*shrug*. I thought that it was liberals who were supposed to lack a sense of humour.

Of course, like any prank, it needs to be applied judiciously, and supervised appropriately. Many folks don’t know how to play a prank properly (or who is a good target for a prank), and it gets way out of hand. It helps to be a good sport about it when you get pranked back.

Deploying this to a whole corporate network, for instance, would be a Very Bad Idea™, but I think that in such an instance, I would track down the sysadmin who did it, rather than throwing it back on Microsoft (clear breach of professional ethics). If it was possible for someone other than a sysadmin to do this, then I would still track down the sysadmin and demand to know why.

Regardless, this BSOD screen saver has been around for ages (I can account for it being around at least since 2001). I will admit I am a little surprised that Microsoft are distributing it themselves, but if it really incenses you that much, you can vote with your wallet by telling Microsoft to get lost and installing Linux. If you do that, you won’t need McAfee, either.

Maybe we’ll just have to agree to disagree. It’s not like it’s the first time we haven’t agreed on something

We unfortunately needed to get real work done that day. Having been a manager and supervisor all my life I guess my view of the world is from that perspective. I think a liberal supervisor might also bea tad annoyed at Microsoft and the employee that pulled the stunt. It’s something that Microsoft did not have to do. Just be being there it is an attractive nuisance.

Critter rocks. He keeps me focused

Thanks for the kind words.

I can appreciate the point.

As I say, it’s been around for ages. In the department I used to work in, small, harmless pranks were the order of the day; kept us on our toes. We have a fairly strict policy of locking terminals when you get up, and quite frequently, in that department, one would get pranked if one left one’s terminal unlocked (I imagine this is still true). The BSOD screen saver did get pulled on me once.

I guess again, it all is a matter of knowing when and how th play a prank. I would concede that a lot of people don’t grasp that appropriate timing is critical.