Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ crashed some Windows laptops for years

Janet Jackson was excessively overmuch for immoderate Windows laptops.

Longtime Verge readers mightiness callback the antithetic communicative of however the euphony video for a Janet Jackson song, “Rhythm Nation,” could cause definite Windows laptops to crash conscionable by being astir erstwhile it’s playing. Now, successful a blog post spotted by PCWorld, Microsoft worker Raymond Chen has revealed that a filter created to woody with the occupation stuck astir until “at slightest Windows 7.”

For those not familiar: successful 2022, Chen wrote a brace of posts relaying a Microsoft colleague’s communicative astir however an unnamed “major machine manufacturer” had to make a customized filter for audio playback aft uncovering that definite frequencies successful the video resonated with its laptops’ hard drives. Unfiltered, the resonance could “disrupt the hard drive’s due cognition agelong capable for it to effect successful the operating strategy crashing.” The contented adjacent got its own introduction successful the NIST National Vulnerability Database, which says it affected 5,400rpm hard drives for definite machines “in astir 2005 and later.”

Chen, who says helium was funny however agelong the filter successful place, writes this week that helium has since learned that aft Microsoft introduced a caller regularisation for Windows 7 saying that users indispensable beryllium capable to disable each audio processing connected their computers, a hardware vendor asked for an exception. Chen writes:

The vendor applied for an objection to this regularisation connected the grounds that disabling their APO could effect successful carnal harm to the computer. If it were imaginable to disable their APO, connection would get retired that “You tin get heavier bass if you spell done these steps,” and of people you privation much bass, right? I mean, who doesn’t privation much bass? So radical would uncheck the container and bask richer bass for a while, and past astatine immoderate constituent successful the future, the machine would clang mysteriously oregon (worse) nutrient incorrect results.

Is that regularisation inactive successful spot to this day? When a commenter asked a question on those lines beneath Chen’s post, Chen replied, “All I cognize is that it was determination successful the Windows 7 era. I don’t cognize if it’s inactive there.”

Regardless, the manufacture has moved connected from spinning disk hard drives; whether a modern machine has the regularisation successful spot oregon not, chances are bully that it’s harmless to perceive to “Rhythm Nation” astir it, these days. So, present it is: