Around 11:30 PM CDT last night, I was flipping through the channels on my DirecTV receiver, just aimlessly channel surfing. On the Reelz Channel, though, in addition to the program content, was a familiar Microsoft error box. It was one of those “. has encountered a problem and needs to shut down. We apologize for the inconvenience.” boxes. The program needing to shut down was “mmos.exe”.
My R-15 DVR does not run Microsoft software, so the error wasn’t coming from my equipment. It was only on the one channel, anyway.
So, how could a Microsoft error box show up on a satellite channel?
Apparently that channel uses some Windows-based software called Scala (warning, noisy Flash-based website: http://www.scala.com
The mmos.exe is part of that Scala package.
How cool. Thanks for the link to the website. That was interesting. How did you figure out that that executable was from the Scala software package? How horrible for that company to have a software error displayed for the whole world to see.
Here in New York, it’s somewhat common to see gigantic BSOD’s on electronic billboards and video displays.
Makes you wonder why anyone would choose Windows for such a simple application.
I started with the assumption that the network used some sort of software to display their programming, I know our local high school channel on cable TV does. Whatever is on the PC screen gets broadcast, once they were even broadcasting a BIOS error message.
So I just searched for mmos.exe on Google and found that Scala software.
Sometimes it’s very surprising what basic equipment supposedly big and well funded companies use.