Last week, a large part of the digital world shut down and stopped working after an update caused Microsoft’s Windows operating system to crash and display a blue screen on millions of devices. This affects places like hospitals, schools and airports. But unlike others, one airline has survived the chaos. Many people say this is because it is still using an ancient operating system, but this is not the case.
On July 19, millions of computers and other Windows-powered devices crashed and stopped working globally. It later emerged that Crowdstrike, a large cybersecurity company, had pushed out an update that was cracked and compromised all content within a few hours. As is often the case online these days, people started making jokes about it and making up stories, some of which went viral. For example, many people still believe that the Las Vegas Sphere crashed during the Crowdstrike incident. (it doesn’t.)
But perhaps the hottest thing to say is Many media reports Word circulating on the Internet is that Southwest Airlines avoided all the Crowdstrike chaos because its systems are still running on Windows 3.1. This is inaccurate, although Southwest does use some older software that probably should be upgraded.
as pointed out Operating System News, Digging deeper into the story reveals multiple references to a viral tweet Claims Southwest Airlines is still using Windows 3.1. This person later confirmed They are playing prank, but this did not stop the spread of this theory. Later people discovered An article from 2023 Comparing Southwest’s internal software to Windows 3.1 shows it’s nearly as old. but it no way Said Southwest is actually Still using Windows 3.1.
Dig deeper, you Articles from December 2022 can be found from dallas morning news That’s when Southwest’s systems began to crash during the holidays. This article, and others since then, put the blame squarely on the airline’s aging software – SkySolver and Crew Web Access. The article mentions that these programs look like they were designed for Windows 95.
Since then, people have been spreading the misconception that Southwest was using Windows 95, which was later corroborated by a viral tweet and several media outlets that reported on the story.
But there seems to be no evidence that Southwest is actually still using Windows 3.1. Sure, the software they use to plan flights and manage employees looks old, apparently having been around since 2007. It’s true, and it’s scary. But that was not the case, Southwest Airlines was not immune to Windows crashes because they were using an operating system from 1992. simple. Reportedly they don’t use Crowdstrike.
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