6 ms·

From the included link: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/southwest-airlines-avoided-crowdstrike-microsoft-outage-because-its-still-running-windows-31-four

by rdtsc 2y ago

From the included link: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/southwest-airlines-avoided-crowdstrike-microsoft-outage-because-its-still-running-windows-31-fourth-largest-us-airline-remained-free-of-bsod-errors-because-its-os-hasnt-been-updated-in-decades https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/southwest-airlines-av... > To give you an idea of just how outdated this operating system is, Windows 3.1 was originally launched in 1992, and Microsoft ended support for it on December 31, 2001, except for the embedded version, which was officially retired in 2008. I keep hearing the Windows 3.1 story repeated. I mean here it comes from TechRadar and even has the "Pro" in the name, they can't possibly make stuff up, right? But still don't quite believe it. Can anyone working at Southwest confirm that their main scheduling system is running on Windows 3.1?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> keep hearing the Windows 3.1 story repeated It’s wrong [1] and serves as a litmus test for whether an outlet independently verifies its claims. (“The systems [Southwest] developed internally, SkySolver and Crew Web Access, look ‘historic like they were designed on Windows 95’.” That got mangled into they run 3.1.) [1] https://www.osnews.com/story/140301/no-southwest-airlines-is-not-still-using-windows-3-1/ https://www.osnews.com/story/140301/no-southwest-airlines-is...
- jjwiseman 2y ago
  Thanks, I updated the post.
  - kragen 2y ago
    i miss the lemonodor blog
- xp84 2y ago
  Wow, that’s even more frustrating considering it’s conflating an unfashionable UI (which I’d argue is a good thing, since all modern UI trends are towards slick, minimalism-worshiping messes which hide everything from users) and old, provably-flawed technological foundations (like a 16-bit system without things like filesystem access control or memory protection). I knew this story was false immediately though because no company ever even in 1993 had production server systems which ran a desktop OS like Win 3.1. It just wasn’t up to the task. They would have used NT if anything.
  - cjbprime 2y ago
    Windows 95 is an "unfashionable" OS which has not received any security updates since 2001.
    - andrewxdiamond 2y ago
      Yes and the fact that my software’s UI looks like Windows 95 makes it vulnerable to all the same security vulnerabilities. /s The systems don’t run on W95, they look like W95
  - btown 2y ago
    http://www3.alpa.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=IO7kd%2Bfm2Do%3D&tabid=11702&mid=33968 http://www3.alpa.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=IO7kd%2Bfm2Do... shows the system as of 2020. To the parent’s point, it’s actually quite a reasonable UX, with colored outputs, filter banks, and just enough abbreviations and whitespace to balance density with intuitiveness. But that doesn’t mean this is the only modern design system that meets those requirements. And conflating all modern UI with consumer design trends is an equally frustratingly broad statement.
    - quotemstr 2y ago
      Broken link
    - veggieroll 2y ago
      Link worked for me but took a long time to load. It just seems like their server is overloaded.
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      OK, this is definitely unfashionable looking if your main exposure to apps is the latest doodah on your phone that was literally updated yesterday. Very standard looking legacy Win32 looking app. Which, admittedly, would have probably look very similar had it been on Windows 3, but is probably running on LTSC Windows 10 or something in reality.
- spookie 2y ago
  Being blasted by media for running your own software, incredible. As others have commented, just a single tweet was enough to propagate this story. Quite concerning how easy it is to fake reality nowadays.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  This is the same as the "Olympic cardboard beds are anti-sex" fake story that persisted. Anyone who publishes it demonstrates they don't actually research.
- zitterbewegung 2y ago
  I know this is a hot take but companies have to figure out if modernization of a UI will be worth it to retrain everyone in the new UI. Many people were involved with its creation and maintenance and due to its age the UI may have a large amount of glue code that can't be separated unless you build an API around the other software. Especially if there is some kind of change in the system that moving off the old one is meaningless. Southwest is also making changes to their operations so they probably might be in maintenance mode for the software especially when the outage of their current software was done since they will have to not have anyone choose any seat at this time. [1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/investing/southwest-airlines-assigned-seats/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/investing/southwest-airlines-...
  - stavros 2y ago
    I don't know, I like the classic Windows UI. I don't think modern UIs are an improvement on that.
    - suzzer99 2y ago
      No no no. We must now have floating headers that don't give any indication they belong to the columns below them, much less that you can click them to sort the columns. 95% of possible actions must only appear when hovered over. Buttons should not look like buttons, nor should they provide any feedback that they've actually been clicked. Etc.
- xarope 2y ago
  to be fair, some of the java-era software with their default toolkits do look very windows 3.1/95'ish (all that blue and teal)
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
The "Southwest uses Windows 3.1" claim is false, and is a great example of how bullshit can spread on the Internet once some semi "reputable" organizations repeat the false rumor: https://kotaku.com/southwest-airlines-windows-3-1-blue-screen-crowdstrike-1851603013 https://kotaku.com/southwest-airlines-windows-3-1-blue-scree...
dsr_ 2y ago
Tech Radar quotes Tom's Hardware; Tom's Hardware quotes a tweet. Not a tweet from Southwest, mind you. Not even a tweet from someone who says that they used to work for Southwest. Just... a tweet.
- shombaboor 2y ago
  I just wish there was some type of identifiable credit / penalty system for writing accurately as a news source. And this would include quotes / retweets. Never been a better time to be wrong about everything.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > wish there was some type of identifiable credit / penalty system for writing accurately as a news source Good starting point is if the news is free. A shocking fraction of people get their news from solely free sources.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      And why would someone put in effort for free?
      - cgriswald 2y ago
        This is a misunderstanding of the problem. Effort is made in both cases. In one case effort is made to find verifiable truth as a service. In the other effort is made to provide eyeballs to advertisers.
    - kspacewalk2 2y ago
      What's "solely free"? Does the ad-driven model count as free? Why do you think an outlet that works for you will necessarily deliver better quality news that the one that works for advertisers? There are obvious bias downsides to both.
      - 2y ago
umvi 2y ago
> Can anyone working at Southwest confirm that their main scheduling system is running on Windows 3.1? I can't confirm that, but I can certainly confirm lots of hospital equipment is still running Windows XP and lots of hospital personnel browse the internet with Internet Explorer.
ponector 2y ago
This story is another example how hallucinations from LLM can successfully replace many "news" portals.
qingcharles 2y ago
The guy that started it all said it was just a "troll tweet": https://x.com/ArtemR/status/1815408553131426179 https://x.com/ArtemR/status/1815408553131426179
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
brianpan 2y ago
The San Francisco subway runs off of 5-inch floppy disks. https://sfstandard.com/2023/02/02/sfs-market-street-subway-runs-on-reagan-era-floppy-disks/ https://sfstandard.com/2023/02/02/sfs-market-street-subway-r... That article links to an (only slightly older) article about British Airways loading navigation updates every month off of the fancy new 3.5-inch floppy disks.
technick 2y ago
I worked for SITA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SITA_(business_services_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SITA_(business_services_compan... )back in the late 2000's. They had a massive X25 serial network connecting airlines across the globe. Some of its customers were still running Windows 3.11 in the data center on old AT system. We would buy old computers on craigslist and ebay to keep hardware around for when it failed. I wouldn't be surprised if those systems are still in use today.

by rdtsc 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> keep hearing the Windows 3.1 story repeated It’s wrong [1] and serves as a litmus test for whether an outlet independently verifies its claims. (“The systems [Southwest] developed internally, SkySolver and Crew Web Access, look ‘historic like they were designed on Windows 95’.” That got mangled into they run 3.1.) [1] https://www.osnews.com/story/140301/no-southwest-airlines-is-not-still-using-windows-3-1/ https://www.osnews.com/story/140301/no-southwest-airlines-is...

jjwiseman 2y ago
Thanks, I updated the post.
- kragen 2y ago
  i miss the lemonodor blog
xp84 2y ago
Wow, that’s even more frustrating considering it’s conflating an unfashionable UI (which I’d argue is a good thing, since all modern UI trends are towards slick, minimalism-worshiping messes which hide everything from users) and old, provably-flawed technological foundations (like a 16-bit system without things like filesystem access control or memory protection). I knew this story was false immediately though because no company ever even in 1993 had production server systems which ran a desktop OS like Win 3.1. It just wasn’t up to the task. They would have used NT if anything.
- cjbprime 2y ago
  Windows 95 is an "unfashionable" OS which has not received any security updates since 2001.
  - andrewxdiamond 2y ago
    Yes and the fact that my software’s UI looks like Windows 95 makes it vulnerable to all the same security vulnerabilities. /s The systems don’t run on W95, they look like W95
- btown 2y ago
  http://www3.alpa.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=IO7kd%2Bfm2Do%3D&tabid=11702&mid=33968 http://www3.alpa.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=IO7kd%2Bfm2Do... shows the system as of 2020. To the parent’s point, it’s actually quite a reasonable UX, with colored outputs, filter banks, and just enough abbreviations and whitespace to balance density with intuitiveness. But that doesn’t mean this is the only modern design system that meets those requirements. And conflating all modern UI with consumer design trends is an equally frustratingly broad statement.
  - quotemstr 2y ago
    Broken link
  - veggieroll 2y ago
    Link worked for me but took a long time to load. It just seems like their server is overloaded.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    OK, this is definitely unfashionable looking if your main exposure to apps is the latest doodah on your phone that was literally updated yesterday. Very standard looking legacy Win32 looking app. Which, admittedly, would have probably look very similar had it been on Windows 3, but is probably running on LTSC Windows 10 or something in reality.
spookie 2y ago
Being blasted by media for running your own software, incredible. As others have commented, just a single tweet was enough to propagate this story. Quite concerning how easy it is to fake reality nowadays.
madeofpalk 2y ago
This is the same as the "Olympic cardboard beds are anti-sex" fake story that persisted. Anyone who publishes it demonstrates they don't actually research.
zitterbewegung 2y ago
I know this is a hot take but companies have to figure out if modernization of a UI will be worth it to retrain everyone in the new UI. Many people were involved with its creation and maintenance and due to its age the UI may have a large amount of glue code that can't be separated unless you build an API around the other software. Especially if there is some kind of change in the system that moving off the old one is meaningless. Southwest is also making changes to their operations so they probably might be in maintenance mode for the software especially when the outage of their current software was done since they will have to not have anyone choose any seat at this time. [1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/investing/southwest-airlines-assigned-seats/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/investing/southwest-airlines-...
- stavros 2y ago
  I don't know, I like the classic Windows UI. I don't think modern UIs are an improvement on that.
  - suzzer99 2y ago
    No no no. We must now have floating headers that don't give any indication they belong to the columns below them, much less that you can click them to sort the columns. 95% of possible actions must only appear when hovered over. Buttons should not look like buttons, nor should they provide any feedback that they've actually been clicked. Etc.
xarope 2y ago
to be fair, some of the java-era software with their default toolkits do look very windows 3.1/95'ish (all that blue and teal)

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

The "Southwest uses Windows 3.1" claim is false, and is a great example of how bullshit can spread on the Internet once some semi "reputable" organizations repeat the false rumor: https://kotaku.com/southwest-airlines-windows-3-1-blue-screen-crowdstrike-1851603013 https://kotaku.com/southwest-airlines-windows-3-1-blue-scree...

dsr_ 2y ago

Tech Radar quotes Tom's Hardware; Tom's Hardware quotes a tweet. Not a tweet from Southwest, mind you. Not even a tweet from someone who says that they used to work for Southwest. Just... a tweet.

shombaboor 2y ago
I just wish there was some type of identifiable credit / penalty system for writing accurately as a news source. And this would include quotes / retweets. Never been a better time to be wrong about everything.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > wish there was some type of identifiable credit / penalty system for writing accurately as a news source Good starting point is if the news is free. A shocking fraction of people get their news from solely free sources.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    And why would someone put in effort for free?
    - cgriswald 2y ago
      This is a misunderstanding of the problem. Effort is made in both cases. In one case effort is made to find verifiable truth as a service. In the other effort is made to provide eyeballs to advertisers.
  - kspacewalk2 2y ago
    What's "solely free"? Does the ad-driven model count as free? Why do you think an outlet that works for you will necessarily deliver better quality news that the one that works for advertisers? There are obvious bias downsides to both.
    - 2y ago

umvi 2y ago

> Can anyone working at Southwest confirm that their main scheduling system is running on Windows 3.1? I can't confirm that, but I can certainly confirm lots of hospital equipment is still running Windows XP and lots of hospital personnel browse the internet with Internet Explorer.

ponector 2y ago

This story is another example how hallucinations from LLM can successfully replace many "news" portals.

qingcharles 2y ago

The guy that started it all said it was just a "troll tweet": https://x.com/ArtemR/status/1815408553131426179 https://x.com/ArtemR/status/1815408553131426179

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

brianpan 2y ago

The San Francisco subway runs off of 5-inch floppy disks. https://sfstandard.com/2023/02/02/sfs-market-street-subway-runs-on-reagan-era-floppy-disks/ https://sfstandard.com/2023/02/02/sfs-market-street-subway-r... That article links to an (only slightly older) article about British Airways loading navigation updates every month off of the fancy new 3.5-inch floppy disks.

technick 2y ago

I worked for SITA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SITA_(business_services_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SITA_(business_services_compan... )back in the late 2000's. They had a massive X25 serial network connecting airlines across the globe. Some of its customers were still running Windows 3.11 in the data center on old AT system. We would buy old computers on craigslist and ebay to keep hardware around for when it failed. I wouldn't be surprised if those systems are still in use today.