Could everyone please exercise some restraint before making tedious, unfunny and predictable jokes about this?

error in missile_launch.exe

We are sorry but this program has caused an error and will be closed.

Sorry for screwing up your war. Microsoft apologizes for any inconvenience caused.

Windows for Warships? Been there, done that, didn't work then either...

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1998/07/13987

Oh please...

There's new meaning to 'patch tuesday', could become 'bunker tuesday'.

A new quaintness to virus's with names like the 'I love you' virus.

A whole can of worms in the "windows and world domination" area, a possible B3ta comp relating to dressing our beloved paper clip in combat fatigues...

and my of course a whole 'raft' of jokes about 'shipping' software.

No doubt there will be many more to make first day back at work a little funnier.

At least they're not putting it on the Boomers. That would be a serious BSOD!

Someone at the civil service/MOD has obviously taken a bung to OK this move. Letter off to my MP this afternoon demanding an enquiry,

LP wrote: "It would seem that one large customer at least ..."

erm...

In the overal scope of M$'s customer base the total of all UK computing doesn't really amount to very much

of which UK official computing is a small fraction

of which UK MoD computing is a small fraction

of which RN warship computing is a small fraction

so, not much to see here, then, move along

"You seem to be trying to start a war, would you like some help?"

Personally, I'll be asking for an inquiry...

Until someone posts a pathetic unfunny unoriginal load of bollocks about a BSOD, supposedly disguised as a joke.

You are the joke.

sinking feeling about this ...

Mines the one in DPM firmly entrenched on land.

"Made in America, tested in England". At least it isn't Fat Man or Little Boy.

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Naval Destroyer".

a whole new meaning to the term

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

OMG !!! lol

Did the RN agree to the EULA? Does this mean that Microsoft can now, on a whim, take possession of our naval fleet? (Not that we have much of a navy left).

How much did the bribes^H^H^H^Hfact finding trips cost?

let's hope the warships work on years with a Julian date of 366?

France's defense system runs mainly on a Linux derivative.

Paris, because even she'd defend her honour with something more reliable than Windows.

Microsoft did customize this version of Windows.....

The BSoD is now renamed and recoloured to the "NBSoD" (Navy Blue Screen of Death)...

...mine is the one with the built in survival suit...

Actually compared to the lads who usually write software for the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), Microsoft is the good guys.

After all the F-22 dateline crash had nothing to do with Microsoft.

But if we yanks do go to war with your limeys, we'll be sure to attack on Dec 31st, 2012 when Microsoft's quadannual leap year bug will crash all of you'll's systems.

Surely running on Windows is better than trusting to some opensource OS that any radical loon could have contributed an undetected back door to?

Blue Ensign of death anyone?

Mine's the lead-lined kevlar one by the way

Commentators lambasting the Windows component, which they may imply to be a weak link, would do well to re-read the paragraph ...."According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), HMS Montrose has now entered a planned docking and refit period during which BAE Systems plc will replace her original DNA(1) gear with DNA(2), said to be "based on the system being fitted to the Royal Navy's powerful new Type 45 Destroyers". This means it will be based on fairly everyday hardware running legacy Windows OSes - people who have worked on these programmes inform us that both Win2k and XP will be in use across the fleet." ..... which informs that the refit is with DNA(2) gear based on fairly everyday hardware running legacy Windows OSes.

The Porsche 911 Turbo is probably based upon the Love Bug Beetle but to consider it compromised by it is quite obviously absurd.

....that this article was posted at 12:27 GMT. By my reckoning it's now past 2, so it's probably time to ask the $64k question.

Is it still up?

Oh, and @cor: I refer you to the famous list of great French military achievements which may go some way towards explaining why the MOD has taken a different route. To help I have transcribed this, verbatim, below:

Windows comes with Minesweeper ;)

We've already been round this loop in the last few weeks.

Please could someone close to the solution let us know definitively whether:

a) The Royal Navy are procuring a control system based on the same retail Windows version which consumers buy in PC world, then installing it on some indeterminate hardware with a bunch of third party binary only drivers, and then allowing automatic changes to software to be pushed from an outside source without any verification, or

b) The Royal Navy are procuring a control system based on Embeded Windows, which is configured specifically for control systems, running on a carefully chosed set of hardware with rigorously verified drivers, and where any patch or update is subject to verification and approval before application.

While it is quite diverting to post comments as if it is (a), there is every evidence that systems based on (b) are as stable and trustworthy as *nix or VXworks based ones.

But hey, let's not allow anything to get in the way of some rather tired waggishness about Microsoft.

So let's get this straight.

The Navy is boasting about implementing operating systems that the manufacturers have been trying to replace for a loooong time?

Mwah ah ha.

Alternately: "Soooo Meester Bond. By now you already know that we've infected your fleet with the 'MOD-R-Lamerz' worm and we're about to use your ships to launch a full-scale nuclear assault on London..."

I come for the smugness, but stay for the waffle.

Like the "rigorously verified" Windows Server updates that managed to down financial trading systems last month?

Seems to me there are always two types of people when these stories turn up, those who see the funny side of Microsoft (who have never innovated a single thing) getting involved in <ahem> mission critical applications and enjoy the rib tickling. Then there are the others, who cannot stand the humour being directed at their delicious software of choice when "everyone knows you only have to reboot once per month".

Personally, I love these jokes all the more because they are directed at such a useless piece of shit software. And the parasites who make it.

Keep the jokes coming, the only thing funnier is watching these twats get hot under the collar.

Cmdr Rogering. RN MSCE.

Is this a resurgence of the MS policy "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"?

C'mon, what's the problem? Windows worked on the USS Yorktown, didn't it?

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1998/07/13987

Oops! P'r'aps not.

Seriously, I wouldn't put Windows on a railway information board:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikhanson/2899521852/

much less anything really critical. Someone in the MOD must've had a backhander.

Anyone who thinks this doesn't mean that the US government can override any command given by the captain of such a ship (by the simple expedient of turning its control systems off) is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Anyone who approved installing these systems is a moron.

A ship without hulls.

Just wait until some fuck wit plugs in a cheap Chinese USB stick into the system, this is your 14 year old hacker captain speaking from my bedroom and you are now under my command.

"Open source code is open to inspection by anybody. This means that a coder's ability to insert an undetectable back door is just about impossible. Unless of course one could get every single person capable auditing the code to agree to remain silent about such a feature."

I fear you speak from somewhere behind the scrotum.

Linux is full of obscure drivers which have never been looked at by more than one or two developers - and that aside, it is easy to write obfuscated C code that can perform entirely unexpected operations even though, on the outside, it looks innocuous.

"France's defense system runs mainly on a Linux derivative."

And now we know why the MoD went with windows. How do you want to surrender today?

"I would fully expect that a lot of the critical stuff is classed as restricted technology (or whatever the weasel-words de jour are) by the US gov"

Aside from the fact nothing about windows itself is classified, and when I last saw there was talk about access to windows source code being part of the contract negotiations for this particular project - on the point of classified technology there is precedence for access to this stuff, not least as part of the JSF project. http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL1278309720061212

I do recall when all this started engineers at BaE were very unhappy at the prospect, especially considering all their experience was with UNIX systems. The problem is *UNIX* you're not going to get any better terms than from Microsoft over support, license terms, source code access nor pricing. Apple is more the same, and Linux has no real go-to backers, and worse, at least at the time - Linux systems were uninsurable with regards to business continuity.

What you have to remember is that this stuff project has been going on for a number of years now, and that you can't just throw a copy of Ubuntu on these systems and expect to be waiting for a forum reply when xorg segfaults.

Make all the funny comments you like but even if they started this project today I'd still call them nuts if they picked *Linux* out of the bunch - Apple won't do anything for you and Unix developers or no better. So what is it you want?

And also, this is a British government IT project - and it's ahead of schedule and actually works.

Remember that Microsoft allows the Chinese to examine the source code for Windows.

So your source is open, at least to the other side.

-HJC