Key Takeaways
- Older software saved the day for some companies during the recent CrowdStrike bug.
- Southwest runs on Windows 3.1, allowing them to avoid BSOD issues affecting other airlines.
- Southern’s use of older versions in their systems prevented major disruptions compared to other companies.
A few days ago, Windows-based systems were rocked due to a bug with CrowdStrike causing BSODs across system-critical computers. 8.5 million computers were hit, which sounds like a lot on paper; however, it’s a drop in the pond when compared to the total number of Windows devices there are in the wild. Unfortunately, those 8.5 million computers were more likely to be in charge of keeping important business systems alive, meaning that people saw reduced service and BSODs in public displays around the world. Despite this, it seems that some companies managed to escape…because their systems run on 30-year-old software.
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Companies escape the CrowdStrike issue because of older software
As spotted by Tom’s Hardwarethis news started with a post on X by Artem Russakovskii. In it, they stated that a few US airlines had been grounded due to the bug, but Southwest was still operating as normal. They started it was because they still ran on Windows 3.1, which they originally wrote as a joke.
However, Artem did some further digging and discovered that his little joke was a bit closer to reality than he first thought. Turns out, Southwest does use Windows 3.1 in their systems, which gave the company some resistance to the BSOD bug.
Tom’s Hardware then did a little more digging and noted that Southern also uses Windows 95 as part of its staff scheduling system. As such, its systems were so old that the BSOD didn’t hit them as hard as other companies. And while Southern should probably upgrade their systems soon, there are plenty of reasons why it’s a terrible time to buy a Windows PC right now.