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Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:12:26 -0700
From: Brian Dessent <brian AT dessent DOT net>
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Subject: Re: [OT] polite response to polite response - Brian...
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Barry Smith at SourceLink wrote:

> > That doesn't mean that 'run' was at fault.
> Yet it could have been at fault, or the cygwin memory
> allocation could be at fault, or Windoze, or the tool
> that you're RUN-ing.

The "Cygwin memory allocation" most certainly could not be at fault, nor
could the tool being run.  Again, the one and only thing that is
culpable when a BSOD occurs is code running in kernel mode.  Any attempt
from user-space to do anything untoward simply results in a software
fault, with a default handler installed by the OS which terminates the
process if it does not handle the fault itself.  Thus the very worst a
process can ever do is get itself terminated.  Anything more is simply
not possible, as enforced by the processor which is running in protected
mode.

That's not to say that a BSOD cannot result from the action of running
user-space code, but when it does the underlying reason for the BSOD
cannot possibly be in the user-space code, it must be a bug in
kernel-mode code because by definition it is charged with disallowing
any process from destabilizing the system, and it has failed.

(And please, it's spelled Cygwin, not CygWIN.)

Brian

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