My dad called today because his computer ate shit and died for reasons unknown. Of course he uses Windows XP, for circular reasons, and he is unopen to other possibilities. The symptoms of his problem are documented here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315311
Now, as you can read on that page, the cause of the problem is:
This issue may occur if the Isapnp.sys file is damaged or is not present in the path that the error message specifies.
wtf? How does a file become damaged? The computer was shut down properly last night, it was carried home in a safe bag (it's a laptop), and it sat quietly powered down all night. This morning, restart failed. This is the kind of shit that makes Microsoft ridiculous. I've never had a file mysteriously disappear in OSX or Linux. But it seems to happen all the time in Windows.
Although I was able to prevent Genuine Advantage from being installed on his other 2 computers, this one may have slipped past me. Wonder if that has anything to do with it? Meh, I'm probably just paranoid.
Note: I am not asking for Windows tech support. I know how to repair the problem, and recover data if the problem is not repairable. And I know how to install a real OS. I'm just letting people know that this sort of thing really does happen, and with no apparent cause. It's not just FUD, this is documented sucking.