How Microsoft Research banished the BSOD

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/how-microsoft-research-banished-the-bsod-697216?src=rss&attr=all

by coderdude • 16 years ago

15 19 16 years ago

hga2• 16 years ago

Wow. From proving the Four Colour Theorem to reducing driver induced BSODs.

Not as quick and easy as the way they banished the Xbox 360's RROD (Red Ring of Death): http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/16/xbox-360-slim-17-smaller-t...

megaman821• 16 years ago

I don't care how uncool Microsoft is perceived to be, Microsoft Research would be my dream job over any other tech company. It's like being a researcher at a top university without having to beg for grants every year.

ams61102• 16 years ago

I don't know. I have worked with and around academics a few times. They can be surprisingly disorganized and crisis-driven/reactive. "Gets things done" is not exactly how I would describe the academics I've encountered.

thebigshane• 16 years ago

I am curious why he is being down-voted. I am sure people disagree with him, but I'd like to at least hear some anecdotes.

alecco2• 16 years ago

Non sequitur.

  1- Guy proves 4 Colour Theorem with software, and mathematically proves
     the software with another program (or something like that, it isn't
     completely clear.)
  2- Most BSODs caused by 3rd party drivers.
  3- Make software to test those drivers before shipping.
  4- BSODs mostly gone!

The article's title promised an explanation but instead they gave a flawed story. It seems on one hand they dumbed down the article, but on the other hand they kept some of the fancy sounding concepts. It would be forgivable if it weren't a tech-oriented publication. "Deep into technology."

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

Yeah... It's a shame that tech and science journalism is typically so shoddy.

It isn't because of merely better testing that Windows 7 / Vista are much more stable than previous versions of Windows, there are fundamental architectural changes. On modern versions of Windows if even your video driver crashes it will be restarted and instead of a BSOD you'll just get a system tray notification.

ComputerGuru2• 16 years ago

Usually. But have the driver crash several times in the space of 3-5 minutes and you'll get a BSOD.

ComputerGuru2• 16 years ago

I assume that the same technique that he used to prove the 4 color theorem can be directly applied to testing drivers (some sort of approach to addressing the halting problem???) and therefore makes it easier to spot leaks and bugs?

neilc• 16 years ago

Well, no, they do say a little more than that:

"... the techniques that George used to prove that his computer based proof was correct happens to have direct application to a set of tools that we give to people that build PC peripherals..."

I know MS uses Prefast (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms933794.aspx) to improve driver quality. I'm not sure what other verification/analysis techniques they use, but it's not too surprising that a technique developed for efficient automated theorem proving would be applicable to efficient software verification.

To say that doing this is solely responsible for "banishing the BSOD" is irresponsible and misinformed in a few different ways, of course.

alecco2• 16 years ago

Perhaps I should've been more clear on that link claim on my comment. They say there's a connection but they don't even hint how both concepts are related. Not even a bad metaphor.

ephermata• 16 years ago

In addition to Prefast, there is also the Static Driver Verifier(SDV). Comes with the Windows Driver Kit, analyzes your code to detect common problems people have when writing drivers. The Windows Driver Kit is free -- you can learn more about SDV here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/tools/sdv.mspx

SDV began its life as a project called SLAM. This page has documentation on SLAM, academic papers, etc. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/slam/

I'm not sure of the exact connection highlighted in the article, but this work builds on decades of work in automated theorem proving. It's exciting that now these techniques are used on real code.

(Disclosure: the SLAM & SDV authors are colleagues of mine at Microsoft.)

flubba• 16 years ago

Very interesting work with the Four Color Theorum, but the BSOD isn't exactly "banished", at least for me.

ams61102• 16 years ago

Indeed. I had a BSOD just the other day (in Vista).

mistermann• 16 years ago

I haven't encountered a BSOD anywhere in all the machines I work on in at least 5 years. But I did skip Vista entirely. 64 bit Windows 7 seems mostly excellent stability wise, although I could list a few exceptions to this (Super (video converter) seemed to bring down my internet connection yesterday until I killed it), and I could make a huge list of usability gripes with it that I can't for the life of me figure out why MS doesn't fix.

But generally speaking I'm pretty happy.

magice• 16 years ago

Haha, so Microsoft decides against banishing the BSOD? So far as I know, it seems that most stuffs started at Microsoft Research end there. Therefore: good job, researcher, now I will come back to my trusted fedora. I mean, Fedora.

How Microsoft Research banished the BSOD

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