Comments on: A Zen Windows Error Message

By: Christopher Gillen

Christopher Gillen — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 02:43:19 +0000

If you look up toll number information in the Southern New England Telephone database using their proprietary application TnMgr and then hit the STORE button without having altered any data fields, you get the Zen error message, “Store is not meaningful without change.”

By: Larry Sheldon

Larry Sheldon — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:43:07 +0000

My favorite is from the dark ages–if anybody needs help with the terms, let me know.

The Fieldata COBOL compiler for UNIVAC Exec 8 had a diagnostic that read:

Statement is vacuous.

By: Jeannette

Jeannette — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:36:38 +0000

I’m a Mac girl at home, but at work I’m forced to use a Windows box. I have a plugin on my Outlook which would regularly give me an error. What did it say? _Nothing._ A blank box would pop up with the signature something’s-gone-wrong “bonk,” with a blank button I could click to get out of it.

Windows presents Choose Your Own Error! How exciting!

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:41:09 +0000

Not a Windows error. An AVG error. Mac users are obviously so unsophisticated that they can’t tell the difference.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:24:16 +0000

It should be noted that this error message is not generated by a Windows system program, but by the AVG antivirus program. Very unclear error message though.

Also, the apparent tautology, “the filename exists or it doesn’t” is false (though I am sure you are aware of that). The syntax of a rename command is usually rename filename1 filename2. When the error message says, “duplicate file name or file not found,” it means that filename2 already exists or filename1 does not exist.

By: felix

felix — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:11:53 +0000

before i came to mac I worked with a windows system, my favorite error of all time was:

Windows does not exist

short and simple, i took the day off to contemplate the knowledge the machine god had given me that day

By: Epicanis

Epicanis — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:40:47 +0000

My personal favorite is a little less obvious.

The old MSDOS “ren” (rename) command would give this “duplicate file name or file not found” error, which sounds perfectly harmless until you parse it.

“Duplicate file name” = “Filename Already Exists”
“File Not Found” = “Filename Doesn’t Exist”

So in short, the error says “The filename exists or it doesn’t.”

By: Jamie

Jamie — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:08:36 +0000

My favorite Windows Koan comes from the system event log…

“The data is the error.”

Indeed.

By: Rocco

Rocco — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:11:49 +0000

I got a freaky error on my Mac. Running After Effects 6.5 on Leopard caused some strange stuff to happen. After a successful render batch, a dialog box popped up and featured upside down text and a lovely striped pattern.

http://realartusa.com/blog/?p=462

Kinda weird, but it made me laugh.

By: Vako

Vako — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:44:19 +0000

Once I got an error message that said “Sorry we’re hosed now”.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:56:16 +0000

My friend got an error message one time

“Fatal Error:
Could not find 4″

a few minutes later another message box popped up.
“4″

By: violet/riga

violet/riga — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:30:55 +0000

The most disturbing error message I’ve seen was in the language Smalltalk. It popped up and told me “This program accepts no arguments”.

By: James

James — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:16:45 +0000

You definitely have to be zen to use Windows …