Make Windows9x crash with ease

[Elledan]

It's so simple, I didn't believe it at first, but when you use this, Windows 9x will crash.

Ok, here's the trick: when you type 'c:\con\con' in Start>Run, you'll get a few blue screens (Fatal Error) after which you return to the Desktop. You get the chance to do one last thing and than it's finished, over.

Tested on Windows 98 SE. Everyone willing to sacrifice his/her Windows 95 machine is welcome

I've made a link what should have the same effect: Click to crash!

I'm serious about it! THIS IS NO JOKE.

I'll mail Microsoft about this bug, I think.

Note: I found about it at the Anandtech forum, another guy had discovered it. I still have to ask how he discovered it

Edit:

I just checked the victi... uhm, machine I've used to check it. It stays dead

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Elledan Dunedain
www.emudreams.web.com
Everyone has a destiny in life. Some just never reach it

[This message has been edited by Elledan (edited August 08, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Elledan (edited August 08, 2000).]

[dekuro]

I'm using Mac and the only thing IE says is: the server could not be found. Mac is stable, isn't it?

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Matthias Hagemann

Need some source code?
icosmoss.com - The Open Source Community

[Elledan]

Well, I just found out that automatically 'http://' is put before 'c:\con\con' so that doesn't work, didn't expect it to work either.

Yes, Mac is stable, but just about any OS is stable compared with Windows 9x

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Elledan Dunedain
www.emudreams.web.com
Everyone has a destiny in life. Some just never reach it

[richjb]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I feel so EVIL!

The above link won't work in MIE5, I'm not sure if it work's in Netscape. However, file:///C|/con/con/ does work in netscape.

Another thing, the above URL works in both netscape AND MIE5 if put in a img tag! To experience this wonderful feeling, go to:
http://brevig.com/byebye

I don't feel like researching different uses for this any longer (I've had to reboot 3 times already). However, I would gladely continue, if I was to get a donation of, say more than $5 via paypal . (NOTE TO ADMIN: Please do not edit my post, I am not really making an offer.)

I personally don't think this is a bug. I think it was put in windows so that people angry with others, instead of just pushing the off button on a PC and letting the victim know who did it, can activate this while the victim is gone. When the victim comes back, everything seems to work fine (this is the one last thing), but then it freezes! Maybe those Microsoft programmers are more evil than we thought!

Richard

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richard@brevig.com

[Elledan]

It could be a good function to avoid getting Windows 9x users on your site: just put this link ( file://c|/con/con ) in a META-refresh tag, and they're gone!

Oh man, it feels good to be evil...

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Elledan Dunedain
www.emudreams.web.com
Everyone has a destiny in life. Some just never reach it

[This message has been edited by Elledan (edited August 08, 2000).]

[CJ]

I think this explains why I got my only crash with IE5.5 on a webdesign site. The site was damn unprofessional. But I needed to get their email cuz they owned digibel.org at which I have an email account.. and lost the passwd... They had a link to a preview of their new site and it was a normal link. they did quite dark about it. Oh well I think I'm going to sue them for trying to break my personal computer. That's vandalism. The stupid ppl had their full address and phone number on there

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Freesources.net - the ultimate webmaster resources site
WebmasterCJ design - opening new worlds for small prices

[James]

I tried the bug out on my machine (Win2000 IE5.5) and it doesn't work! So it seems like MS have either fixed the bug or removed the feature in later versions of Windows.

[mkaufman]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>It could be a good function to avoid getting Windows 9x users on your site: just put this link ( file://c|/con/con ) in a META-refresh tag, and they're gone!
Oh man, it feels good to be evil... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


LOL

It works on my computer

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WebDevHQ.com - The Web Developer Headquarters! HUNDREDS of articles, reviews tools and more!

[CJ]

Elledan: your vis. number will be 00000000000000000000000000 because you also get those other visitors to c:\con\con

Christophe

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Freesources.net - the ultimate webmaster resources site
WebmasterCJ design - opening new worlds for small prices

[WebKat]

I would like to know where you can find the humor in even thinking of adding this 'crash bug' as a link to a website, making it an automatic load by putting it in a meta-refresh tag or including it within an image tag? This is a rhetorical question because I don't need any reasoning to justify doing something so cruel and distructive...

I can understand the curiosity to know how this works. But have the common courtesy of informing others to watch out for this, not laughing about others crashing their systems. This is beneath anyone who calls themselves a business professional. Even just thinking of making another's system crash just for the fun is childish and could do more damage than you think on some systems. Whether this is a 'legit' bug is not the point, intervention of other's systems is...

SP Members should not lower themselves to this common denominator...I believe that the majority of SP members do not find this humorous and would flip if someone contributed to crashing their computers just for a joke!

This may seem rather opinionated and some may tell me to simply 'chill out and have a laugh' - but this is not something that I find funny...

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Dlynn ~SitePoint Moderator~
PawPrint Designs by WebKat
"Let's keep Ethics on the Web"

[richjb]

I was never planning on actually using it on anyone. At most, I was going to tell my friends, because it is weird...Maybe use it as a practical joke on one of my close friends, who WOULD find it funny. But only because we know eachother, and there is not this level of mere text to represent our true motives.

Richard

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richard@brevig.com

[mkaufman]

Sparkie:

I too, would NEVER even CONSIDER putting it in a META refresh tag! I just thought it was funny that he would even think of that

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WebDevHQ.com - The Web Developer Headquarters! HUNDREDS of articles, reviews tools and more!

[CJ]

Ok who's next to apologise?

Christophe

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Freesources.net - the ultimate webmaster resources site
WebmasterCJ design - opening new worlds for small prices

[WebKat]

FYI ~

'Sparkie and WebKat' who both love cats =^.^= just happen to be web designers and SitePoint Moderators! It is very easy to mistake the two of us - as we have been in the past by a few SP members.

I doubt that Sparkie would appreciate having my opinions mistaken for hers!...In this case it was WebKat who posted her thoughts on this topic


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Dlynn ~SitePoint Moderator~
PawPrint Designs by WebKat
"Let's keep Ethics on the Web"

[This message has been edited by WebKat (edited August 08, 2000).]

[mkaufman]

LOL - I didn't even realize that was you!

Sorry about that!

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WebDevHQ.com - The Web Developer Headquarters! HUNDREDS of articles, reviews tools and more!

[adam_shep]

Personally, I found this thread quite amusing.

No, I wouldn't condone using it to purposely crash the computers of Windows users, and I didn't get the sense that others would either.

I would say, just relax. Its not that big a deal in my opinion. And if you took a poll of Sitepoint users, maybe the majority would say that they also enjoyed this thread. You never know.

And I'm not a malicious, evil kind of person. Quite ethical, actually.

Take Care,

Adam

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Visit the Sitepoint Chat!
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[Elledan]

Same here, I may look evil, but I'm not *tries to look innocent*

This is a thing you'd use as a practical joke, as pointed out before. Or you can use as a manner to take revenge by building it into one of the .ini files of Windows, so that they've to go into safe mode and remove the line before they can use Windows again.
If they ever find out...

Oh no, here I go again!

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Elledan Dunedain
www.emudreams.web.com
Everyone has a destiny in life. Some just never reach it

[James]

I would never even consider using it in a META tag, or as a URL, or as a practical joke on anyone's computer...but we're all just laughing about the funny (weird???) bug that Elledan found.
I don't believe anyone in these forums would actually purposely damage a computer using this bug.

[Hierophant]

Personally I have tried this bug and it does work from the run box, but it doesn't work from the browser in any way, no matter how you format the link even the ones listed her in the forum don't work, this just proves to me that none of you have the guts to research before you post.

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Wayne Luke - Sitepoint Forums Administrator
Digital Magician Magazine - MetaQuark Creations (Coming Soon)
sitepoint@digitalmagician.com

[TWTCommish]

Uh, why the harsh tone Wayne? "guts" to research your post? There must be a better (more polite) way to phrase that.


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Chris Bowyer – chris@mycoding.com
MyCoding.com: Visit for Launch Notification!
DomainMailings.com: Who Says All The Good Ones Are Taken?
MovieForums.com: Talk About Your Favorite Flicks!

[Hierophant]

If your going to take the time to practice malicious and potentially illegal activities by crashing peoples machines over the Internet then you should at least make sure what your trying to do will actually work.

And yes it can be illegal if you crash U.S. government machines with something like that because there are laws about disrupting the government.

P.S. This bug seems to have been fixed by Microsoft before the posting of it here. I have every "Critical Update" installed from Windows Update and it doesn't happen at all on my Home PC. It does happen on my work PC but that will be fixed today.

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Wayne Luke - Sitepoint Forums Administrator
Digital Magician Magazine - MetaQuark Creations (Coming Soon)
sitepoint@digitalmagician.com

[This message has been edited by wluke (edited August 09, 2000).]

[wdmny]

When I clicked the link to try this on my end, the only thing I got was a blue screen and my browser window closed. It didn't lockup or anything. Bugtraq says that it is a "permutation of certain DOS device driver names", and that other things work like "clock$\clock$" and "aux\clock$". This feature can be fixed and more info can be obtained from this url: http://archives.neohapsis.com/archiv...0-03/0087.html

[This message has been edited by Wes DeMoney (edited August 09, 2000).]

[TWTCommish]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Originally posted by wluke:
If your going to take the time to practice malicious and potentially illegal activities by crashing peoples machines over the Internet then you should at least make sure what your trying to do will actually work.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That doesn't make much sense to me...

Yes, it's a bit sneaky and odd, but Elledan said he'd be reporting it to MS in case it isn't documented...he's not deliberately trying to lure unsuspecting people into having their computer crashed...that being said, I think you're accusing him of things that he just flat out has *not* done. At least it sounds that way.

As for "guts"...I dont see why that has a thing to do with it either.




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Chris Bowyer – chris@mycoding.com
MyCoding.com: Visit for Launch Notification!
DomainMailings.com: Who Says All The Good Ones Are Taken?
MovieForums.com: Talk About Your Favorite Flicks!

[Elledan]

Now I know why I hated the MS site, you can't find anything but useless information for newbies...

I've searched everywhere for 'bug report', 'feedback' or anything equal, but I can't even find something that's getting close.
I guess I'll have to report it directly with an open email...

Wayne: You stated that you could find things very fast on the MS site. Why don't you give it a try right now?

Yahoo and About.com are clearly organized. MS.com isn't, or I'm to dumb to understand the navigation scheme...

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Elledan Dunedain
http://elledan.virtualave.net
Everyone has a destiny in life. Some just never reach it

[richjb]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Originally posted by wluke:
Personally I have tried this bug and it does work from the run box, but it doesn't work from the browser in any way, no matter how you format the link even the ones listed her in the forum don't work, this just proves to me that none of you have the guts to research before you post.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Either you didn't read my post, or you ignored what I said. I DID research it, and I DON'T plan on actually using it on anyone who DOESN'T know what it will do. The link I supplied DOES work on my Windows 98 MIE5. If it didn't work on you, oh well. That doesn't mean that I'm going to try to get a way for it to...as I was just speding a few minutes of my day to discover the full effects of a Microsoft bug.

Richard

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richard@brevig.com