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Re: Re Keystrokes: Possible BIOS compatibility

** Reply to message from J R FOX  on Thu, 28 Jul 2005
11:39:01 -0700 (PDT)


> I could certainly be wrong about this, but I think the
> reasonably contemporary, multitasking, 32-bit
> operating systems ... take *active measures* to preclude
> an app being able to [crash the machine]. That's part of the
> point of their design. In fact, I don't recall seeing
> *any* app crash Win after the NT-4 days.

You're right, but what can happen (does happen) is that an old DOS app grabs
nearly 100% of the CPU and then that app locks up (or vice versa). There just
aren't enough spare CPU cycles to break out (so that you can kill the app).
TaskMan might take ten minutes to launch, ProcessExplorer twice as long. So as
a practical matter, rebooting is the best option.

The machine may not be truly frozen (crashed), but it feels that way.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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