News Windows 3.1 saves the day during CrowdStrike outage — Southwest Airlines scrapes by with archaic OS

[Admin]

Southwest Airlines was able to keep operating even when all other airlines were crippled by the CrowdStrike update because their systems use Windows 3.1, a 32-year-old operating system that no longer receives updates.

Windows 3.1 saves the day during CrowdStrike outage — Southwest Airlines scrapes by with archaic OS : Read more

 

[Makaveli]

Using windows 3.1 and windows 95 for the systems.

Taking mental note never fly with these guys ever.

 

[coolitic]

Using windows 3.1 and windows 95 for the systems.

Taking mental note never fly with these guys ever.

It's not like those are what run the airplanes themselves lol

 

[parkerthon]

It's not like those are what run the airplanes themselves lol

Yeah and a customer experience goes, not any worse than other carriers.

 

[USAFRet]

Using windows 3.1 and windows 95 for the systems.

Taking mental note never fly with these guys ever.

Scheduling, not flying.

Some of the subsystems your bank uses are even older.

 

[parkerthon]

I thought this was a joke when I saw it on twitter.

I am just amazed they have kept it working and haven’t run into serious scalability issues. I guess you can emulate/virtualize older stuff easily on client side, but Windows 3.1 was never a very reliable OS server side.

I also find it funny they get credit for not being hit by an outage because they don’t run newer systems. It’s because they don’t run Crowdstrike. They almost certainly have newer Windows servers and systems elsewhere running XDR, like their corp workforce. Possibly using their cheaper competitor, SentinelOne or even Microsoft’s Defender XDR. If not they are just begging to be breached and ransomwared.

 

[Makaveli]

It's not like those are what run the airplanes themselves lol

lol that is an even scarier thought.

 

[ekio]

If all these incompetent companies where relying on Linux systems rather than the piece of trash code that is Windows, we would not even know about the issue because it would not have happened.

 

[ezst036]

However, the CrowdStrike global outage might discourage Southwest from upgrading its systems

Why? CrowdStrike's Linux and Mac software clients were unaffected.

Southwest could easily upgrade to Linux or Apple and do just fine.

 

[USAFRet]

Southwest could easily upgrade to Linux or Apple and do just fine.

Changing an enterprise of that size to anything else is decidedly non-trivial.

 

[ezst036]

Changing an enterprise of that size to anything else is decidedly non-trivial.

Not really, for two reasons.

First, switching from Win16 to anything else is decidedly non-trivial in an enterprise context.
Second and more importantly, from what I know this is only for their scheduling system.

So the entire premise of "changing an enterprise" is a shameful non-sequitor; perhaps even a strawman. Changing just their scheduling system should be fairly straightforward, at least, much easier than switching the entire enterprise good grief.

 

[USAFRet]

Not really, for two reasons.

First, switching from Win16 to anything else is decidedly non-trivial in an enterprise context.
Second and more importantly, from what I know this is only for their scheduling system.

So the entire premise of "changing an enterprise" is a shameful non-sequitor; perhaps even a strawman. Changing just their scheduling system should be fairly straightforward, at least, much easier than switching the entire enterprise good grief.

Well...going from Old Windows to New Windows is a bit easier than going from Old Windows to Linux.

In any case, Southwest has chosen, for the time being, to stay with what they have.

The aforementioned word "easily" is a large understatement.

 

[Makaveli]

Why? CrowdStrike's Linux and Mac software clients were unaffected.

Southwest could easily upgrade to Linux or Apple and do just fine.

Statements like this make it sound like you have zero IT corporate experience.

lol ya lets just change all the systems, and what about all the support contracts, all the testing that will be required etc. That would be a big task even in a 50 person company.

 

[cAllen]

Who was still flying...when the Big 3 were not?

 

[vanadiel007]

Using windows 3.1 and windows 95 for the systems.

Taking mental note never fly with these guys ever.

You can't fly with the other guys either because their computers are down...

 

[Makaveli]

You can't fly with the other guys either because their computers are down...

That much is obvious.

 

[Anomaly_76]

Southwest Airlines was able to keep operating even when all other airlines were crippled by the CrowdStrike update because their systems use Windows 3.1, a 32-year-old operating system that no longer receives updates.

Windows 3.1 saves the day during CrowdStrike outage — Southwest Airlines scrapes by with archaic OS : Read more

Just goes to show, Microsoft has been shooting themselves in the foot with a larger caliber each time they reinvented the wheel. I blocked updates via gpedit over a year ago, because I got tired of them turning on things I'd disabled, disabling things I'd turned on, forcing my system to reboot in a clever attempt to trick me into approving a Win11 upgrade (which I am NOT doing, ever).

My, my... Lookie here, the Linux train just pulled into the station! All abooooard!

 

[bit_user]

OMG, talk about learning the wrong lessons!

There's a lot you simply cannot do, in running a modern enterprise, with humble Windows 3.1. Not only that, but I'd bet it's a security nightmare, if you try to deploy at larger scale or some hackers would really decide to come after you.

This is not a solution.

 

[bit_user]

If all these incompetent companies where relying on Linux systems rather than the piece of trash code that is Windows, we would not even know about the issue because it would not have happened.

Maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure. Linux uses a monolithic kernel architecture, where I'd expect the kernel modules employed by these security solutions would be able to cause the same sort of failure. I think it was more by happenstance that they didn't.

Edit: I forgot about eBPF. See post #37, for details.

I know far less about MacOS X, which is based on the Mach microkernel architecture. Maybe that gives it some resilience to faulty kernel modules.

 

[CmdrShepard]

Maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure. Linux uses a monolithic kernel architecture, where I'd expect the kernel modules employed by these security solutions would be able to cause the same sort of failure. I think it was more by happenstance that they didn't.

I know far less about MacOS X, which is based on the Mach microkernel architecture. Maybe it's more resilient to faulty kernel modules.

They have no idea what they are talking about. Linux would have also crashed if a kernel mode driver didn't handle an exception. I wrote a Windows low level kernel driver some time ago (Win 7) and I learned the hard way to wrap everything that can cause a fault (memory access, I/O, etc) in a try / catch block.

 

[Ralston18]

General reminder: Forum rules require civility and courtesy.

Please keep that in mind before any future posts.

 

[NedSmelly]

An interesting case study in redundancies and how 'obsolete tech' can still have advantages. Reminds me of 2 things: the use of valve electronics in MiG-25s (more resistant to nuclear strike EMPs)... and fictionally, the Commodore 64s in John Wick's Continental Hotel accountant exchange.

At my work we used to have paper file system backups, which kicked in a few times when there were power outages. Unfortunately that got retired after the pandemic, and we're at the mercy of Azure nowadays.

 

[USAFRet]

An interesting case study in redundancies and how 'obsolete tech' can still have advantages. Reminds me of 2 things: the use of valve electronics in MiG-25s (more resistant to nuclear strike EMPs)... and fictionally, the Commodore 64s in John Wick's Continental Hotel accountant exchange.

At my work we used to have paper file system backups, which kicked in a few times when there were power outages. Unfortunately that got retired after the pandemic, and we're at the mercy of Azure nowadays.

There is some question about the MiG electronics of the time.

Planned EMP resistance, or not being able to build the requisite integrated circuits with the needed reliability.

 

[Ralston18]

Reminds me of a long ago story about the US spending millions on a ink pen that could write in space sans gravity.

The other space faring country at the time used pencils.

Really do not know despite caring.

Will leave research etc. to others willing to pursue the matter.

Or some cold, rainy, nothing better to do day when the thought manifests in my old tired mind.....

 

[USAFRet]

Reminds me of a long ago story about the US spending millions on a ink pen that could write in space sans gravity.

The other space faring country at the time used pencils.

Really do not know despite caring.

Will leave research etc. to others willing to pursue the matter.

Or some cold, rainy, nothing better to do day when the thought manifests in my old tired mind.....

You do know that pencil-pen story isn't true, right?
Not any part of it.