alt Hacker NewsAt a previous job I was a developer on a medical instrument that used Windows to run the UI.
Before everyone gets all up in arms about it, Windows/Linux UI & database with external microcontrollers handling real-time control is a very common architectural choice for medical and industrial equipment. To the point where many Systems-on-Module (SoMs) come with a Linux-capable ARM processor and a separate, smaller processor for real-time, linked via shared memory.
Anyway, a customer called to report a weird bug that we couldn't resolve. After remoting into the instrument, we discovered that one of the lab technicians had attempted to install Excel on it. At some point the install must have failed, but it left a .dll behind that was causing a conflict with something in our code and keeping the UI from starting properly.
No, we did not learn anything from this incident...
Isn't this what Embedded Windows was always for, like for use in medical equipment, ATMs, POS, PLC, oscilloscopes, etc? Basically stuff that's supposed to be fire-and-forget, run 24/7 and that the user shouldn't be able to tinker with.
And also what group policies were for, that can disable the user from installing any software?
Am I wrong to assume that the fuckup was on your end, for using the wrong tool and not configuring it properly?