Microsoft CHRISTMAS97(tm) Error Codes

Alan P. Scott - Fictions - Marketing Genius

the assistance of Coffee Crew members Greg A., Jeff G., Pat H., Ken H. and Geoff V. is gratefully acknowledged

d098 - Decoration Buffer Overflow

• Symptom: Display lights stop flashing. Tree may have toppled.
• Cause: You have attempted to load too many decorations onto your YuleTree(tm) interface.
• Resolution: Remove some ornaments, reset the tree and press the button located on the trunk. Display should start flashing normally.

p365 - Present Parity Exception (External)

• Symptom: Undifferentiated panic on ChristmasEve(tm). The values of PresentsIn and PresentsOut do not match.
• Cause: You have received a package from someone for whom you didn't buy one.
• Resolution: Purchase another gift license to preserve parity. Microsoft is currently developing a workaround for this problem.

p366 - Present Parity Exception (Internal) or
q366 - Gift Synchronization Error (either may display)

• Symptom: Panic similar to {error p365} but more intense. HolidaySpirit(tm) crashes with fatal error.
• Cause: You bought a different number or perceived type of presents for each offspring.
• Resolution: None. This is a fatal error. Buy another package for the slighted offspring. Upgrade to Christmas98 as soon as possible and pray they forget.

u666 - Unexpected Relative, Address Found

• Symptom: Virtual strangers living in your house.
• Cause: This is a compatibility problem with your environment, often caused by insufficiently-specific invitation syntax (such as, "You'll have to come see us sometime" for unspecified values of "sometime").
• Resolution: Although this problem will sometimes go away on its own, it is actually less likely to if you have higher-quality systems installed. You may need to restart your MSHouse(tm), possibly while telling the relative you're fumigating.
  Also recommended: upgrade to Christmas98, which offers hardware-level protection (new locks) and software-level integrity checks ("Just *how* are you related to Uncle Bob, again?") to guard against reoccurrence.

g001 - General Protection Failure

• Symptom: All your presents, decorations, tree and possibly home appliances and jewelry have disappeared.
• Cause:
  1. You left your door open.
  2. An unapproved YuleTide(tm) or NativityScape(tm) interface caused a shutdown of your MSHouse(tm) security system.
• Resolution: Restore belongings from backup.

Microsoft CHRISTMAS97 is certified fully Year1900 compliant.

Original content on this page ©1998 Alan P. Scott. This is a spoof (duh); the actual Microsoft corporation bears no responsibility for the contents of this page. All rights reserved.

This document was last updated December 30, 1998.

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