Microsoft designed the USB Cart of Death to test Windows stability

Vn-Z.vn November 25, 2023, "USB Cart of Death" is a device used by Microsoft to test the stability of the Windows operating system. This is a device that mounts multiple USB ports and peripherals to test Windows' capabilities when faced with multiple peripherals at the same time. This helps them identify and fix errors related to the operating system's interaction with various peripherals.

The information mentioned in the excerpt from the Dave's Garage podcast shows that two experienced developers in the field of Windows operating system development shared an interesting story. They said that during the development of the Windows operating system, to test the stability of peripheral devices for the Windows system, Microsoft specially designed a device called the "USB Cart of Death".

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The Windows 98 operating system was the first Microsoft operating system to support USB peripherals. Microsoft's Windows core development staff and related developers had to continuously improve the system source code to improve the stability of USB devices when connected, so they designed the USB Cart of Death.

USB Cart of Death is created from modifying a shopping cart, containing 3 mice, 4 keyboards, 1 printer, hard drive box and all kinds of different USB peripherals. All are connected via more than 3 USB hubs, totaling in excess of 64 peripherals.

Dave's Garage podcast is hosted by Dave Plummer, who was involved in creating Task Manager, Windows Pinball, Calc and many other Windows products and shared his story on Youtube.





In this episode, the special guest on the podcast is Raymond Chen, a leading expert in the field of Windows development, has more than 30 years of experience and is also the author of The Old New Thing.

Chen recalls that in Microsoft's development team, they called this device the USB Cart of Death, whose connection often led to a system crash, resulting in a blue screen of death error.

After fixing the USB error that caused the blue screen, Chen noticed that when connecting Windows devices later, the system still crashed with the blue screen error, but the cause had changed.

The maximum number of peripheral devices that the Windows operating system can connect depends on the specific version of the operating system and also depends on technical factors such as hardware configuration, type of peripheral devices , and support from drivers.

For the latest versions of Windows, the system is capable of managing and connecting a large number of peripheral devices. However, connecting too many devices at once can cause system performance and stability issues. Although there is no specific information about Microsoft USB devices mentioned in the previous text, the company used USB to test the stability and compatibility of Windows systems. This shows that they appreciate the development and use of USB devices to ensure the quality and compatibility of the Windows operating system.

Vn-Z.vn team compiled
 
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