 error, I'd hit the back button, and then re-submit the info, without filling out the form again. After many many "wobbly pops" over the evening, there I sat at 2am, talking to my monitor/the website, saying: "I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win", trying to get my dwnld...

...I woke up at 6:30am, to my wife's hysterical laughter. As I pulled my head up from the keyboard, where it was resting, I saw Error: 504 Gateway Timeout on the monitor. Between her fits of laughter, she says: That is so you, you stubborn bast*** :D cause I had passed out at the keyboard. I guess you had to be there, but it still cracks us up... :attn:
 
Here is an error with no warrning....While installing XP Pro all goes perfect..I type my sereal number,,reg info..Admin pasword and it reboots so windows can install...

It installs and takes me to the screen that asks for you to put in user names for the accounts..At least 1 name is needed...Well here it wont let me type anything..nada nothing and i am stumped cause it accepted all other typed info prior to this and after trying everything, I had to dig out an old drive image and install that LMAO...

Go figure that one...
 
A long, long time ago, I was upgrading a friend's old PC from Windows 3.11 for Workgroups to Windows 95 from floppy, took for ever. When I got to the CD-key thing, when I typed in the white boxes there was no text but the cursor was moving like they where getting typed, they actually where there but it didn't show them. I mess it up like 4 times because I couldn't see what was in the boxes. Another one, not really an error per say, But I once mixed a windows install from floppies, half was windows 3.11, other half was Windows 95. I made like a hybrid windows, not kidding. It had a desktop like 3.11, but the windows would minimize to an empty start bar. funky version number, it said is was "build ??????" I'M FRICKING SERIOUS! I don't remember what disks I used, I think when the win 3.1 of 95 setup asked for the fourth or so disk, i substituted with the other. It was cool, to bad it was buggy as hell.
 
"Error: 4==idset4"

and i got a really good one on xp, deleting a file.
Ever had the problem where you delete a file off the desktop in 98, but doesnt remove the icon, so you still have the file, but its deleted? if you try and delete it, it says "Error: Cannot remove XXXX, fire does not exist", and its still right there on the desktop. I cant remember the error when you exicute it, i think it just crashes explorer.exe

but in XP, a similar thing happened, but instead of executing it, i moved it into a folder on the desktop, after deleting it. It moved fine, but when i went into the folder the computer locked up as if someone reached in and shorted out the ram.
It did that untill i deleted the folder, wich created some monter error that i diddnt find amusing and diddnt remember...but worked fine after a reboot.
 
Children is actually a very common technology term. It's used on database systems and coding very commonly, and reflects organization such as parent-child relationships. If certain entities cannot exist without one specific entity, then that specific entity is the parent and the other entities are its children. A common example would be buildings on a campus. The Business building is the parent, the rooms BUS 304, BUS 221, and BUS 224 would all be children - rooms within the business building that cannot exist if the building does not exist. The Science building would be another parent, as it has children rooms. The campus itself would be a parent of all buildings... And so on.
 
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