I remember installing this or a similar one on a friend’s laptop, just setting it as the screen saver for later chaos. Must have been around Vista era.
Something incredibly funny to me about the fake Microsoft error being a Microsoft product.
More weirdness from the Sysinternals resources: one of the resources that MS actually recommends in the year of our lord 2023 is to actually go out and buy a physical book for their software:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/resources/troubleshooting-book
I’m leaving that link as a URL on purpose. Just look at that. /troubleshooting-book. Amazing. The errata are updated online though. Very weird. Maybe leftover contractual obligation after acquiring SI in 2006? So weird.
They even suggest you go buy it from an independent bookstore if you’re not feeling like the Microsoft Press Store does it for you.
I’ve always been fascinated by these third-party-but-now-first-party-after-acquisition situations everything doesn’t quite line up neatly.
Pretty sure they were copying the earlier Xscreensaver module. I was using an ironic BSOD screensaver on Irix in the late 90’s.
Also, sysinternals wasn’t owned by Microsoft originally.