This Program Is Not Responding
When programs fail to respond it is usually your fault, <insert name here>. I know what you're like; you open Notepad, Internet Explorer and MS Word all at the same time and try typing into the browser address bar before your homepage has even had chance to load up. Then you put your WoW graphics levels all up to 110% and start rapping into Voice Recorder just so you can watch the little green lines hop about. Well excuse me, but I’m not entirely sure if a computer can handle that much. The circuits are about as wide in diameter as a mouse's whisker and you’re there trying to put an elephant-sized impulse through them. Would you make your dog play catch with a log on the main road?* No. Give the poor machine a chance.
Causes And Effects[edit | edit source]
When a program stops responding, it tends to freeze and you can’t get out of it. You become unable to escape and this annoying window appears, telling you:
A German child with an anger management problem would react like this:
For the crappier computers, like yours <insert name here>, the system often requires a reboot and it’s all your fault. Rebooting a computer is like zapping a dead man’s heart with a crash-trolley. I don’t expect you’d be very happy if your computer sent 6000 volts through your nervous system every time it gave you too much information so be a little more considerate next time.
*No dogs were harmed in the making of this article. After we'd tried the cats we didn't think it'd be a good idea...
Error Reports Blue Screens[edit | edit source]
OK. So…error reports. Why? No, seriously though…why? What is their purpose, their use? No wait, you know what? They’re so useless they don’t deserve to have this section. Yeah, OK so this section is now called “Blue Screens”. These are the big warning screens that blind you half to death, telling you your computer has crashed, in case you hadn’t already realized. They offer suggestions on what to do next but all of the options (except for “Press Ctrl + Alt + Del” or “Hold down the Power Button until you euthanize your faithful Companion Cube more quickly than any Uncyclopedia member on record. Well done.”) are always incomprehensible or impossible to carry out. Below is one variety your everyday Blue Screen:
You could, however, decide to spend your time not looking at a blue screen slowly sending you to a monstrous epileptic fit, thus then sending you to a slow blind death, but instead pulling out your stupid PC and throwing it out the window. If you don't have a window or just don't wanna break your precious computer window, you could just buy a better one (computer not window) :D
Windows Task Manager[edit | edit source]
Supposedly your friend during such chaos, the Windows Task Manager is there to exterminate rogue programs who get their kicks out of eating your motherboard. Still, it’s not all that useful really, is it <insert name here>? It pops up and you see that the evil Minesweeper is not responding (although I don’t know how you managed to crash one of the simplest programs on your PC) and decide to click End Task, right? Then what happens? You just get another box that pops up reading:
And clicking End Now doesn’t do the slightest hint of good. Plus, sometimes your Task Manager gets infected by the corpse of the dead Minesweeper:
So Are There Any Positives?[edit | edit source]
Yes! Although you can’t escape the wrath of crashed programs, you can play with them. By clicking on the window of the crashed programs you can make intricate digital crop circles sometimes called Crash-Waves or Program-Waves (derivation from the wave shapes that can be formed). Our experts believe that although this will cause epileptic fits - it will be enjoyable until you start frothing at the mouth. Below is a demonstration:
But, no. Apart from the above, a non-responsive program just spells trouble. I suppose the best way to deal with them is to send 600 Error Reports to Microsoft just to piss off Mr Gates. Excluding this though, a crashed computer is really no fun. Unless you have a computer crashing fetish. In which case it is.