Final week, an excellent chunk of the digital world shut down and stopped working as a result of an replace that triggered Microsoft’s Home windows working system to crash and show a blue display on hundreds of thousands of units. This affected locations like hospitals, colleges, and airports. However one airline, in contrast to the others, was spared from the chaos. And plenty of are saying it’s as a result of it’s nonetheless utilizing an historic working system, however that’s not the case.
On July 19, hundreds of thousands of computer systems and different Home windows-powered units crashed and stopped working across the globe. It was later found that Crowdstrike, a big cybersecurity firm, had pushed out an replace that was borked and broke all the things for hours. And as is widespread on the web nowadays, folks started joking about it and making up tales, a few of which went viral. For instance, lots of people nonetheless assume the Las Vegas Sphere crashed through the Crowdstrike occasion. (It didn’t.)
However maybe probably the most viral declare, which was reported by a number of retailers and shared on-line as the reality, was that Southwest Airways in the US prevented all the Crowdstrike chaos as a result of its methods nonetheless run on Home windows 3.1. This isn’t correct, although Southwest Airways does certainly use some older software program that it ought to in all probability improve.
As identified by OS Information, digging into this story reveals that lots of locations are citing a tweet that went viral claiming Southwest nonetheless makes use of Home windows 3.1. This individual later confirmed that they had been trolling, however that didn’t cease the declare from spreading. Later, folks found an article from 2023 that compares Southwest’s inner software program with Home windows 3.1, suggesting it’s practically as previous. However it by no means says that Southwest is truly nonetheless utilizing Home windows 3.1.
Dig slightly deeper and also you can discover a December 2022 article from The Dallas Morning Information all about that point Southwest Airways’ methods began melting down through the holidays. The article, and others since, lay the blame squarely on the airline’s getting old software program—SkySolver and Crew Internet Entry. Within the article, it’s talked about that these applications seem like they had been designed in Home windows 95.
Since then, folks have been spouting off the wrong notion that Southwest is utilizing Home windows 95, which was then backed up by a viral tweet and a few retailers operating with the story.
However there seems to be no proof that Southwest is definitely nonetheless utilizing Home windows 3.1. Positive, the software program they’re utilizing to plan flights and handle their workers appears previous and has apparently been round since 2007 or so. That’s true, and scary. However no, Southwest didn’t keep away from the Home windows Crash as a result of they use an working system from 1992. As for why Southwest principally prevented the chaos of July 19? Easy. They reportedly don’t use Crowdstrike.
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