pc world bug fixes
A list of a number of harmful bugs and their
respective patches


 windows 95 annoyances 
a list of windows 95, windows 98
and windows 2000 annoyances 
as well as tutorials, drivers,
and other fixes. 
Also homepage for the 
respective books by
O'Reilley

 The drivers guide 
Drivers are the devices which allow 
your hardware to communicate
with your software. 
If you're having hardware problems,
this site could help. 

A log-in is required. 
Use the login 

Username;drivers
Password;all



the software clinic
A homepage devoted to patches 
for random software bugs



PCworld bug links 

A number of links to software fixes


 slasdot 
Whether or not you choose to 
install Linux, slashdot is an
excellent site for news on the
Linux operating system, 
computer related issues and more. 
Very non-corporate and good for an alternative
view of things. 
      
bugnet
Discusses bugs in the Windows operating system and 
products;
A free portion of a pay site

 Computer risks
A page discussing a variety of computer related risks, 
both for industry and to the individual. 


 webopedia
If you ever need a defition for an internet term, 
the virtual dictionary is always up to date.


searchenginewatch
continue your bug hunting with searchenginewatch's 
computer specific search engines. Searchenginewatch's 
specialty  search engines can help you find exactly 
what you're looking for. 


Unfortunately, there are far more 
types of software 'bugs' than I 
was able to discuss in my speech, and
the reasons for defective software are a bit too
complex to cover in less than 10 minutes. Since
I figured a 14 minute speech would not be good for
anyone involved, I included the information here. 

Among the more stealthy bugs which I
didn't have time for is 
the memory leak, which 
causes programs to work slower and 
slower, and occasionally crash without 
warning. Restarting the computer will 
restore lost memory, but only temporarily. 
This type of bug is common to most early 
Microsoft products(early 90's) 
and is fixed most readily
by purchasing a more recent version of
the program. Unfortunatly, this means paying 
Microsoft a second time to fix a product that 
should have worked the first time.
Of course, if you never needed to upgrade
your programs, Microsoft would be out of Business.
Other types of bugs will corrupt files if saved to
a disk or a variety of other problems which
people often fail to attribute to faulty
programing, instead blaming themselves. 
 
If you use Windows 95 or 98 make
sure that you have the appropriate
service packs installed. These service
packs can be downloaded for free from 
the download page of microsoft's web page.

Windows 95 shipped with over 5000 known bugs, and 
the recently released Windows 2000 was released with 
~65,000 known bugs. 
Fortunatly, only 10,000 or so of these bugs were 
actually regarded as 'serious' by Microsoft.  
Simply put, service packs can solve a lot of problems.

Please keep in mind the very real physical dangers
that Americans are exposed to as our nation becomes
more and more dependant on computers. Windows NT
is in the process of being installed on nuclear 
capable US cruisers, despite failures in testing which
some sources say left the recipient cruisers
dead in the water for several days before 
being towed to port. (The navy claims that the
ships were only disrupted for a few hours.)

Incidents in a vermont 911 dispatch system delayed
calls for an average of 1 hour each, with some calls
being delayed for as many as 11 hours. Over 20 deaths
have been directly attributed to this system. 
One defective dispatch systems are still in use in 
California, where it regularly misses calls. 

Other serious harms caused by defective software can 
be found at 

Peter Neumann's page on the 
Computer Science Laboratory's web site. 

The Uniform Commercial Information Transactions Act
will make companies immune from being sued for the 
damage which their programs cause, 
thus protecting the status quo. 

UCITA has currently been approved by Virginia and 
is undergoing approval in Maryland.

Get UCITA updates at 

UCITA NEWS

While computers can help us reduce labor costs and 
ultimatly save lives, absolving corporations of all
legal liability is not the best way to do this. 
The consequeces of such absolution should be made
evident by the effect that our current laws 
have had on software quality.
Unfortunatly, most conumers don't know enough
about software to punish companies through the free 
market, and microsoft's influence as a monopoly
has vastly compounded the problem since knowlege of 
an operating system is nesseccary if you want to
design programs that are not plagued by conflicts. 

By only releasing that knowledge to a favored 
few, Microsoft has insured an abundance of software 
problems. Until the operating system paradigm changes 
so that all companies can access the information that 
they need to program effectivly, even well-intentioned 
programmers will be forced to write bad programs. 



If you have a problem that this page does not deal
with or have a comment or suggestion, feel free
to write me at 
wiserd@muc.muohio.edu