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Secret MS tool
Started by
Neon
, Nov 13 2005 03:35 PM
8 replies to this topic
#1
Posted 13 November 2005 - 03:35 PM
It turns out that a good portion of all those Windows crashes over the years are not caused by the operating system itself, but by buggy device drivers -- low-level pieces of code that allow the operating system to communicate with external devices like the computer's keyboard, hard drive, screens and network cards.
Because device drivers run deep within the operating system, they are hard to write and hard to debug. And when they fail, they can take down the whole computer. "If they go bad, the whole OS can go bad," says Tom Ball, a scientist at Microsoft Research.
But in a little-noticed project percolating in Redmond, the world's biggest single producer of software bugs is pushing the envelope on an anti-bug technology that promises to make the Windows operating system a whole lot more reliable, and may eventually raise the bar for dependable software throughout the industry.
Microsoft has developed a tool called the Static Driver Verifier, or SDV, that uses "model checking" to analyze the source code for Windows device drivers and see if the code that the programmer wrote matches a mathematical model of what a Windows device driver should actually do. If the driver doesn't match the model, the SDV warns that the driver might contain a bug.
Because device drivers run deep within the operating system, they are hard to write and hard to debug. And when they fail, they can take down the whole computer. "If they go bad, the whole OS can go bad," says Tom Ball, a scientist at Microsoft Research.
But in a little-noticed project percolating in Redmond, the world's biggest single producer of software bugs is pushing the envelope on an anti-bug technology that promises to make the Windows operating system a whole lot more reliable, and may eventually raise the bar for dependable software throughout the industry.
Microsoft has developed a tool called the Static Driver Verifier, or SDV, that uses "model checking" to analyze the source code for Windows device drivers and see if the code that the programmer wrote matches a mathematical model of what a Windows device driver should actually do. If the driver doesn't match the model, the SDV warns that the driver might contain a bug.
#2
Posted 14 November 2005 - 04:23 AM
A simple networking driver can make windows xp BSOD.
If this SDV is done right it can indeed raise the bar on reliability
If this SDV is done right it can indeed raise the bar on reliability
#3
Posted 14 November 2005 - 09:53 PM
THat's nice that they are developing this...
#4
Posted 15 November 2005 - 12:11 AM
i hope they get this right though i don't have often problems, every now and then it happens and pisses me off
Edited by stevenaxe, 15 November 2005 - 12:11 AM.
#5
Posted 15 November 2005 - 01:44 PM
Then we fix it by accident, and people think your a genius...i know i know, it happens to be all the time
#6
Posted 15 November 2005 - 02:39 PM
Stop flattering yourself :rolleyes:
#7
Posted 15 November 2005 - 08:17 PM
Someone should build a driver virus. That would be the most simple way to crash a machine. Windows machines would instanatly crash, all around the world.
#9
Posted 16 November 2005 - 05:41 PM
gamer_pro_2000, on Nov 15 2005, 02:17 PM, said:
Someone should build a driver virus. That would be the most simple way to crash a machine. Windows machines would instanatly crash, all around the world.
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